Some 1.2 million Russian soldiers have been killed, injured or missing since the invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, the highest casualty total for a major military power since World War II, according to a new report from a prominent international think tank.
And due to the enormous human cost, the battlefield gains have been relatively small, with Russia increasing the amount of Ukrainian land under its control by only 12% since 2022, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The report challenges the assumption in many circles, including the White House, that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and will occur in the near future.
“Russia has the upper hand,” US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Politico last month.
“They’re much bigger. They’re much stronger…at some point, size will win out,” Trump said.
But the CSIS report says Ukraine holds a significant defensive advantage on the battlefield.
The report says Kiev’s “defense in depth” strategy, which combines trenches, anti-tank obstacles, mines and other barriers with drones and artillery, is hampering Russia’s attempts to gain meaningful gains. Meanwhile, the number of casualties on the battlefield favors Ukraine by a ratio of 2.5 or 2:1.
Russia and Ukraine have not released detailed figures for combat casualties.
The report puts the number of casualties in Ukraine at around 500,000 to 600,000, and in Russia 1.2 million dead, injured or missing.
According to the report, Russia’s battlefield death toll is between 275,000 and 325,000, compared to 100,000 to 140,000 in Ukraine.
“The data suggest that Russia is barely winning,” the authors write.
Compared to conflicts involving great powers after World War II, Moscow’s losses are staggering.
The United States lost about 57,000 soldiers in the Korean War and about 47,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War. According to the report, Russia’s losses in Ukraine are five times the total losses in all Russian and Soviet wars combined since World War II, including the Afghanistan war and the two Chechen wars.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland earlier this month that Moscow lost 1,000 troops per day in December.
“He was not seriously injured, but he died,” he said.
“In Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Soviet Union lost 20,000 people in 10 years; now it loses 30,000 in a month,” Rutte said.
Foreign analysts say finding new troops is becoming increasingly difficult.
James Ford, the UK’s deputy ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said in a speech last week that “Russian military casualties currently exceed sustainable recruitment and replacement rates.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has relatively little to show for the hundreds of thousands of victims who have died since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the CSIS report, territory gained by Russia in some areas over the past two years can be measured in just yards per day, less than half the size of a football field.
The yards gained per day on Russian battlefields (16 yards per day at Chasiv Yar, 25 yards per day at Kupiansk, and 76 yards per day at Pokrovsk) were lower than those recorded by the Allies at World War I’s infamous Battle of the Somme (a five-month campaign in 1916), when British and French forces gained less than 90 yards per day against German defenders.
In the past two years, “Russian forces have captured less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory,” the report said.
Domestically, Russia has been effectively removed from the ranks of the world’s economic powers due to the toll of the Ukraine war, the report said.
The report states that “Russia is becoming a second- and third-tier economic power” due to a decline in manufacturing, weak consumer demand, high inflation and labor shortages, with economic growth expected to be only 0.6% in 2025.
The report states that the war is weighing on Russia’s current economy as well as its future prospects.
“Goods such as ammunition, military uniforms, and defense contribute to GDP but do not improve long-term welfare or capital formation,” the report said.
And Moscow lags behind in high-tech, with not a single Russian company among the world’s top 100 technology companies.
In Stanford University’s ranking of top countries in artificial intelligence, Russia ranks 28th out of 36 countries, behind Spain, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and others.
Despite the report’s pessimistic outlook for Russia, it says Putin is unlikely to settle for a peace deal without further pressure on Western regimes.
“The United States and Europe have not used the cudgel sufficiently economically or militarily. Without further pain, Putin will prolong the talks and continue fighting even if it means millions of Russian and Ukrainian casualties.”
