When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the start of the so-called special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he was probably imagining the assumption that it would end in a few weeks or even days, like the war with Georgia in 2008 or the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Instead, more than two and a half years later, the end of the war in Ukraine has not sees, and the bloody fighting continues to rage in full force, with the fiercest fighting now centered in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
One of the big questions is how much are the losses of both sides in the conflict? Various numbers are constantly being mentioned in the media space and social networks, sometimes decreasing over time. Undoubtedly, the propaganda element plays an important role in this "information war", with each side in the conflict exaggerating the other's losses and covering up or not talking about their own.
The goal is clear: to raise morale at home and lower it at the enemy. Even more so now that, after more than two and a half years of war, there are not many willing to fight anymore and Moscow and Kiev are resorting to various methods, including partial mobilizations and pardoning prisoners, to get much-needed soldiers.
Yet, how many people have the Russian and Ukrainian armies lost since the start of the war? Both sides are too parsimonious on this issue.
According to a summary updated daily on the website of one of the two leading Ukrainian news agencies - UNIAN, the number of Russian soldiers killed exceeds 642 thousand - a monstrous number, which also increases by more than 1000 every day. The state news agency Ukrinform, for its part, reported this morning about 1,500 Russian soldiers killed in the last 24 hours alone.
However, these statistics look more like propaganda aimed at raising morale in Ukraine and causing anti-war sentiment in Russia itself. It is significant that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned in February about 180 thousand Russian soldiers killed - many times less than the data of Ukrinform and UNIAN at the time.
So, in a war, when an information blackout is maintained and disinformation is spread in all directions, it is hard to say what the losses are for either side.
According to data analyzed by the BBC, however, more than 70,000 people fighting in the ranks of the Russian army have died in Ukraine. At the same time, for the first time, the share of volunteers - civilians who joined the Russian armed forces after the start of the war - is already the largest, notes the British public radio and television on its website.
Every day, names of those who died in Ukraine, their obituaries and photos of funerals are published in the media and social networks throughout Russia. The BBC Russian Service and the independent Russian media "Mediazona" have matched these names together with data from other open sources, including official reports.
New graves in cemeteries also help calculate Russian losses. They are usually marked with flags and wreaths sent by the Ministry of Defence.
The BBC has identified 70,112 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. However, the British media made the caveat that the actual death toll is likely to be significantly higher, as some families do not publicly share details of their relatives' deaths. In addition, the analysis does not include the unconfirmed dead, nor the losses of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics claimed by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Most of the dead were volunteers - 13,781 people, which is about 20 percent of Russian losses. Ex-prisoners who joined the Russian armed forces in exchange for amnesty were previously in first place in the number of victims, but are now second with a share of 19 percent. Mobilized citizens are in third place - 13 percent.
Since October last year, the number of volunteers killed in one week has not fallen below 100. In some weeks, more than 310 deaths have been registered, reports the BBC.
It is believed that the poorer training of volunteers compared to the professional military contributes to the negative trend.
Soldiers have told the BBC that the increasing casualties among the volunteers are partly due to their deployment in the most operationally difficult areas of the frontline, particularly in the Donetsk region, where they mainly fill in for losing military units. Many of them are immediately thrown into battle, often without the necessary training and proper equipment.
Analysis of the data shows that many of these people come from small provincial towns where stable, well-paid work is hard to find. Most of them, it seems, joined the Russian armed forces voluntarily, although human rights activists talk of threats and coercion specifically in the Caucasian republic of Chechnya, ruled with a heavy hand by Putin's crony Ramzan Kadyrov.
Salaries in the Russian army are between five and seven times higher than the average in poorer regions. In addition, military personnel receive a number of social benefits and one-time bonuses, which were also increased.
Most of the killed volunteers were in the age category between 42 and 50 years. The oldest was 71 years old.
As for Ukraine, it rarely comments on its losses on the battlefield. In February of this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country's armed forces had 31,000 casualties, explaining that he was disclosing these figures to refute inflated figures announced by Moscow.
"Not 300,000 or 150,000 (killed Ukrainian soldiers), or as many as Putin and his lying entourage say,", he stressed, adding that each of these people "is a great loss for us.
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Estimates based on US intelligence data, however, suggest that the Ukrainian victims are more than announced by Zelensky, notes the BBC.
So while Russia and Ukraine are locked in a deadlock, each hoping to break the other, the death toll will inevitably continue to rise. Both Moscow and Kiev are looking for ways to provide more soldiers, trying to do so at the lowest possible public cost.
Last week, for example, Putin ordered a general increase in the size of the Russian armed forces. And while the Kremlin has explained the measure by increasing threats on the western flank, amid the strengthening of NATO forces there, the war in Ukraine is undoubtedly also part of the equation.
A shortage of military personnel is believed to be a major reason for the success of Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's border region of Kursk last month, the Associated Press notes.
The Institute for the Study of War cited reports on its website that Russian President Vladimir Putin had rejected a request by the Defense Ministry to announce a new mobilization wave in the spring of this year to compensate for losses suffered so far. The likely reason, according to the Washington-based think tank, is to avoid the negative political consequences that would follow from the forced call-up of reservists under the flags. Since then, Putin has remained committed to his campaign of virtually covert mobilization, limiting Russia's mobilization potential, US analysts conclude.
As for Ukraine, it is also trying to replenish its lost people and tired military units. It has recently tightened mobilization rules, but last month President Zelensky warned that a balance was needed to prevent the war-torn Ukrainian economy from suffering further.
As the war continues to rage, many Ukrainian men who have fled do not want to return to their homeland and fulfill their military duty. Last week in Kyiv, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Szykorski proposed to suspend social benefits for Ukrainian men in Europe.
So while Russia continues to have a significant advantage in manpower and weapons on the battlefield, as Reuters notes, it will likely continue to implement its "meat grinder strategy".
According to Russian military personnel interviewed by the BBC, the Russian command has been relentlessly pushing troops forward to try to tire out Ukrainian forces and reveal their locations to Russian artillery. Drone footage shared online shows Russian military attacking Ukrainian positions with little or no equipment and no artillery support.
It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian authorities, led by President Zelensky, keep calling on their Western partners to increase arms aid and allow strikes deeper into Russian territory. However, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not give such permission last week. The accounts probably include concerns of the Western powers about the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict and its development into a wider war.
More than two and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the positions of the two countries continue to be irreconcilable. Accordingly, each of them remains with the attitude that the outcome of the war will be decided on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table. This inevitably heralds many more killed soldiers and civilians.