Key Points and Summary – This article explores the staggering scale of Russian casualties in Ukraine after three and a half years of war.
-A recent BBC report has confirmed the names of over 128,000 dead Russian soldiers, noting more than half were not professional soldiers.
-This figure for confirmed dead is part of a larger, grislier milestone: a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report estimated total Russian casualties (killed and wounded) would surpass 1 million this summer, with up to 250,000 fatalities.
-This represents five times more deaths than all other post-WWII Soviet/Russian wars combined.
Russia’s Ukraine War Dead and Wounded Numbers are Massive
Exactly how deep do Russia’s losses run after three and a half years of war in Ukraine?
According to a report by the BBC, which teamed up with Mediazona, more than 128,000 Russian soldiers have been confirmed dead, and their names are known.
“Based on open data, the BBC, together with the publication Mediazona and a team of volunteers, managed to establish the names of 128,115 Russian soldiers who died during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the BBC said. More than half, 54 percent, “were volunteers, mobilized and convicted, who left for the war from penal colonies, that is, people not connected with the army at the start of the war.”
Among the project’s methods was to check published obituaries – the researchers studied more than 23,000.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in August that Russia has lost three times the number of troops as Ukraine.
What About the 1 Million Dead for Russia in Ukraine War?
It was widely reported this summer that the Russian side had crossed the 1 million mark in casualties from the war, which began in early 2022. If Ukrainians are also included, the casualty count reached as high as 1.4 million by June.
The difference, though, is that the 1 million figure covers those “killed or wounded,” while the BBC report estimated only the number of those killed.
Reports referencing the 1-million-casualty milestone are based on a study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which predicted in early June that the Russian casualty count would cross the 1 million mark at some point in the summer. The report’s authors called this “a stunning and grisly milestone.”
“Overall, a high of 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, with over 950,000 total Russian casualties, a sign of Putin’s blatant disregard for his soldiers,” the CSIS study said. “To put these numbers into historical perspective, Russia has suffered roughly five times as many fatalities in Ukraine as in all Russian and Soviet wars combined between the end of World War II and the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.”
However, whether those counts are completely accurate is hard to gauge.
“Officials cautioned that casualty figures were difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not disclose official figures,” the New York Times reported in early June. “The [CSIS] study published on Tuesday relied on casualty figures from American and British government estimates, among other sources.”
That was in June, and in August, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner released a report stating that the number of monthly civilian casualties in Ukraine had soared in July.
“For the second month in a row, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine hits a new three-year high,” Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU, said in the report. “Only the first three months after the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine saw more killed and injured than in this past month.”
An Activist’s Story
The BBC report noted that among the dead was Murat, an activist who criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fought for LGBTQ rights, as well as for the release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, since deceased.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok, Russia April 25, 2019.
After he was arrested and charged with drug abuse and drug trafficking, per the report, Murat was sentenced to 10 years in a “maximum security penal colony.”
At that point, “inspired by Donald Trump’s rise to power in the United States and his promises to end the conflict as soon as possible,” Murat agreed to go to war and died in June while fighting in the Kharkiv region.
Another prominent Russian opposition activist, Ildar Dadin, was also killed in Kharkiv in 2024, although he was fighting on the Ukrainian side.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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Swamplaw Yankee
September 7, 2025 at 4:17 pm
What confusion? Why this emission of ethnic agit-prop? Is this some sort of foreign cultural attack?
How many dog houses were destroyed since 2022 versus 2014? How many pidgin coops were destroyed since 2014? How many 2 storey versus 3 story structures were destroyed since 2014 by socio-economic area? How many Muslims versus Christians mass abductors were killed as these mass abductors kidnapped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children after they butchered their parents?? What month did the orc Genociders abduct the most Ukrainian children and by what gender and age levels?
Even more vital data is missing. The above vital statistics just never seem to come out of this ethnic blabbermouth?
How many muslims died from which exact Federation captive ethnic group: when: where? Did every muslim dead man actually reside in rump russia and was actually an ethnic russkie?
The use of terms is so agit-prop one has to ask why this emission of blather?
The more relevant comparison may be farm statistics. How many olive trees were destroyed in Israel by month/year compared to tender fruit trees lost by month/year inside pre-2014 Ukraine? How many livestock were lost in Israel by month/year versus the livestock lost in pre-2014 Ukraine? How many farm residences were lost in Israel versus the number of farm residences lost in Ukraine by month/year. How were the livestock lost by method: stolen, shot, bombed, abandoned, etc.?
There is, it seems, a real scarcity of data from the 1000 year old ancient Genocide of Ukrainians re-started in 2014 in this Data loaded, Nvidia chip assisted era?
The best comparator is the WUHAN virus vaccine. Today, every legitimate research doctor can speak “freely” about the scam fascists who demanded by legal fiat that expensive poisons be injected by helpless citizens or face harsh state penalties for not conforming to state enforced fictional vaccine fantasies.
The above op-ed demands that the reader believe that the ethnic russkie of the last 1000 years only wore one Halloween costume while butchering Ukrainians. Why is that op-ed demand made, exactly?
Many costumes were worn by ethnic russkies as zombie like, every Halloween, russkie peasants rose, ethnically triggered by unseen genetic need to butcher parents and “Lolita” little Ukrainian children.
How many Halloweens did the russkies wear Stalinist costumes as the Russkie genetic need to starve 20,000,000 Ukrainians unfolded over the years? Certainly not the same Halloween costumes the Russkies wore as they butchered the Ukrainians running their independent Ukrainian state under President Symon Petlura.
The 1614 russkie Costumes worn to mass kidnap Ukrainians, sexually abuse them, sell them to Muslim slave traders were quite different costumes from the halloween costumes worn by the Czarist russkies.
Now, the world observes the same con as in the Wuhan scam. Who knows what criminal type has emitted their own correct, the least corrupt data, statistics on the re-start of the 1000 year old russkie Genocide of Ukrainians.
Here, you see, some one deliberately keyboards out WAR, as their ethnic agit-prop refuses to use the word – Genocide.
Yes, Ukrainian Fathers of 1616 fought the same genetically programmed russkies. The orc russkies of 2025 still mass abduct “Lolita” as per the orders of Puti the paedo, as the orc russkies of 1616 “harvested” little children to satiate themselves on and then sell to muslim slave traders.
There is no Difference in the last 500 or 1000 years in the genetic needs of the deviant “Normal” russkie.
There is a big Difference 500 years later in the audience! The USA now exists, the unique US Constitution exists, and the true USA citizen must process the fact that the ancient on-going Genocide of Ukrainians by orc russkies did not start by magic in 2014! 2014 is just the sell-out date that POTUS Obama’s Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlit the Betrayal of the WEST, the Loss to NATO of Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/ Azov Sea jurisdictional zones to the WEST’s prime vile cold war enemy: Puti the paedo. -30-