Casualties: Getting It Right

August 3rd, 2025

In his history of World War II Winston Churchill observed that perhaps the most important - and most difficult to obtain - intelligence of the war was the intelligence that he had - or needed and didn’t have, on his allies, particularly the US.

It wasn’t that Churchill wanted to spy on the US (or Canada, Australia, et al); rather, it was that it was difficult, and sometimes nearly impossible, to plan if everyone didn’t have access to the same data on troop levels, training, supplies, and all the thousands upon thousands of parts that must come together to make a modern military. Something that would seem to be as relatively straightforward as knowing how many landing craft were being built in any given month, and where they were, turned out to be a nearly constant challenge. And this was with two countries that were about as close as one might imagine two allies in a major war. 

That thought occurred to me the other day when President Trump commented that over a million Russians have been killed in the war so far; is that correct?

First, no President has the time, whether he wishes to or not, to sift through all the reports and figure out how many casualties have been inflicted on one or the other side in such a war. He is counting on the analysts inside the intelligence community to come up with the right numbers. Nor can the SecDef or DNI do this; this is a task they must assign and let someone ride heard on it.

Second, there is something a bit suspicious about that particular number; it is a number that is essentially the same as the most extreme numbers quoted by the Ukrainian government. It could be that the Ukrainian government is accurately reporting casualties, but just the simple mechanics of the battlefield suggest they are not. In recent exchanges (the last 6 weeks) of the dead, Russia transferred the bodies of just over 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and notified them of some 3,000 more that are ready for transfer. Ukraine turned over 97 Russian bodies. 

Obviously, part of this is that the Ukrainians have been steadily falling back, so the Russians are picking up the bodies as they come upon them. But if this is the case, how accurate is the body count coming out of the Ukrainian General Staff? Further, it contradicts a long line of stories that the Russians leave battlefields littered with Russian bodies. Is it likely that Russian soldiers would pick up enemy dead and leave their own in the field?

Ukraine and Russia have both tried to keep their casualty numbers out of the public. However, private organizations - in particular “Mediazone” - have done a remarkable job in tracking down Russian KIAs and that number now, per that group, stands at: 121,500 - 165,000. Obviously, this number could be higher. But it is unlikely to be substantially higher: 30% seems possible, 600% does not. How many wounded are there? Between 3 and 4 times those numbers giving a range of 360,000 and 630,000. It is worth noting that both sides claim that roughly 70% of all wounded return to active duty.

How many casualties have the Ukrainians suffered? The numbers are much more difficult to come across and the data that is available is at best “fuzzy.” Reports abound of Ukrainian graveyards filling up, of the government building a new, national cemetery that will eventually have room for 160,000, of more than 50,000 combat amputees, etc. That last number is a number that was first quoted in late summer 2023, almost 2 years ago, and suggests a tremendous number of casualties. During OIF and OEF the US suffered a grand total of 1,645 amputees, compared to 6,817 KIAs; 4 times as many KIAs as amputees. Obviously, survival of a soldier with a severe injury that warrants an amputation is a function of rapid medical evacuation. As medevac difficulties increase, the ratio of KIAs per amputee would increase, which would suggest that the ratio in Ukraine should be higher than 4 to 1. That would mean more than 200,000 KIAs as of the summer of 2023. Other “once removed” data counts from last year also suggested that the number of Ukrainian KIAs was then approaching (or had passed) 200,000. 

The point here is that Russian casualties are less, and Ukrainian casualties are more, (substantially less and substantially more, respectively) than is being commonly pushed in most public discourse in the US and Europe, whatever the exact number is.

Last month President Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine was taking in 27,000 new soldiers every month, while Russia was taking in 40,000 per month. That works out to 324,000 new privates per year. Ukraine has no age group 30 or below with more than 230,000 men in it. And while there is some use of woman on the front lines, war in the trenches is just a physically demanding task that drains even the strongest men.

Meanwhile Russia, with a population nearly 5 times that of Ukraine is both fighting this war and, as has been documented, is growing its standing military, which in fact appears to account for the difference in new troops every month.

Which leads to the real issue: manpower (and casualties) is the centerpiece of any war of attrition. And this is a war of attrition. Drone usage has been remarkably innovative (on both sides), and electronic warfare has also chartered new territory. But this war’s most important numbers are the casualty counts. And if President Trump isn’t being presented with the accurate figures on both Russian and Ukrainian casualties and current force manning and readiness, he can’t possibly make an accurate assessment of President Putin’s bargaining position. 

Both SecDef's office and the DNI Gabbard’s office need to push the analysts to pull apart all the numbers and make certain the President has an accurate casualty count, and assessment of readiness. Whatever it takes, the President needs the right numbers.