{"id":222328,"date":"2025-01-23T15:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T15:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/23\/ukraine-is-losing-fewer-soldiers-than-russia-but-its-still-losing-the-war\/"},"modified":"2025-01-23T15:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T15:37:10","slug":"ukraine-is-losing-fewer-soldiers-than-russia-but-its-still-losing-the-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/23\/ukraine-is-losing-fewer-soldiers-than-russia-but-its-still-losing-the-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia \u2014 but It\u2019s Still Losing the War"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/11\/multimedia\/11ukraine-casualties-01-ftbq\/11ukraine-casualties-01-ftbq-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia \u2014 but It\u2019s Still Losing the War\" title=\"Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia \u2014 but It\u2019s Still Losing the War\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is killing soldiers at a pace unseen in Europe since World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ukrainian artillery fire, explosive drones and mines are killing Russian troops, as they repeatedly charge across the no-man\u2019s land. As Ukrainian positions are exposed, they are suffering heavy casualties inflicted from afar by Russian drones, shells and glide bombs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Calculating the scale of the casualties, and therefore the war\u2019s trajectory, is difficult: The information is a state secret in both countries. The Ukrainian government has been especially secretive, restricting access to demographic data that could be used to estimate its losses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The most complete counts of Ukraine\u2019s dead soldiers are made by groups abroad with biased or opaque motivations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Working with incomplete information, these groups and other experts estimate that Ukraine has suffered about half of Russia\u2019s irreplaceable losses \u2014 deaths and injuries that take soldiers out of battle indefinitely \u2014 in the nearly three-year-old war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia is still winning. Its much larger population and more effective recruitment have allowed it to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/30\/world\/europe\/russia-ukraine-war-soldiers.html\" title=\"\">replace losses<\/a> more effectively, and to gradually push forward, said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe fat man grows thinner. But the thin man dies,\u201d Mr. Gady said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-19abb55f\">Counting the dead<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The most complete publicly available tallies of Ukrainian deaths come from two opaque websites that track obituaries, posthumous medal awards, funeral announcements and other death-related information published online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The websites \u2014 <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/lostarmour.info\/ukr200\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Lostarmour.info<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/ualosses.org\/en\/soldiers\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">UALosses.org<\/a> \u2014 have produced similar results: They have each individually counted about 62,000 Ukrainian soldiers who have died since the invasion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lostarmour and UALosses say they can only find some of the dead soldiers, because obituaries are published with a delay, and some deaths are never publicized at all. Lostarmour estimates that more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died by December, in total.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By comparison, Russian researchers and journalists have used similar methods to estimate that Russia had <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/19\/world\/europe\/russia-troops-losses-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">suffered more than 150,000 battlefield deaths<\/a> through the end of November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lostarmour\u2019s casualties project is run by about 10 anonymous volunteers, most of them Russian, who scour the internet and cross check information to verify its authenticity, the website\u2019s spokesman said in an emailed response to questions. The group appears to sympathize with Russia and seeks to discredit Ukraine\u2019s propaganda.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The person who claims to run UALosses told The New York Times in a message exchange on X that he is an IT specialist based in a Western country who started his project to address a public knowledge gap. He said he has no ties to Ukraine or Russia and works anonymously to avoid legal and personal risk. The Times was not able to confirm those personal details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Ukrainian government has accused UALosses of \u201cdisseminating false information,\u201d and appears to periodically block the website. Lostarmour is blocked in Ukraine, like all other websites registered in Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The websites\u2019 secrecy or ideological bias do not necessarily invalidate their findings. The independent Russian media outlet Mediazona and the Ukrainian nonprofit <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/memorybook.org.ua\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Memory Book<\/a> have separately verified some UALosses data by taking random tally samples and matching them with online obituaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Times statistical analysis of Lostarmour\u2019s public data has found that at least 95 percent of the group\u2019s entries are accurate with 95 percent certainty and a 5 percent margin of error.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-6b007683\">Intelligence estimates<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a rare move, a prominent Ukrainian public figure in December contradicted his <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/08\/world\/europe\/ukrainian-war-dead.html\" title=\"\">country\u2019s official casualty claims<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The independent war correspondent Yurii Butusov <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=f_XZUcBExag&amp;t=2767s\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">announced to his 1.2 million YouTube subscribers<\/a> that sources inside Ukrainian Armed Forces\u2019s headquarters told him that 105,000 soldiers have been \u201cirreversibly lost,\u201d including 70,000 killed and 35,000 missing. That\u2019s far more than the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/08\/world\/europe\/ukrainian-war-dead.html\" title=\"\">43,000 soldiers that President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed had been killed<\/a> as of Dec. 8.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Butusov added that his figure excludes units outside the Armed Forces\u2019 command, such as the National Guard. This would increase the total casualties number further.