KYIV, Ukraine — A new report warned 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, with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any war since World War II.
The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies came less than a month before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s onslaught on Ukraine. Officials said Wednesday that two people were killed on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian strikes hit an apartment block, and at least nine people were injured in separate attacks in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih and the front-line Zaporizhzhia region.
The CSIS report released Tuesday said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and December 2025.
“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,” the report said.
“No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” it added.
It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say.
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 the spring.
The figures from the CSIS were compiled using the Washington, D.C.-based 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The report said 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.
That is “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century,” the report said.
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.
A man and a woman died in an overnight attack in the Bilohorodka area on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional military administration, said Wednesday.
Officials in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih, as well as the front-line Zaporizhzhia region, also reported Russian strikes overnight, wounding at least nine people and damaging local 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.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its air defenses destroyed 75 Ukrainian drones overnight. Twenty-four were shot down over Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar region, with 23 more shot down over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
Two drones were reportedly shot down over Russia’s Voronezh region, where Ukraine’s General Staff said Wednesday that it had struck the Khokholskaya oil depot. Regional Gov. Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram that falling drone debris sparked a fire involving oil products, but did not give further details.
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