The Economist: Russia lost 1% of pre-war male population in Ukraine
6 December 21:15
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russia could have lost 1% of its pre-war male population in combat, "Komersant Ukrainian" writes, citing The Economist.
Taking into account the data from the last pre-war census of 2020-2021, according to which more than 68 million men lived in Russia, the number of dead Russian military may exceed 680 thousand people. If we count only the able-bodied part of the male population, this is about 430 thousand killed in the war. Prior to that, Western intelligence agencies had given their own estimates of Russian losses, according to which Russia lost between 115,000 and 200,000 people during the war.
The Economist estimates that total Russian losses in killed and wounded ranged from 1 to 1.35 million soldiers and officers, which is more than the number of American soldiers killed or wounded in World War II.
In less than a year, Russian troops, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), managed to capture 4,562 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. This is 22% more than in 2024, when the Russian Armed Forces took control of 3734 square kilometers of Ukraine. Even though Russia has made some progress in the Pokrovske-Myrnohrad area of Donetsk region, in Kupiansk on the Kharkiv direction, and in the accelerated offensive in Zaporizhzhia region, the overall pace of its advance remains slow, The Economist states. Over the past three years, Russia has managed to occupy only 1.45% of Ukraine’s territory, which is home to roughly the same proportion of the population as before the invasion.
In fact, not a single major city has come under Russian control during this time. Even in Pokrovsk, which has been under battle for almost a year and a half, 61,000 people lived there before the war, and it was only the 73rd largest city in Ukraine. According to ISW, the city has not yet been completely captured by the Russian military.
To fully seize the regions of eastern Ukraine in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which Russia has enshrined in the Constitution, it needs to take control of another 20,345 square kilometers. At the current pace of progress, this will take at least two and a half years, and the fight will last until May 2028, The Economist notes. In total, Russia controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory – about 120,000 square kilometers.
According to NATO estimates, in November, the Russian army in Ukraine lost about 1,100 people per day in killed, wounded, and captured, which is higher than in October, when it was about a thousand people a day. The total number of killed and wounded in the Russian Armed Forces may be close to 1.15 million, a NATO source told the BBC.
