Military casualty counts are contested, with Ukraine and Russia closely guarding data about their forces.
In December 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 370,000 injured since February 2022; he also said 198,000 Russian soldiers had been killed and 550,000 injured. None of these claims was verifiable; Russia has said its losses are less than Ukraine’s. U.S., British, and European officials have also made estimates, while independent researchers and journalists have used open-source data to count losses.
In June 2025, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), based in Washington, D.C., released an analysis that estimated Russian military casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) would reach one million during the summer of 2025. It also estimated Ukrainian military casualties since 2022 to be 400,000, including an estimated 60,000–100,000 soldiers killed. In July 2026 the CSIS cited data indicating that total Russian and Ukrainian military casualties had surpassed two million, with Russian casualties at an estimated 1.4 million.