How many casualties in Ikraine Russia war?

1. The headline numbers: what the big studies say

The most-cited recent estimate comes from CSIS, which concluded Russia has suffered about 1.2 million total military casualties (killed, wounded, missing) and Ukraine about 500,000–600,000 over the course of the war, and that combined troop casualties could approach two million by spring 2026 if trends continue .

2. Fatalities within those totals: wide, but consistent bands

CSIS and multiple media summaries translate those casualty totals into fatalities of roughly 275,000–325,000 Russian deaths and 100,000–140,000 Ukrainian deaths between February 2022 and December 2025; other outlets echo similar fatality ranges even as they note large uncertainty .

3. Alternative counts and ground-level tallies that diverge

Open-source, name-by-name projects — such as Mediazona/BBC-based counts and Ukraine’s UALosses/Book of Memory efforts — produce much lower confirmed counts of identified individual deaths (Mediazona/BBC have catalogued more than 163,000 Russian soldier deaths in public notices; UALosses had documented 86,142 Ukrainian fighters by name as of early January 2026), underscoring that systematic, verifiable tallies lag behind modeled aggregate estimates ^[1].

4. Civilian tolls and non-combat casualties

The UN Human Rights monitoring mission (OHCHR) had recorded 55,600 civilian casualties in Ukraine (14,999 killed and 40,601 injured) up to 31 December 2025 while noting that the real toll is likely higher; national leaders also give different figures — President Zelenskyy stated an estimate of roughly 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed, for instance — illustrating how military and civilian counts are tracked on different bases and with different purposes ^[1].

5. State claims, wartime reporting gaps and competing tallies

Official Russian disclosures have been minimal — Moscow publicly acknowledges only a few thousand deaths — while Ukrainian military tallies and pro-Ukrainian public trackers often produce higher enemy-loss numbers; independent think tanks and Western intelligence-derived studies (CSIS, UK MoD summaries cited in media) therefore rely on models, multiple sources, and classified inputs, producing much larger casualty estimates than public tallies or individual-name projects .

6. Why estimates diverge: methodology, incentives and secrecy

Differences arise because some counts are name-by-name verifications (conservative, verifiable but incomplete) and others are model-based aggregations combining battlefield attrition rates, equipment losses and intelligence estimates (broader but sensitive to assumptions); both sides have incentives to under- or over-report enemy losses for morale and diplomatic effect, and Russia’s information controls have removed or hidden some public records, further complicating verification .

7. Bottom line — the best-supported answer and its caveats

The best-supported answer from major research and multiple reputable outlets is that total military casualties on both sides are on the order of 1.8 million and could reach 2 million by spring 2026, with Russia bearing the larger share (about 1.2 million casualties, including perhaps 275,000–325,000 deaths) and Ukraine suffering roughly 500,000–600,000 casualties (including perhaps 100,000–140,000 deaths); these figures come with substantial uncertainty and compete with lower, verifiable name-counts and politically motivated tallies, so any single number should be treated as an estimate rather than a definitive count ^[1].