The Russian-Ukrainian war has been fought for so long, and there has been no exact statement on how many casualties the Russian army and Ukrainian troops have been killed. I have spent a lot of effort in today's article, and I believe that it can give readers a reasonable answer.
Let's start with the conclusionI estimate that the Russian army (Russian regular army + Wagner + pro-Russian forces in the Donbass region) is about 11550,000 deaths, 20790,000 people were wounded, and the Russian army lost about 32 troops340,000 people;The death toll of the Ukrainian army is in the range of 6-8Between 50,000 people, the total losses were 18-25between 50,000 people.
Let's first look at the estimates of Russian and Ukrainian officials, third-party organizations, and research institutions.
Among these figures, I think the estimates of Ukraine and Russia are not very reliable, for example, Ukraine said that as of December 25, 2023, the number of Russian army killed reached 3530,000 people. According to the casualty ratio of 1:2, the losses of the Russian army will reach a staggering 1.05 million, which is close to the active forces of the entire Russia (1.15 million). If there had been such a result, the Russian army would have collapsed long ago.
On December 19, Shoigu called the Ukrainian army **3830,000 people, this figure accounts for 55% of the number of Ukrainian troops before the war and 40% of the total number of Ukrainian troops in 2023, which is also unlikely. Russia's estimate of its own personnel is also unreliable, Russia does not count the dead in Wagner, Luhansk, and Donetsk, and the estimate of the regular army is also very low.
Because Russia and Ukraine are participating in the war, they must have political goals, and the information of both is not credible.
I think the data disclosed by the United States** and the data of some third-party research institutions are more credible, and I have marked it in red in the table. But the most valuable reference is the data of the Russian civilian **mediazona, which calculated the actual number of Russian casualties through the number of obituaries, and my derivation is also based on it.
When estimating the figures of Russia and Ukraine, we need to have reliable sources to confirm the number of deaths, as well as the ratio of dead to injury, the number of missing people, etc., so as to make a reasonable estimate.
The most evidence of the Russian army's ** figures is the number of obituaries counted by Mediazona. As of December 2023, they have confirmed the names of 40,010 dead Russian soldiers, and also conducted a survey of 70 cemeteries, and found that the number of dead whose names appear on ** accounts for roughly 50% of the number in the cemetery, so they estimate that the number of Russian military deaths is at least twice as high as the number of public obituaries, that is, 80,000.
The peak of deaths in the Russian army was in March 2022 and December 2022-March 2023).
If you take into account the number of missing soldiers, the number is even larger, according to the figures of the VK social forum and the Association of Mothers of Russian Soldiers, the total number of missing soldiers in Russia is 2About 50,000 people. If we assume that 1 2 has died, then the number of deaths in the Russian army will be 9About 250,000 people.
In addition to the regular Russian army, the combatants of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics should also be counted. Mediazona extrapolated through obituaries and missing soldiers that there were at least 230,000 soldiers of the two republics were killed.
The Donetsk Republic has officially claimed that by December 22, 2022, 4,163 military personnel had been killed. To make a simple calculation, that is, by December 2023, the number of casualties in the two republics is 4163*2*2=1650,000 people, and if you take into account the number of missing people and errors, the death toll will also be around 20,000, which is not far from Mediazona's estimates.
Thus, we can preliminarily conclude that the number of deaths of pro-Russian forces is 11550,000 people. According to various small-scale war reports after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, as well as data published by Wagner (220,000 killed, 40,000 wounded), it can be seen that the death ratio of the Russian army ** is 18, then the Russian army has 20790,000 people were wounded, which led to the fact that the losses of the Russian army were 32340,000 people;
Judging from the actions of Russia after the first time, it can also be concluded that the Russian army has suffered heavy losses. In September 2022, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the mobilization of 300,000 people, which will be carried out in three batches, mainly for reserves. By October 28, Russia said it had completed its mobilization.
On December 19 this year, Shoigu said at the meeting that a total of about 490,000 contract soldiers and volunteers will be recruited in 2023, counting the 300,000 mobilized last year, a total of 790,000, which is equivalent to 2 of the total losses of the Russian army5 times. At the moment, the number of Russian troops on the front line is 6170,000 people, more than the number of the Ukrainian army.
After counting the Russian army above, the Ukrainian army is being calculated, and the statistical information about Ukraine** is less than that of the Russian army, of which the more credible is the 70,000 dead and 10-120,000 injured revealed by the United States**, but this data is too underestimated to have a fatal-to-injury ratio, only 15 or so, while the official Ukrainian estimate of the ratio of casualties is 1:2.
