Up to 220,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since 2022, according to analysis by the BBC Russian Service, independent Russian outlet Mediazona and a team of volunteers. They have obtained the names of at least 88,000 of the soldiers, according to the outlet Important Stories.
Ukraine estimates Moscow's forces have suffered more than 800,000 casualties, including both dead and wounded.
Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for comment via email.
Why It Matters
The discrepancy of estimates regarding the number of Russian soldiers killed on the battlefield is significant because it makes it more difficult to analyze how the war in Ukraine is affecting Moscow, and if it will be able to continue sustaining it. Despite the two outlets' number of identified Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine being lower than Kyiv's estimates, Moscow is likely feeling the effects of a manpower shortage.
What To Know
The two outlets tallied the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine by collecting data from open sources, which did not take into account units from the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) serving as part of the Russian forces. These republics, which are not internationally recognized, are located in occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.
In updating the estimates regarding Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, Mediazona noted that 2024 seems to have been the deadliest year of the war.
Of the 88,000 identified soldiers, 6,000 were members of elite Russian forces, including marines, paratroopers, Spetsnaz GRU special forces (foreign military intelligence) and air force pilots.
The BBC and Mediazona broke down the numbers of Russian combatants killed by role, identifying 1,685 marines, 4,000 paratroopers, 580 GRU special forces members and 267 military pilots.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in early December that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He also noted 370,000 cases of soldiers being injured and requiring medical assistance.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish casualty figures for their own forces, resulting in disputes over the total number of losses.
What People Are Saying
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a press conference in Germany on January 9: "Since 2022, Russia has suffered more than 700,000 casualties in Ukraine. Now, that's more than Moscow has endured in all of its conflicts since World War II—combined. Russian casualties in Ukraine now surpass two-thirds of the total strength of the Russian military at the start of Putin's war of choice. In November 2024 alone, Russia lost nearly 1,500 troops a day."
In a 2023 report for the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Benjamin J. Radford of the University of North Carolina and others wrote: "Determining the number of casualties and fatalities suffered in militarized conflicts is important for conflict measurement, forecasting, and accountability. However, given the nature of conflict, reliable statistics on casualties are rare. Countries or political actors involved in conflicts have incentives to hide or manipulate these numbers, while third parties might not have access to reliable information. For example, in the ongoing militarized conflict between Russia and Ukraine, estimates of the magnitude of losses vary wildly, sometimes across orders of magnitude.
"Our daily and cumulative estimates provide evidence that Russia has lost more personnel than has Ukraine and also likely suffers from a higher fatality to casualty ratio. We find that both sides likely overestimate the personnel losses suffered by their opponent and that Russian sources underestimate their own losses of personnel."
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen how Russia will solve its manpower shortage in order to sustain the war with Ukraine but North Korean soldiers have been deployed in the Russia's Kursk region, which has been partially occupied by Ukrainian troops.
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