Over two million military casualties in Ukraine war, Russian forces suffer far greater losses, CSIS study finds

Casualty estimates surpass 2 million

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a comprehensive assessment of military losses in the war that began on 24 February 2022. The combined total of dead, wounded, and missing on both sides now exceeds two million, the Washington-based think tank concluded on 1 July 2026. The study draws on Western intelligence sources and official data where available, noting that neither Moscow nor Kyiv regularly publishes reliable figures.

Russian losses in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US losses in all wars combined since World War II.

The scale of the human toll has prompted comparisons with some of the 20th century's worst battles. Analysts described the rate of attrition as historically extreme for a conventional conflict in the modern era.

Russia bears disproportionate losses

Russian forces account for 1.4 million military casualties, including 400,000 to 450,000 killed. Ukrainian armed forces have suffered between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, with 125,000 to 150,000 dead over the same period. The ratio of Russian to Ukrainian losses has not been static. Throughout the first half of 2026, it rose to roughly eight to one, meaning that for each Ukrainian soldier killed, wounded, or missing, there were eight Russian victims. By contrast, for much of the war the ratio stood at two or three to one.

The mortality of this war is staggering. Russians have recorded in Ukraine more than four times the deaths of the United States in all wars since World War II, and nine times more than the Soviet Union and Russia combined in all conflicts since 1945.

Analysts attribute the recent shift partly to Ukrainian advances in drone production and battlefield employment, which have made Russian offensive operations markedly more costly.

Territorial advances grind to a crawl

Russian territorial gains have slowed dramatically. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) calculated that between December 2025 and May 2026, Russian forces seized or infiltrated only 40.64 square kilometres (7.87 percent as much territory as in the equivalent period in 2025). For the first time in years, Moscow's footprint in Ukraine stopped growing in the spring of 2026.

In the most prominent offensives of the first half of 2026, troops advanced at an average of 50 to 90 metres per day, a world away from the opening phase of the war in 2022, when Russian forces could gain from 3,000 to over 7,000 metres per day. Dense minefields, multi‑layered fortifications, heavy shelling, and a drone‑saturated battlefield have created a danger zone more than 20 kilometres wide that constrains movement for both sides.

Ukraine steps up counter‑pressure

Ukrainian forces have moved beyond defensive postures to mount successful local counterattacks, scaling up their use of ground robots and short‑range drones. The CSIS report stresses that Kyiv has also succeeded in bringing the war home to Russian territory, inflicting costly damage to fuel infrastructure that caused major domestic shortages and fuelled public discontent.

In February 2026, Ukraine gained more territory than it lost for the first time since 2023, according to NOS, helped by a southern offensive. Away from the front, continued Ukrainian strikes on the occupied Crimean peninsula prompted the Russian authorities to declare a state of emergency there on 2 July 2026, the same day that a fresh drone and missile attack on Kyiv reportedly killed at least 17 people.