If calculated according to 1:2, the losses of the Ukrainian army will be 210,000 people, but this statistics will only be until August 18, 2023. If you take into account the situation in the last 4 months,We can speculate that the Ukrainian army will have 850,000 people died, 170,000 were injured, and the losses would have reached 2550,000 people.
Another reliable piece of evidence is the statistics of Ukrainian civil society organizations, which are similar to those of the Russian civil society Mediazona. As of November 14, 2023, they confirmed 2450,000 dead, 150,000 people are missing and 3,400 are taken prisoner.
The organization believes that the dead who learned the information accounted for 70% of the total number of deaths, I think it is an overestimate, and the 50% summarized by mediazona can be used, then the number of dead confirmed by the Ukrainian army will be 490,000 people. If we assume that the missing person 1 2 died, the total number of deaths reaches 5650,000 people. If we take into account the situation of the battle in the past month, it can be estimated that the death toll of the Ukrainian army is 60,000 and 120,000 wounded, and the losses are about 180,000.
Whether it's 180,000 or 2550,000 is a big loss for the Ukrainian army, the number of the Ukrainian army before the war was 700,000, and in May 2023 it will reach 980,000, of which the number on the front line is 500,000, and the number of losses is close to 1 3 of the total number of Ukrainian troops.
Although martial law was declared in Ukraine after the start of the war, requiring men aged 18-60 to serve in the military in principle, there was no information about large-scale conscription in Ukraine in 2022, and the Ukrainian army mainly relied on volunteers, but the big ** that began this year greatly consumed the strength of the Ukrainian army, because of heavy losses, on December 19, Zelensky was forced to announce the conscription of 45-500,000 people into the army.
According to other information,We can judge that most of the ** of the Ukrainian army will occur in 2023, and the radical strategy required by Zelensky and the US military has caused the Ukrainian army to suffer heavy losses, which indirectly proves that the judgment of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief Zaluzhny is correct, he believes that in the absence of an air force, NATO army equipment alone cannot break through the defense line, and the priority goal of the Ukrainian army should be to preserve manpower and launch a large-scale ** after the formation of the air force.
Finally, let me predict the trend of the war.
1. The war potential of Russia is greater than that of Ukraine, but in the end, it is the willingness to fight
In terms of war potential, Russia is larger than Ukraine, Russia's population is 4 times that of Ukraine, the first inventory is large, Ukraine's population is small, equipment relies on foreign aid, and the overall strength is not as good as Russia.
But the outcome of a war does not necessarily depend on the war potential, and many wars end because the stronger side loses the will to fight, such as the U.S. wars against Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union's wars against Afghanistan.
Compared with the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam, Ukraine's situation is much better, the gap with the aggressors is the smallest, it has received the most Western aid, and Ukraine's will to resist is still high. There are still 60% of Ukrainians who support continuing the fight until all land is recaptured (70% last year).
Compared with Ukraine, public opinion in Russia is more fragile, with Gallup's 2023 poll believing that Russia's core group supports the war is about 30%-35%, 20% oppose the war, 28% say that Russia should "cease hostilities while retaining the occupied territories", and about half of Russia's population supports the war only at the "declaration level".
Another thing also shows the problems within Russia, among the Russian soldiers who have fallen in battleTuva, Buryatia and other ethnic regions of Russia are 30-40 times more likely to die in the war than Muscovites. The proportion of ethnic Russians in the list of dead is 75%, but most of the list of dead in 2023 belongs to prisoners and conscripts from poor areas, and very few people join the army in core areas such as St. Petersburg and Moscow.
We can speculate that the substantial support for the war in the mainstream of Russian society is less than that of Ukraine. If the Russian army suffers a major defeat on the battlefield, the morale impact on the army will be great.
After the F-16 is in place in May next year, the Ukrainian army will have a formed air force, and it is very necessary to pay attention to the results of the Ukrainian army. If Ukraine can make a huge breakthrough, it will be conducive to winning further military aid and dealing a blow to morale in the country.
Next year's U.S. ** is also a key factor, and if Trump takes office to stop military aid, Russia and Ukraine are likely to cease fire along the existing border (but without stopping fighting), and maintain tension for a long time. If Biden is re-elected, he will continue to support Ukraine, and Russia will face even greater difficulties.
In the end, the outcome of the war will still be determined by the willingness of Europe and the United States to assist Ukraine, and it is precisely the changes within Europe and the United States that Putin is looking forward to. Next year's America** will decide the fate of the world.