If by “losses” we mean military casualties—killed, wounded and missing—the precise figures are impossible to know. Both Russia and Ukraine keep their own losses secret or have strong incentives to present figures favourable to themselves. The best independent estimates therefore give ranges, rather than a single reliable number.
Military losses since the full-scale invasion in February 2022
The most useful recent independent estimate I can find is from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published in July 2026:
Russia | Ukraine | |
|---|---|---|
Military casualties (killed, wounded, missing) | ≈1.4 million | ≈500,000–600,000 |
Military deaths | up to ≈450,000 | ≈100,000–140,000 |
CSIS estimates that Russian military casualties have been roughly 2–2.5 times Ukrainian casualties.
These figures refer to the full-scale war since 24 February 2022, not the earlier fighting in Donbas from 2014–2022.
Why the figures vary so much
There is no authoritative running casualty count. Estimates are assembled from such things as:
battlefield intelligence;
satellite imagery of military cemeteries;
Ukrainian and Russian official announcements;
leaked Russian demographic and recruitment data;
confirmed individual deaths;
hospital and military reporting;
assessments by Western intelligence agencies.
For example, independent Russian sources have identified hundreds of thousands of individual Russian military deaths, but the true number is inevitably higher because not every death can be documented.
The Russian government does not publish a current figure for its military deaths. A recent Reuters report noted that independent estimates put Russian military deaths at over 350,000, while the Russian government continues not to disclose an updated total.
Ukrainian civilian losses
These are much better documented, although even the UN says its figures are an underestimate.
By the end of the first half of 2026, the UN had recorded:
1,396 civilians killed
7,978 civilians injured
during 2026 alone.
And the cumulative civilian death toll since February 2022 had reached nearly 17,000, including about 820 children, according to the UN’s latest figures reported in August.
July 2026 was particularly severe: 437 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 2,610 injured, the highest monthly civilian death toll since May 2022.
What about Russian civilians?
Russian civilian casualties are considerably smaller, but they are not negligible. Ukrainian long-range drone and missile attacks have increasingly reached Russian territory, particularly border regions and, more recently, targets much deeper inside Russia. There have been civilian deaths and injuries, although there is no equally comprehensive UN monitoring system covering Russia.
An important distinction
You will often see claims such as “Russia has lost 1.5 million men”. This does not necessarily mean 1.5 million dead.
In military terminology:
casualties = killed + wounded + missing/captured
A soldier who is wounded and subsequently returns to duty may therefore appear in casualty statistics but is not permanently lost.
The CSIS estimate of up to 450,000 Russian deaths, for example, is very different from its estimate of 1.4 million total Russian battlefield casualties.
The overall picture
The most defensible assessment as of August 2026 is therefore approximately:
🇷🇺 Russia: up to 450,000 military dead, and about 1.4 million total military casualties.
🇺🇦 Ukraine: roughly 100,000–140,000 military dead, and 500,000–600,000 total military casualties.
🇺🇦 Ukrainian civilians: nearly 17,000 confirmed dead, with the true figure probably higher.
🇷🇺 Russian civilians: substantially fewer casualties, but an exact cumulative figure is unavailable.
There is an important caveat: these are estimates, not established facts, and the uncertainty is particularly large for military deaths.
Research by Chat GPT.
