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According to the American publication The Wall Street Journal, the total number of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed or wounded since the start of Russia’s full-scale aggression has reached one million.
The publication notes that determining the exact number of killed and wounded in the war is difficult, as both Russia and Ukraine refuse to release official data, and sometimes publish figures that many do not trust.
WSJ, citing confidential data from its sources familiar with the issue, compiled earlier this year, states that “the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed is 80,000, with 400,000 wounded.”
“Estimates from Western intelligence regarding Russian losses vary: some sources suggest that the number of Russian soldiers killed is nearly 200,000, with about 400,000 wounded,” the publication says.
“These losses pose problems for Russia, which is using waves of poorly trained soldiers to advance in eastern Ukraine while also trying to counter a recent Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region,” the article continues.
However, the losses have a greater impact on Ukraine, whose population is significantly smaller than Russia’s.
“The Ukrainian government, like the Russian one, keeps data on war casualties secret. In February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that around 31,000 soldiers had been killed at that time. Several former political and security officials said the underreporting was largely intended to reassure the public and help continue the mobilization of much-needed recruits. Zelenskyy’s spokesperson declined to comment,” the article notes.
According to WSJ, former Ukrainian officials say one important reason Zelenskyy refuses to mobilize the key cohort of men aged 18 to 25—typically the core of any fighting force—is that most of these people have not yet had children.
If conscripts in this age group were to die or become incapacitated, the future demographic outlook would become even more bleak, Ukrainian demographers say.
Thus, Ukraine, the article states, resists calls from Western partners to send more men into battle and has only conducted partial mobilization. According to government and military estimates, the average age of Ukrainian fighters now exceeds 43 years. To increase troop numbers, Kyiv is recruiting a small number of convicts and foreigners.
The number of civilian casualties remains unknown. However, according to estimates from the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, Russia’s 2022 capture of the southeastern port city of Mariupol alone claimed over 8,000 lives, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The article’s authors write that Russia’s attack has had catastrophic consequences for Ukraine’s demographic situation. The last population census in 2001 recorded 48 million residents in Ukraine. According to Ukrainian demographers and officials, by early 2022, before Russia invaded, that number had fallen to 40 million, including regions such as Crimea, which Russia occupied in 2014.
Read also: Russia will likely rely on foreign partners to meet its materiel needs – ISW
According to the UN, since the start of the war in February 2022, more than 6 million people have left Ukraine, and Russia has seized new territories. As a result, the total population in areas controlled by Kyiv has fallen to between 25 and 27 million.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as of September 17, 2024, the total losses of Russian troops in the war against Ukraine have reached 635,880 personnel.
