Russia denies think-tank assessment of 1.2 million Russian casualties in Ukraine war

The Kremlin is denying a cover that during the electric current ukrayina state of war, russian federation has suffered the largest number of casualties recorded for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War.

The report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, released on Tuesday, said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025. Further, the report warns that the number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia's war on Ukraine could hit million by the spring.

"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."

Commenting on the report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the research could not be considered "reliable information" and that only Russia's Ministry of Defence was authorized to provide information on military losses.

How a Canadian fighter almost killed in Ukraine sees the war

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each side seeks to amplify the other side's casualties.

The Russian 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. The new report estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 and 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.

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 estimated that at current rates, combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million. The war is approaching its fourth complete year, after Russian invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

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.

North Korea, as part of a strategic partnership with Russia, also deployed troops to Ukraine. In April 2025, South Korea's intelligence services estimated that at least 600 North Korea soldiers had died by that point.

The CSIS 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-kilometre front line.

Trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine ​and the United States to reach a resolution ​on the war in Ukraine ⁠are set ‍to ⁠resume ​in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 1, Russia's ⁠Interfax news agency cited the ‍Kremlin as saying on Wednesday.

A first round of ⁠three-way talks ​on ending ​the four-year war took ‍place in the same ‍location ⁠last weekend.

The report said Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 metres 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.

Ukraine officials said Wednesday that two people were killed near the capital and at least nine others were injured in attacks across the country.

A man and a woman died in an overnight attack in the Bilohorodka area on the outskirts of Kyiv, according to Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional military administration.

Read the CSIS think-tank report:

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.

Meanwhile, Russia's Ministry of Defence said its air defences destroyed 75 Ukrainian drones overnight. Twenty-four were shot down over Russia's southwestern Krasnodar region, with 23 more shot down over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2016.

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.

---

---