Casualties from both sides of the war could reach two million by spring this year, according to a thinktank.
The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies says Russian forces have suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties – more than any major power since the Second World War – and have advanced at a slower rate than almost any major offensive campaign in any war of the past century.
Moscow has waged a “highly destructive” air campaign on Ukrainian targets and has “been innovative in its use of drones, electronic warfare, and other facets of the fight”, the thinktank says.
But it also has an “extraordinary” casualty rate, it adds, suffering nearly 1.2 million battlefield casualties – including those killed, wounded, and missing – between February 2022 and December 2025.
There were some 415,000 Russian casualties in 2025 alone, says the CSIS.
Russian casualties and fatalities are also “significantly greater” than the Ukrainians’, it says. Kyiv’s forces likely suffered “somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties” between the start of the war and December last year.
“Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach 2 million total casualties by the spring of 2026,” according to researchers.
The CSIS says there could be several reasons why Russian casualties and fatalities are so high – including poor tactics and training, low morale and an effective Ukrainian defence.
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