Human Cost of Russia’s Invasion – 17 Casualties for Each Square Kilometer Occupied, 4:1 Ratio

Getting accurate figures for the numbers for losses on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War is difficult to get on “security grounds” combined with inaccurate record keeping – but we know the totals are horrendous.

A Moscow Times report on Monday tried to get to the bottom of how many military personnel and civilians on both sides of the war have been killed since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.

By aggregating reports from several verified sources, the news site came up with a figure of around 395,000 killed during the three years of full-scale war in Ukraine.

Since 2014, Russia has occupied a little over 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

The figure of around 390,500 does not include foreigners on both sides. It is known that mercenaries from North Korea, Indonesia, Cuba, Serbia, Nepal, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are fighting in the ranks of the Russian army.

Volunteers from 55 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, Poland, Canada, and the Baltic states, are participating on the Ukrainian side, said Damien Magrou, spokesman for the International Legion.

The sources used to arrive at the figures published by the Moscow Times refers to statistics provided by the following sources:

Russian casualties

After scrutinizing public obituaries and funeral reports a BBC Russian Service / Mediazona survey identified around 95,000 Russian soldiers who have been killed in Ukraine but believes that the real figure is likely to be nearer 150,000-200,000. The discrepancy is because of the large number of remains likely to have been left on the battlefield or in unrecorded battlefield graves.

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Kyiv has stepped up its air strikes against energy and military facilities on Russian territory in recent months, a campaign in response to Moscow’s relentless bombardment of its cities.

The BBC said that figures had not been published for the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples’ Republics (DNR and LNR) but estimated that more than 20,000 of their troops had been killed by the end of September 2024.

Experts cited by the Wall Street Journal put the figures for Russian forces wounded during fighting as being at least double the number killed, giving a figure of around 400,000.

Figures for civilian casualties in Russian border areas, the DNR, LNR and other occupied areas are kept close to Moscow’s chest. Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said in October that 398 civilians and 1,157 were injured in Russian border areas. A DNR spokesman said almost 5,000 residents have died since 2022 while the LNR last gave casualty figures in March 2023, when it said 900 had died – the figures since the partial annexation in 2014 are not available.

Ukrainian casualties

Kyiv has been reluctant to release casualty figures, but using figures produced by two Ukrainian projects – Lostarmour.info and UALosses.org – estimated that losses among the Armed Forces of Ukraine of around 70,000 killed and over 100,000 wounded, figures that broadly agree with a Nov. 26 report in The Economist.

Figures published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Jan. 31 say that almost 13,000 Ukrainian civilians have died with more than 31,000 wounded in the three years since the full-scale invasion.

Cost per square kilometer for Russian-occupied territory

The Moscow Times concludes that, conservatively, about 390,500 Russian and Ukrainians have died since February 2022 and close to 800,000 have been seriously injured – it could be more and probably is.

Even so, using these figures we can see that seizing 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) of Ukraine’s territory has come at the cost of nearly six individuals dead and almost 12 wounded per square kilometer (0.4 square miles).

The report cites Ivan Stupak, a consultant for the Verkhovna Rada National Security Committee saying: “People have never been considered an asset in Russia, on the contrary, they have always been ‘material’ that can be thrown into war. The principle of ‘no matter the cost’ was applied here in the literal sense. The Kremlin found a successful formula: ‘Here are some cut-up pieces of paper called money, and you give us your life.’ At first, these were volunteers, [who were] then mobilized, then those who went for their salaries.”