In February 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced for the first time that Ukraine’s irretrievable military losses stood at 31,000. However, military experts argue this figure is significantly underestimated.
The Economist: How many Ukrainian soldiers have died?
On November 27, The Economist, citing intelligence reports, analysts, and officials, reported that at least 60,000 to 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers may have died since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with another 400,000 seriously wounded and no longer able to fight.
Assuming that six to eight Ukrainian soldiers are seriously wounded for every one killed in action, that means nearly one in 20 combat-aged men is killed or too seriously wounded to continue fighting, the article says. The Economist’s estimates do not include civilian casualties, among whom the death toll is in the tens of thousands.
The analysts also cite data from the UA losses website, which claims that at least 60,435 Ukrainian soldiers have died since February 24, 2022. It is estimated that more than 0.5% of Ukraine’s pre-war population of combat-age men (18–49 years old) were killed as a result of the Russian invasion.
Military expert: “Society does not believe the understated figures that Zelensky cites”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denies that the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in the full-scale war is 80,000 soldiers, as some Western media outlets indicate. According to him, this number is “significantly lower,” but he does not give an exact figure.
According to military expert Mikhail Zhirokhov, society does not focus on Zelensky’s words and understands that they do not correspond to reality. “Society clearly sees how many people are dying, how many funeral services are held for the dead at the local level — this happens every day. And everyone has friends, relatives — everyone understands that we have some losses, at least comparable to the Russian ones,” Zhirokhov notes.
The expert is convinced that the military statistics that are on the Supreme Commander’s desk are different: “These military statistics include non-combat losses, sanitary losses, and a very large number of people missing. This is also a comparable figure. And very often it simply does not exist in official statistics. That is, it exists at the brigade level, but whether it is collected at the level of the General Staff, I am not sure. But there are also colossal numbers there, given that the Russians are advancing and we are obviously losing people in this way.”
