Cost of invasion: Russia’s losses surpass one million people, and the pace is not slowing down

Focus has gathered information from various sources about the losses of the Russian occipation forces in Ukraine and conducted a comperative analysis of the losses suffered in conflicts over the past decades in which Russian military forces has participated.

Despite limited information coming from Moscow, there is official information from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to which Russian military personnel losses have exceeded one million people. It is important to note that in military terminology, the following classification of losses exists:

 

Irrecoverable losses – killed, died from wounds, captured, missing.

 

Medical losses – wounded, suffered concussions, poisoned, diseased.

 

Non-combat losses – deaths from illness, suicides, etc.

 

 

Therefore, it is appropriate to clarify what data the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine provides when publishing a summary of the occupier's losses. As stated in February 2024 by the spokesperson of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Senior Lieutenant Andriy Kovalev, when compiling the summaries, the military leadership considers two main indicators — irrecoverable and sanitary losses of the personnel of the Russian Armed Forces.

 

"The total losses of Russia, as published by the General Staff, consist of two main indicators of losses that the Russian military has suffered during hostilities. These are irrecoverable losses and combat sanitary losses of the Russian military," Kovalev explained.

Documented Russian losses

In addition to official data, there are also independent sources that provide information allowing for an assessment of the scale of losses suffered by the Russian Armed Forces in the ongoing conflict. Specifically, journalists and volunteers from Media zone and the Russian BBC service compile lists of the names of fallen Russian soldiers — these are documented losses among Russian military personnel. In fact, this is a minimum estimate of Russian losses since the start of the full-scale invasion.

 

As of June, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has been possible to identify 110,608 killed Russian soldiers. The authors of the study claim that this figure is based solely on open sources — obituaries, memorial plaques, and government reports — and that it reflects only 45 to 65 percent of the actual number of deaths, considering that many bodies remain on the battlefield due to evacuation issues.

 

The publication also provides data on Russian military losses by region of origin — it turns out that the highest percentage of losses comes from Tuva, Buryatia, and the Republic of Altai.

The highest figure is in Tuva: 120 confirmed deaths per 10,000 people. In Buryatia — 91, and in Altai — 89. By comparison, in Moscow — only three deaths per 10,000.

 

 

A special part of analisys relates to losses of selfproclaimed combatants of "LPR" and "DPR". After 22. of december 2022., offical sources from "DPR" had stopped publishing information about deceased and authorities of "DPR" had never realeased published such information. However, after researching obituaries, missing reports and indirect references, analysts suggest that since the war started, between 21.000 and 23.500 "DPR" soldiers had died.

 

 

Russian private military companies especialy Wagner grupe have suffered signifitcant losses in Ukraine. Joint investigation of Media zone and Russian BBC service states that the company that Yevgeny Prigozhin founded had conscripted

at least 48.366 prisoners from Russian prisons for war in Ukraine. Since then more then 17.000 hired soldiers died just at the battle of Bakhmut and a total of 20.000 members of Wagner died in "Bakhmut's meat grinder".

Total losses of Wagners hired soldiers in Russo-Ukrainian War, according to estimates of German publication Deutsche Welle, are around 22.000 dead (This comes to every third member of Wagner grupe) and 40.000 wunded. At the same time RFA gives entirely different numbers. Offical representative of United States Department of Homeland Security John Kirby announced in 2023. that since the start of the Russian ivansion in Ukraine more then 30.000 members of Wagner grupe had been killed or wunded, predominantly in the battle of Bakhmut.

 

 

Comparison of losses of the Russian Armed Forces in diffrent conflicts  

Poređenje gubitaka Oružanih snaga Rusije u različitim sukobima

 

The losses of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the Russo-Ukrainian war since 2022. are among the most significant in modern military history. The number of dead and wounded, for example, during the Afghan War (1979-1989) and the two Chechen wars combined is absolutely incomparable.  

 

 

According to the headquarters of the Joint Group of Forces of the Russian Federation, during the battle in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996, the losses of federal forces amounted to:

 

- 4,103 dead;

 

- 1,231 missing, captured or deserters;

 

- 19,794 wounded.

Therefore, the irrecoverable losses were estimated at 5,334 people. However, according to the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers, at least 14,000 Russian soldiers died in the first war in Chechnya.

 

Second Chechen War (1999–2002)

 

During the Second Chechen War, figures for Russian military casualties differed significantly between official and independent sources. Initially, it was reported that the federal security forces in Chechnya lost 3,438 killed and 11,661 wounded. These figures include 2,136 killed and 5,763 wounded soldiers of the Ministry of Defense, 1,196 killed and 5,399 wounded soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and 106 killed and 499 wounded soldiers of other federal agencies.

Later, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, Andrei Krasov, announced different figures.

 

"During the anti-terrorist operation of 1999-2002, more than 6,000 people were killed and 15,549 were wounded," Krasov said.  

At the same time, the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimated these losses at 11,500 people, including those killed on the battlefield, those who died of wounds in hospitals, and those who died within a year of participating in hostilities.

 

 

Official data on the losses of Soviet troops in the ten-year war in Afghanistan reflect only registered cases and do not take into account hidden mortality, sanitary losses after demobilization and cases that remained outside the military statistics.

According to official data, the total number of deaths, including soldiers, officers, border guards, members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB and civilian personnel, is 15,031 people. Most of them died in combat. Medical losses amounted to 469,685 people.

 

 

The figures clearly show that the conflict in Ukraine has become the deadliest military conflict involving Russian armed forces since World War II. Even according to the most conservative estimates, monthly losses in Ukraine (about 3,000 people per month) are several times higher than, for example, the average monthly losses in Chechnya at the height of the fighting in 1995 and 2000.

This is, of course, due to the scale of the fighting and the number of forces involved. If we draw a comparison with the fighting in Chechnya, then in this case we can talk about local conflicts, where the group of Russian troops numbered, according to various estimates, approximately 38,000 people during the first campaign, and over 100,000 in the second.

At the same time, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the number of Russian occupation troops concentrated on the borders reached 190,000 people. And the total length of the front line was 3,700 kilometers, of which more than 900 kilometers are areas where active combat operations are being conducted.

Such data indicate a completely different nature and scale of the conflict that Russia has launched in its recent history. Moreover, combat operations have acquired a positional and maneuver character with elements of a war of attrition, where artillery, armored vehicles, aviation, MLRS, ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare are used daily.

As a result of unsuccessful decisions by the Russian military command in planning and organizing combat operations, as well as the tactics of the so-called "human flesh wave attacks" on the one hand, and the political motives of the Kremlin on the other, the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine continues to suffer huge losses - military historians will estimate them not in the thousands, but in the millions.