Russian and Ukrainian military casualties in war nearing 2m, study finds

The number of Russian and Ukrainian troops killed, wounded or gone missing in nearly four years of war could reach 2 million by this spring, according to a study, as Moscow’s invasion shows no sign of abating.A report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has had about 1.2 million casualties, including as many as 325,000 deaths, while close to 600,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed, wounded or gone missing.Since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, neither side has publicly disclosed comprehensive casualty figures, treating the scale of losses as a closely guarded state secret.The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed the CSIS report as “not credible”, insisting that only defence ministry had the authority to release Russian casualty figures.The CSIS estimates were based on interviews with western and Ukrainian officials and data collected by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service.By any historical comparison, the losses are extraordinary. The thinktank noted that Russian battlefield fatalities in Ukraine were “more than 17 times greater than Soviet losses in Afghanistan during the 1980s, 11 times higher than during Russia’s first and second Chechen wars, and more than five times greater than all Russian and Soviet wars combined since the second world war”.Russian casualties are estimated to exceed Ukrainian losses by roughly 2.5:1 or 2:1, the report says. But the figures also paint a bleak picture for Ukraine, whose population is far smaller and whose capacity to absorb prolonged losses and mobilise troops is far more limited.Moscow has turned to generous pay and an expanding package of benefits for new recruits to replenish its ranks. Regional authorities offer enlistment bonuses that in some cases equate to tens of thousands of dollars. The Kremlin has also recruited thousands of men from Asia, South America and Africa, many of them drawn in by misleading promises or subjected to pressure.Men walk past a billboard reading ‘The pride of Russia’ in St Petersburg. Photograph: Dmitri Lovetsky/APUkraine has struggled to mobilise enough soldiers to replenish depleted units, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy has resisted calls to lower the mobilisation age below 25, a move that would be deeply unpopular at home.Despite the scale of casualties on both sides, Russia’s territorial gains have remained marginal. CSIS found that since 2024, Russian forces had advanced at an average rate of just 15 to 70 metres a day during their most prominent offensives, “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in modern warfare”.While Moscow made some advances late last year in eastern Ukraine and near the Dnipropetrovsk region, progress has since slowed to a crawl owing to winter conditions and stiff Ukrainian resistance.According to data from the Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState, Russian forces captured 152 square kilometres (58 sq miles) of Ukrainian territory between 1 and 25 January, the slowest rate of advance since March last year.Russia, Ukraine and the US met in Abu Dhabi last weekend for their first peace talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion but there was no sign of a breakthrough, with the Kremlin continuing to press its maximalist demands over Ukrainian territory.