Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War

The war also saw a substantial number of missing and captured individuals, with efforts to exchange prisoners between conflicting parties.

Foreign fighters and civilian casualties added to the war's complexity, with international involvement and impacts extending beyond the immediate conflict zones.

Efforts to identify and repatriate the deceased, alongside the treatment of prisoners of war, highlighted the human cost of the ongoing conflict.

[7] On 10 August 2016, Russia accused the Special Forces of Ukraine of conducting a raid near the Crimean town of Armiansk which killed two Russian servicemen.

[19] Eventually, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry stated that the numbers recorded by the National Museum of Military History were the official ones, although still incomplete,[23] with 4,638 deaths (4,500 identified and 138 unidentified) cataloged by 1 December 2021.

[46] 1,110 separatist fighters and supporters, including 743 civilians, were reportedly still being held by Ukrainian forces as of late March 2016, according to the DPR.

The NGO Cargo 200 reported that they documented the deaths of 1,479 Russian citizens while fighting as part of the rebel forces.

Military experts we interviewed suggest that our analysis of Russian cemeteries, war memorials, and obituaries may account for between 45% and 65% of the real death toll.

[80] Subsequently, several months later, Meduza gave a new estimate of 64,000 soldiers killed in 2022 and 2023, based on excess deaths reported by Rosstat, including those in Crimea, but not other Ukrainian regions seized by Russia.

[82] Several days later, The Economist made its own calculation using the severely-wounded-to-killed ratio from leaked documents by the United States Department of Defense, giving an estimate of between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded since the start of the conflict.

[89] Mid-June, Davyd Arakhamia, Ukraine's chief negotiator with Russia, told Axios that between 200 and 500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed every day.

Combat deaths can be inferred from a variety of sources, including satellite imagery and video image of military actions.

[110] In early June 2022, the Svetlogorsk City Court in the Kaliningrad region ruled that a list of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, published by privately owned news websites, constituted "classified information" and its publication could be considered a criminal offense.

[111] Men from the poverty-stricken regions of Russia's Far North, Far East and Siberia were overrepresented among Russian war casualties.

[112] Buryats, Kalmyks, Tuvans, Chukchi, and Nenets were reported as Russia's ethnic minority groups suffering disproportionately high casualty rates among Russian forces.

[115] According to NATO and Western military officials, around 1,200 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in Ukraine every day on average in May and June 2024.

By 31 January 2025, OHCHR had recorded 41,783 civilian casualties in Ukraine since February 24, 2022: 12,605 killed and 29,178 injured, but said they believe the real number is higher.

[148] By February 2023, Ukrainian chief prosecutor for war crimes Yuriy Belousov claimed that "there could be 100,000 civilians killed across Ukraine, whose bodies will have to be found and identified once occupied territory is liberated.

[151] According to the Kyiv Independent, Russia does not allow monitoring in territories it controls, where civilian deaths are thought to be highest.

[306] Healy was charged with 'forcible seizure of power' and undergoing 'terrorist' training,[307] but later released on 21 September 2022,[308] while Urey died in captivity.

[311] Excluding the Russian and Ukrainian military casualties, at least 1,266 combatants, foreign citizens or foreign-born, were killed during the war.

[528] Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations, announced on 27 February 2022, that the country had reached out to the International Committee of the Red Cross for help in the repatriation effort of the bodies of killed Russian soldiers.

[531] Kyiv authorities have also reached out to the International Commission on Missing Persons, which was formed to help after the 1990s Balkan conflicts and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and identifies individuals by collecting DNA samples from the deceased and families to cross match.

[536] In December 2024, Russia's Deputy Minister of Defence Anna Tsivilyova mentioned 48,000 soldiers missing in action for whom relatives have contributed DNA samples as part of search applications.

[547] On 2 August 2023, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that Ukrainian medical amputations in the war came to between 20,000 and 50,000 including both military and civilians.

MP Robert Jenrick called the videos, broadcast separately on Russia-24, a "flagrant breach" of the Geneva Convention.

[564] On 22 April, Yuri Sirovatko, Minister of Justice of the Donetsk People's Republic, claimed that some 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war were held in the territory of the DPR.

[565] On 20 May, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that 2,439 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken prisoner over the previous five days as a result of the surrender of the last defenders of Mariupol, entrenched inside the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works.

[566] On 26 May, Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador of the Luhansk People's Republic to Russia, claimed that around 8,000 Ukrainian POWs were held within the territory of the DPR and LPR.

[567] According to a statement by Sergei Shoigu, Russia's Minister of Defence, in early June 2022, 6,489 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.