Nearly 2 million Russian and Ukrainian troops killed or injured in bloody war: study

By 

Ronny Reyes     

The number of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers killed, wounded or missing during the war will reach 2 million by the spring, according to a study published Tuesday.

The latest estimates show that Moscow has suffered about 1.2 million casualties so far, double that of Ukraine’s 600,000, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank.

When it comes to deaths alone, Moscow has lost close to 325,000 soldiers since the invasion of Ukraine began four years ago, a reality that goes against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s boasts of an approaching victory, according to the CSIS report.

“No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities since World War II,” Seth Jones, the study’s lead author, told The Post.

At the current pace the war is going, Russia is projecting an average of 35,000 troops killed or injured per month, with Putin seeing 415,000 casualties in 2025 alone.

When compared to other major Russian conflicts, Moscow has lost more than 17 times the soldiers killed during the 1980s offensive in Afghanistan and 11 times more than troops lost in the First and Second Chechen Wars.

The current death toll is also more than five times greater than all Russian and Soviet wars combined since World War II.

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a Javelin anti-tank missile at Russian fighters in Zaporizhzhia .REUTERS

The high loss of life was attributed to Russia’s failure to properly strategize, train its troops, address low morale, and plan for Ukraine’s effective defenses, according to the study.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has seen 100,000 to 140,000 soldiers killed since the war began in February 2022, a comparatively larger loss to its smaller army, the CSIS found.  

The estimated casualties highlight Russia’s main strategy of the war, one where it sends its soldiers to the meat grinder to eventually overwhelm Ukraine’s forces, the study said.

Russia has fired drones and missiles nightly at Ukraine, threatening the country’s energy grid. ZUMAPRESS.com

“President Putin appears willing to continue to shed Russian blood for Ukraine,” Jones said. “He remains undeterred by the high casualty and fatality rates, and Russia’s economic downturn is unlikely to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table — at least on terms that would be acceptable to Ukraine or Europe.”

Jones also suggested that Putin was willing to accept such a high casualty count because many of the slain and injured soldiers “are from such regions as the Far East and North Caucasus — and not politically vital areas for him, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.”

The strategy, however, may not pay out well for Russia, Jones added, given the number of troops lost for only minimal gains as the war continues at a snail’s pace.

Ukraine has been able to keep Russia’s advancements to a crawl despite its comparatively smaller army. AP

“Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters per day in their most prominent offensives, slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century,” the expert said. 

“This is slower, for example, than the most brutal offensive campaigns over the last century, including the notoriously bloody Battle of the Somme during World War I.”

While Russia and Ukraine do not publicly announce their losses, the CSIS’s estimates fall in line with the figures produced by other experts in the US and UK.

Despite the high casualties, Russia has been able to maintain its forces by carrying out its first drafts since World War II and enlisting convicted criminals and foreign fighters, including 15,000 North Koreans.