Why Twice as Many Russian Soldiers Killed? Russia Has 120,000 military Dead vs Ukraine’s 70,000

by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

Russia reportedly operates hundreds of thousands more active duty soldiers compared to Ukraine, yet their military appears to have suffered twice as many casualties. Ukraine’s performance thus far is certainly well understood to a large degree, despite Russia’s massive size advantage.  The most recent available casualty figures, which have increased dramatically since last Spring with the Ukrainian counteroffensive, indicate that Ukrainian forces seem to have killed twice as many Russian soldiers compared with the number of soldiers they have lost at the hands of Russian invaders. 

Civilian casualties, however, is quite a different matter given Russia’s deliberate bombardment of Ukrainian neighborhoods, hospitals and civilian areas. Ukraine is reported to have experiences as many as 40,000 civilian casualties, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

In pure military terms, however, the numbers are quite different as there appears to a massive kill ratio-discrepancy.  A recent  Aug 18, 2023 write up in the New York Times quotes unmanned US officials saying that Russia’s total military casualties are approaching 300,000, as compared to Ukraine’s 170,000.  The nearly “double” discrepancy is also reported among actual numbers of soldiers “killed” in war; the New York Times article says as many as 120,000 Russian soldiers have been killed compared with roughly 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed. 

“Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops. The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded,” the paper writes. 

When it comes to countries at war, casualty compilations and figures are often distorted, minimized, exaggerated or inflated in wartime, as part of the well-known and time-honored reality of information warfare. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reports different numbers of Russian deaths than different independent assessments by massive amounts in the tens of thousands, and not surprisingly, official Russian sources appear to only recognized a fraction of its actual casualty number.

Force Discrepancy – Russia Has 3-Times as Many Soldiers

The size difference in terms of active duty forces is truly massive, according to GlobalFirepower.com, which sites that Russia operates 830,900 active duty soldiers compared to Ukraine’s 200,000. This glaring disparity, while slightly offset by each country operating an equal amount of reserve forces, can be difficult to understand given the success thus far of Ukrainian forces. Certainly the widely understood command and control, supply line and morale problems experienced by Russian soldiers appears to be having an impact.