The symbolic threshold of one million dead or wounded soldiers has been reached in the war between Russia and Ukraine, estimates the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). In a count published Tuesday, the American media outlet claims that 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 400,000 have been wounded in two years and seven months of clashes. On the Russian side, the toll could be as high as 200,000 soldiers dead and 400,000 wounded.
The WSJ points out that calculating the losses has been a risky exercise since “Russia and Ukraine refuse to publish official estimates or, sometimes, put forward figures that arouse great suspicion.”
The WSJ bases its Ukrainian assessment on information from the country’s authorities and its Russian assessment on estimates from Western intelligence services.
The number of Russian soldiers who lost their lives on the battlefield would therefore be 2.5 times higher than that of Ukrainian soldiers. From a demographic point of view, however, the consequences are more devastating for Volodymyr Zelensky’s country, the newspaper emphasizes.
“These losses are problematic for Russia, which is using waves of poorly trained troops to try to advance into eastern Ukraine while trying to counter the recent Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region. But they are far more damaging for Ukraine, whose population is less than a quarter of that of its gigantic neighbor.”
Battle of numbers
Since February 2022, both sides have been waging a battle of numbers in addition to armed clashes. It was only in February 2024 that President Zelensky provided an official toll of Ukrainian military losses for the first time, while refusing to count the wounded. “Thirty-one thousand Ukrainian soldiers died in this war,” he said. “Not 300,000, nor 150,000, as Putin and his circle of liars say. But each of these losses is a great loss for us.” A toll that several analysts at the time perceived as being below reality.
For its part, Moscow delivered its only official report in September 2022. The Russian authorities then claimed that 5,937 soldiers had been killed.
Just over a year ago, in August 2023, sources linked to American intelligence cited in the New York Times presented an already darker picture with 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and 120,000 Russian soldiers fallen in combat.
Lists of dead soldiers
To counter the Kremlin’s disinformation, BBC Russia and Mediazona, an independent Russian media outlet, have been compiling a list of the names of Russian soldiers who died at the front since the beginning of the war, based on official sources, local media and posts made by bereaved families on social media. As of September 11, they have been able to confirm the deaths of 69,059 Russian soldiers. “This list is not exhaustive,” they warn, adding that the real number of Russian soldiers killed is much higher.
Their investigative work is also based on the number of newly discovered military graves since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 70 cemeteries scattered throughout Russia. “Aerial images show that the cemeteries have been significantly enlarged,” the two media outlets noted in an article published last April, adding that “territorial gains [russes] had an enormous human cost.” At certain times, 200 to 250 Russian servicemen fell in combat every day.
BBC Russia and Mediazona also listed the names of 9,000 Russian prisoners who signed contracts with the military or a paramilitary group to get out of prison before being killed on the front lines. These prisoners had survived in Ukraine for only two to three months on average, the two media outlets said, referring to the Kremlin’s “meat grinder” strategy.
Civilian casualties
On the Ukrainian side, in addition to military losses, the demographic toll is also weighed down by the death of civilians, the departure into exile of many Ukrainians, the drop in the birth rate and the loss of territories to Russia.
Since February 2022, more than 11,700 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 24,600 injured, the United Nations said on September 11. “The situation is getting worse,” said Joyce Msuya, the UN’s acting emergency relief coordinator. “The death toll is rising. Human suffering continues at intolerable levels.”
At the same time, 6.79 million Ukrainians have fled their war-torn country, according to figures released on September 16 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And Ukraine’s already low birth rate has hit a historic low. Some 87,655 children were born in the first six months of 2024, compared with 132,595 during the same period in 2021, according to Opendatabot, a Ukrainian data management company.
On April 21, Ukrainian Social Policy Minister Oksana Zholnovych warned that the decline in Ukraine’s population was “very alarming.” From 45 million before the first Russian invasion in 2014, the country’s population has now fallen to less than 35 million, according to various estimates. By 2050, if nothing is done to rectify the situation, Ukraine could lose another 10 million people, leaving it at 25.2 million, Zholnovych said.me Zholnovych.