KYIV, UKRAINE: A new report warns that the number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia’s war on Ukraine could hit 2 million by the spring, with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since World War II.
Tuesday’s report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies came less than a month before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
As the war grinds through another bitterly cold winter, Russian strikes hit an apartment block Wednesday on the outskirts of Kyiv, killing two people. Nine others were injured in attacks in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih and the front-line Zaporizhzhia region.
The CSIS report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025.
“Despite claims of battlefield momentum in Ukraine, the data shows that Russia is paying an extraordinary price for minimal gains and is in decline as a major power,” the report said. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II.”
It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each side seeks to amplify the other side’s casualties.
Commenting on the report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the research could not be considered “reliable information” and that only Russia’s Ministry of Defense was authorized to provide information on military losses.
The ministry’s last statement on battlefield deaths was in September 2022, when it said that just under 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. It has not released any updated figures since then.
There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian government.
In an interview with NBC in February 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began.
