How Many People Have Died in Russia-Ukraine War?

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine will enter its third year next month, and there is little sign the conflict will conclude soon, with Russian President Vladimir Putin recently suggesting the war will only end “when we achieve our goals.”

Estimates of those killed in the conflict have been hard to substantiate, with neither side publishing tallies of their losses. U.S. officials said in August that Ukraine and Russia’s total deaths and injuries had neared 500,000.

Newsweek consulted reports and experts to see what, if anything, can be reliably reported about the number of military and civilian deaths since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

What Are Russia’s Losses?

Western officials have cast doubts on the accuracy of Russia’s figures on military casualties.

The last update from the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, in September 2022, said there had been 6,000 Russian casualties. This contradicted other reports from even earlier in the conflict; in July 2022 the head of the British Armed Forces said that some 50,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Earlier this week, the BBC’s Russian service, along with independent outlet Mediazona, reported that civilian recruits who have joined the Russian military since February 2022 accounted for almost half of Russia’s current combat losses. They are often sent into battle with outdated equipment, the outlets reported

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has published totals of Russian losses since the invasion began on February 24, 2022. Its most recent estimate, published on January 31, said 379,610 Russian personnel had been “lost.”

While historically Ukrainian estimates have exceeded those provided by other governments and think tanks, U.S. figures shared with the press in December 2023 are not far from that number.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported in December 2023 that a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment, shared with Congress, estimated 315,000 Russian personnel had been killed or injured since the start of the invasion, amounting to 87 percent of its prewar force.

Newsweek has contacted media representatives via email for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. National Security Agency, and the U.S. National Security Council.

Joris Van Bladel, a senior associate fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels, told Newsweek that based on his research into Russia’s side of the conflict, there had been approximately 320,000 casualties—a quarter comprised of those killed in action (KIA), the remaining three-quarters being wounded in action (WIA).

This comes to around 80,000 killed and 240,000 wounded, which also includes groups like Wagner, DPR and LPR, and immigrant soldiers. Bladel, an expert in Russian military and strategic culture, said there remained a “more crucial question revolves around how the Russian armed forces handle those categorized as KIA.”

“Some are left behind, particularly Wagner soldiers, and mismanagement issues, such as delivering the wrong bodies to families, echo patterns observed in previous conflicts, notably the Afghan War,” Bladel said.

“An even more significant concern lies in the management of WIA cases. It serves as an indicator of Russia’s military effectiveness, measuring the ability to sustain combat.

“Key considerations include estimating how many of them can return to the frontline, the strain on the medical logistical line, the impact on Russia’s resolve to continue fighting, and the subsequent effects on civil society.”

Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek that casualties on both sides of the conflict were hard to follow.

“I think the short answer is, I don’t think that there are any really good independent estimates of casualties,” Cancian said.

“There are occasional statements by senior officials about casualties. U.S. and U.K., which I think reflects what our intelligence community has seen, but I haven’t seen any good [estimates].”

Calcian added that both sides had an operational incentive to protect information, adding: “Ukraine is only sort of reliable and Russia is unreliable.”

“For the Ukrainians to be fair, they view information as part of the conflict, as one domain for competition and conflict,” Cancian added.

“So you know they have been very careful about what kind of information gets out and are very careful to make sure that their narrative is dominant, you know, which means that you really can’t fully trust what they say.”

What Are Ukraine’s Losses?

Despite withholding its total, Russia estimated earlier this month that Ukraine had lost 215,000 troops in 2023, a figure Newsweek has been unable to substantiate.

“Groups of Russian troops are methodically reducing the combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Shoigu said in a conference call with the leadership of Russia’s military, according to state news agency Tass.

“Over the past year, enemy losses exceeded 215,000 people and 28,000 weapons,” Shoigu added, without giving any further breakdown of the figures.

The Ukrainian military has not disclosed how many of its soldiers have died, although calls have been made for the government to do just that. A January article in Kyiv Post reported that Ukraine’s ruling party leader David Arakhamia had asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to do so, Arakhamia believing the number to be “much smaller” than the 100,000 figure that has been widely shared within the country.

Reuters reported in December that a Ukrainian civic group’s efforts to record combat and non-combat deaths had reached a confirmed figure of 24,500.

“Obviously, the 24,500 names are not the final number of dead (deceased), but by our assessment, it is no less than 70 percent,” the authors stated.

“That is, the real number of dead (deceased) in combat and non-combat situations is more than 30,000 people.”

The authors said that by applying a 1:3 ratio of dead to injured, they estimated up to 100,000 soldiers had been wounded.

In August 2023, unnamed U.S. officials shared estimates of Ukrainians killed or wounded with reporters at The New York Times. Caveating that figures were hard to estimate, they said Ukrainian figures were close to 70,000 dead and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.

Lack of disclosure and undercounting on both sides have made a verifiable and exact figure nearly impossible to obtain.

A 2023 Stanford University paper, based on more than 4,600 reports of military and civilian losses, provided evidence that while Russia had more personnel losses and was likely to have suffered a higher fatality-to-casualty ratio, both sides overestimated casualty losses of their opponent and Russian sources underestimated its casualties.

Civilian Casualties

There are more reliable figures on civilian deaths and injuries.

As of January 23, 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 29,330 civilian casualties in Ukraine, consisting of 10,191 killed and 19,139 injured since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said, however, that these figures are thought to be considerably higher, with reports “particularly from certain locations and from the immediate period after 24 February 2022” still pending corroboration.

“Mariupol (Donetsk region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there were allegations of high civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure,” it stated.

“An increase in total figures in this update compared with the previous update is not only due to casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure that occurred in the reporting period as OHCHR also continues to corroborate cases that occurred before the reporting period.”

While reported Russian civilian casualties are far fewer, The Moscow Times reported in August 2023, that 79 civilians had been killed on Russian soil since the invasion, the majority in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine where 48 have been killed.