The number of soldiers killed is a closely guarded secret as both from Russia and Ukraine. The goal is clear – to prevent demoralization of society. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in an interview with The Guardian that Russia's human losses were "three times" larger than those of the Ukrainian army.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 570,000 Russian soldiers have been “eliminated”. This wording is unclear, and the number has not been independently confirmed. Kiev is believed to be referring to the number of Russian occupiers killed and wounded.
This means that (by Sirsky's calculations) 190,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been “eliminated” in the war so far.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time in February of this year publicly revealed the losses of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Then the president said that 31 thousand Ukrainian soldiers had died. Even then, however, the announced number raised many doubts.
There is another major problem with black statistics – these are the missing soldiers at the front.
About 42,000 people have been declared missing in Ukraine, a representative of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs said a week ago. The data includes both military and civilians. After Russia invaded in February 2022, many Ukrainians were killed in raids, displaced by fighting, or forcibly taken to Russian territory. About one fifth of Ukraine is occupied by Russia.
Russia plans to send 690,000 troops to Ukraine by the end of the year, Sirsky also said. In terms of equipment, Russian forces have a 1:2 or 1:3 advantage, and since 2022 the number of Russian tanks has doubled from 1,700 to 3,500. Artillery systems have tripled and armored personnel carriers have increased from 4,500 to 8,900. “The adversary has a significant advantage in terms of forces and resources,”, Sirski emphasizes. “That is why for us the question of supply, the question of quality, is really in the foreground.“