Both Russia and Ukraine emphasize the losses of the other side – they mostly remain silent about their own: Because the war is also waged with information, and the number of victims has become part of the information war. But there are also other reasons why there are no reliable facts in the “fog of war”: Independent reports from the contested areas are hard to come by.
The Norwegian chief of staff, Eirik Kristoffersen, recently attracted attention in an interview with the Norwegian broadcaster TV2. He said nearly 180,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured so far. More than 100,000 soldiers are believed to be dead or wounded on the Ukrainian side, he said. In addition, 30,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far. He did not say what sources the figures were based on.
Ukraine publishes figures daily
In any case, this data is significantly higher than most other estimates. Only the British tabloid had recently reported 188,000 dead or wounded Russians – also with vague descriptions of their sources. She quoted US Army General Mark Milley as saying casualties would now be “well over 100,000” – without giving an exact number. In November, Milley had called the number 100,000 for both sides.
The Ukrainian military publishes new figures every day on how many Russian soldiers have been disabled – and a whole range of other data from military equipment intended to document the enemy’s losses. The current figure is around 123,000 “liquidated” Russian soldiers – a figure that all observers believe is deliberately inflated for propaganda purposes.
How many dead, how many injured?
In addition, no distinction is made between dead and wounded. At the end of November, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also stumbled across this error when she spoke of 100,000 dead in the Ukrainian army – and had to correct herself after much irritation in Kyiv.
Military experts have different assumptions as to what the ratio of dead and injured could be from the two dates that are circulating. Based on previous wars, the ratio is assumed to be three to one, i.e. three injured for every dead person. One of the decisive factors is how well the medical care for the wounded works – and opinions differ on that. Some experts say the ratio is two to one, others more like four or five to one.
Few reliable information
How many Russian soldiers actually died is unclear: Russia itself has kept silent. In September, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke of 5,937 dead in his own ranks. But that was long before the costly battles for Bachmut and Soledar. In addition, poorly trained recruits were deployed after the partial mobilization in the autumn. And the Wagner mercenaries sent Russian convicts to war. Military experts often spoke of the inhumane practice of sending “cannon fodder” to the front lines.
Of the 50,000 recruits recruited in Russian prisons for the war in Ukraine, civil rights activists estimate that only 10,000 are still with the troops. “The rest are killed, injured, missing, surrendered or deserted, including to Russia with weapons in their hands,” said the non-governmental organization (NGO) “Rus Sidyashchaia (“Russia behind bars”) on Monday on its Telegram channel with It is not known where the NGO got the information from.
Difficult count
The Russian news website Mediasona, which operates in exile in Lithuania, is scouring local media and social networks together with the Russian service BBS to identify fallen Russian soldiers. As of Wednesday afternoon, there have been 11,662 dead so far – but emphasizes that it is far from possible to record all of the dead. The number of missing is completely in the dark. The Dupuy Institute, a private US military research facility, estimates around 16,000 to 19,000 Russians were killed and between 64,000 and 76,000 were wounded.
Ukrainian losses as a state secret
The losses on the Ukrainian side are particularly unclear. At the beginning of December, government circles gave vague statements that between 10,000 and 13,000 military personnel had been killed. The Dupuy Institute estimates 13,500 to 16,500 dead and between 54,000 and 66,000 wounded in Ukraine – plus around 6,000 in Russian captivity.
The US military expert Douglas Macgregor recently spoke of 122,000 killed and 33,000 missing Ukrainian soldiers – a number that is probably politically motivated and does not stand up to any fact check. Macgregor was an advisor to ex-US President Donald Trump and is controversial because of his pro-Russian stance.
The more accurate the count, the higher the number of unreported cases
One of the best sources for sources of conflict is the US non-profit organization ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project), which collects and processes data on conflicts worldwide. According to ACLED census, the war has claimed around 30,000 lives since the Russian attack in Ukraine. Here, too, it is emphasized that only cases where the information is secure are recorded – the number of unreported cases is correspondingly high. It is difficult to get information, especially from areas that are still fought over.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which counts the civilian casualties of the war, argues similarly: more than 7,000 civilians have been killed so far. “Most of the registered civilian casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with long-range effects,” the statement said in mid-January. These included heavy artillery, multiple rocket launchers, rockets and airstrikes. 7,031 deaths among the civilian population have been confirmed, but their actual number is probably “considerably higher”.
Tens of thousands dead in Mariupol alone?
The Ukrainian government recently said that 9,000 civilians had been killed. Among them are 453 children, said the president’s chief of staff, Andryj Jermak, in Davos. But here, too, it is assumed that the number is much higher. Because the direct and indirect consequences of the war, such as a lack of basic necessities and widespread failures in medical care, are not taken into account.
And from some places, the number of victims is still unclear. Hardly anyone can estimate how many people died during the siege of Mariupol in the spring. The UN speaks of “thousands”, Ukrainian authorities recently put the number at at least 25,000 – other estimates put the number of victims more than twice as high.
