Combined Ukrainian and Russian military losses reach 1 million, WSJ reports

The Wall Street Journal data shows that the total number of Ukrainian and Russian military personnel who have been killed or injured since the start of the full-scale Russian aggression has reached approximately 1 million.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Details: The publication notes that determining the exact number of casualties in the war is challenging because both Russia and Ukraine refuse to release official data, and sometimes publish figures that many find unreliable.

The WSJ reports that, according to a confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year, the number of Ukrainian military casualties stands at 80,000 killed and 400,000 injured. 

Western intelligence estimates of Russian losses vary, with some data suggesting nearly 200,000 dead and about 400,000 wounded.

Quote: "The losses are causing problems for Russia as it uses waves of poorly trained soldiers to try to advance in Ukraine’s east while also trying to counter a recent Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk Oblast," the article reads.

However, the WSJ notes that these losses are more damaging to Ukraine, whose population is significantly smaller than Russia's.

Quote: "Ukraine’s government, like that of Russia, keeps its war casualties secret. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in February that around 31,000 soldiers have so far been killed. Several former political and security officials said that underestimate was largely designed to placate society and help continue the mobilisation of much-needed new recruits. A spokesman for Zelenskyy declined to comment," the text reads.

The WSJ mentions that, according to former Ukrainian officials, one of the significant reasons Zelenskyy avoids mobilising the key cohort of men aged 18 to 25 – typically the main component of any combat force – is that most of these people do not yet have children.

If conscripts in this age group were to die or become incapacitated, further demographic prospects would be even more bleak, say Ukrainian demographers.

Thus, the article notes, Ukraine resists Western calls to deploy more men into combat and has conducted only partial mobilisation. Government and military estimates suggest that the average age of Ukrainian soldiers now exceeds 43 years. To increase numbers, Kyiv is recruiting a few convicts and foreigners.

The number of civilian casualties remains unknown. However, according to the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch, the Russian occupation of the southeastern port city of Mariupol in 2022 alone claimed more than 8,000 lives, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Background: The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that, as of 17 September 2024, the total losses of Russian troops in the war against Ukraine have reached 635,880 personnel.

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