<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/28/russia-ukraine-military-casualties-war-study>
"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 the Russian 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."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