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A military analyst familiar with Western governments\u2019 assessments of Ukrainian casualties said Mr. Butusov\u2019s numbers were credible. The analyst discussed sensitive information on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Western intelligence agencies have been reluctant to disclose their internal calculations of Ukrainian casualties for fear of undermining an ally. American officials have previously said that Kyiv withholds this information from even the closest allies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rare estimates of Ukrainian losses provided by Western officials have far exceeded Kyiv\u2019s official figures. U.S. officials told The Times in 2023 that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/18\/us\/politics\/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html\" title=\"\">70,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died by August of that year<\/a>. Many of the bloodiest battles of the war have been fought since. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Butusov\u2019s losses figure excludes severe injuries, a crucial aspect of a military\u2019s fighting ability.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-7f916875\">Missing in action, and in statistics<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Adding to the obfuscation surrounding Ukraine\u2019s casualties are the large number of soldiers it has declared missing in action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">About 59,000 Ukrainians were registered as missing in December, most of them soldiers, according to Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Internal Affairs. Mr. Butusov said in December that 35,000 Armed Forces members were listed as missing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The military analyst familiar with Western assessments said the vast majority of missing Ukrainian soldiers are believed to be dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ukrainian law makes it difficult for the relatives of missing men to declare them dead, for inheritance or other purposes. This has created a legal purgatory for the families whose loved ones have not been recovered from the battlefield, keeping the casualty tallies artificially low.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Alyona Bondar, a Ukrainian cafe worker, said she has received no information about her brother, a soldier, since he went missing on the battlefield in southern Ukraine in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt would be better to tell the truth, including for the sake of my brother,\u201d she said in a phone interview. \u201cIt would be better to have a grave to visit, instead of him lying somewhere in a field for a year and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Combat deaths are just one aspect of a military\u2019s depletion. A more comprehensive measure is irreplaceable, or irreversible losses: a combined number of deaths and serious injuries that prevent a soldier fighting again.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-3a3cbf8\">What it means<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Combining the estimates, with their caveats and shortcomings, analysts conclude that Russia loses slightly fewer than two soldiers to death and severe injury for every Ukrainian fighter who suffers the same fate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This ratio has not allowed Ukraine to overcome Russia\u2019s population and recruitment advantages. At current trends, Ukraine is losing a larger share of its smaller army.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There are currently more than 400,000 Russians facing about 250,000 Ukrainians on the front line, and the gap between the armies is growing, according to the military analyst familiar with Western assessments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia has been able to rebuild and even expand its battered invasion force by tapping into a population that is four times larger than Ukraine\u2019s, carrying out its first draft since World War II and enlisting felons and debtors. The government of Russia\u2019s autocratic president, Vladimir V. Putin, is <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/30\/world\/europe\/russia-ukraine-war-soldiers.html\" title=\"\">paying increasing bounties to new recruits<\/a>, and recently began pressing <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/30\/world\/europe\/russia-ukraine-war-soldiers.html\" title=\"\">people accused of crimes to enlist<\/a> in exchange for dismissing charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">These recruitment efforts brought Russia between 600 and 1,000 new fighters a day last year, according to Russian financial statistics. Kyiv matched this rate only briefly in that period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">North Korea also <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/22\/world\/europe\/north-korea-soldiers-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">sent about 11,000 soldiers<\/a> to aid Moscow\u2019s forces in the Kursk region of southern Russia, where the Ukrainians captured territory last summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zelensky\u2019s need to contend with public opinion has led his government to delay an unpopular draft, and then left it struggling to enforce it. Some men have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/21\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war-draft-dodgers-conscription.html\" title=\"\">gone into hiding to evade conscription<\/a>, or bribed <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/23\/world\/europe\/ukraine-draft-scandal-conscription.html\" title=\"\">draft officers<\/a> to obtain an exemption. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/17\/world\/europe\/ukraine-convicts-zelensky.html\" title=\"\">Ukraine\u2019s tardy recruitment of convicts<\/a> has produced a small fraction of fighters who had enlisted from Russian prisons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The recruitment gap ultimately shapes the battlefield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia is losing more men. But every Ukrainian casualty edges the Kremlin closer to victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Daria Mitiuk<!-- --> and <!-- -->Yurii Shyvala<!-- --> contributed reporting from Kyiv and <!-- -->Oleg Matsnev<!-- --> from Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/23\/world\/europe\/ukraine-russia-soldiers-loss.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is killing soldiers at a pace unseen in Europe since World War II. Ukrainian artillery fire, explosive drones and mines are killing Russian troops, as they repeatedly charge across the no-man\u2019s land. As Ukrainian positions are exposed, they are suffering heavy casualties inflicted from afar by Russian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/11\/multimedia\/11ukraine-casualties-01-ftbq\/11ukraine-casualties-01-ftbq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137233,163809,896,3096,1782,209,202,16547,1130,128440,3102],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222330,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222328\/revisions\/222330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}