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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Losses in Ukraine and Russia August 2026
2026-10-07
[David Robert's Blog] If by "losses" we mean military casualties—killed, wounded and missing—the precise figures are impossible to know. Both Russia and Ukraine keep their own losses secret or have strong incentives to present figures favourable to themselves. The best independent estimates therefore give ranges, rather than a single reliable number.

MILITARY LOSSES SINCE THE FULL-SCALE INVASION IN FEBRUARY 2022
The most useful recent independent estimate I can find is from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published in July 2026:

CSIS estimates that Russian military casualties have been roughly 2—2.5 times Ukrainian casualties.
Oh dear. But how many of those deaths are hired cannon fodder — North Koreans, Syrians, all sorts of excess population from elsewhere?
These figures refer to the full-scale war since 24 February 2022, not the earlier fighting in Donbas from 2014—2022.

WHY THE FIGURES VARY SO MUCH
There is no authoritative running casualty count. Estimates are assembled from such things as:

  • battlefield intelligence;

  • satellite imagery of military cemeteries;

  • Ukrainian and Russian official announcements;

  • leaked Russian demographic and recruitment data;

  • confirmed individual deaths;

  • hospital and military reporting;

  • assessments by Western intelligence agencies.

    For example, independent Russian sources have identified hundreds of thousands of individual Russian military deaths, but the true number is inevitably higher because not every death can be documented.

    The Russian government does not publish a current figure for its military deaths. A recent Reuters report noted that independent estimates put Russian military deaths at over 350,000, while the Russian government continues not to disclose an updated total.
    • Posted by:Besoeker

    #2  comments); ?>werwer
    Posted by: Skidmark   2026-10-07 08:16  

    #1  comments); ?>werwer
    Posted by: Besoeker    2026-10-07 06:18  

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