A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies has disclosed that Russia is suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since World War II.
According to the report, Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025.
The CSIS report came less than a month before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
“Despite claims of battlefield momentum in Ukraine, the data shows that Russia is paying an extraordinary price for minimal gains and is in decline as a major power.
“No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II.”
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The new report warns that the number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia’s war on Ukraine could hit 2 million by the spring.
It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine gives timely data on military losses, and each side seeks to amplify the other side’s casualties.
The report estimated that at current rates, combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach 2 million by spring.
The figures from the CSIS were compiled using the think tank’s own analysis, data published by independent Russian news site Mediazona with the BBC, estimates by the British government and interviews with state officials.
Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say. Mediazona, together with the BBC and a team of volunteers, has so far collected the names of over 160,000 troops killed by scouring news reports, social media and government websites.
The report also said that Russian forces were advancing at a sluggish pace since it seized the initiative on the battlefield in 2024, despite its much larger size.
The report said that Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters (49 to 230 feet) per day in their most prominent offensives.
It added that, that is “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century.”
Russia’s advance in Ukraine has largely settled into a grinding war of attrition, and analysts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in no rush to find a settlement, despite his army’s difficulties on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.
Putin told his annual news conference last month that 700,000 Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine. He gave the same number in 2024, and a slightly lower figure; 617,000 in December 2023. It was not possible to verify those figures.
Russia Deems Report As Unreliable Information
Commenting on the CSIS report, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the research could not be considered “reliable information” and that only Russia’s Ministry of Defense was authorized to provide information on military losses.
The ministry’s last statement on battlefield deaths was in September 2022, when it said that just under 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. It has not released any updated figures since then.
There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian government. In an interview with NBC in February 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began.
Meanwhile, officials said today that two people were killed near the Ukrainian capital and at least nine others were injured in attacks across Ukraine.
Officials in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih, as well as the Zaporizhzhia region, also reported Russian strikes overnight, wounding at least nine people and damaging infrastructure.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia attacked overnight with one ballistic missile and 146 strike drones, 103 of which were shot down or destroyed using electronic warfare.
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