Ukraine war military casualties ‘near 2 million’ as more crunch talks loom

Russia’s grinding invasion of Ukraine has caused nearly 2 million military casualties - killed, wounded or missing - between the two countries, according to a new study by a US think tank. Moscow’s forces have borne the brunt of the losses, suffering as many as 325,000 killed out of an estimated total of 1.2 million casualties since invading Ukraine nearly four years ago, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” CSIS said, noting that “Russian forces are advancing remarkably slowly on the battlefield”. The release of the report on Tuesday came days after negotiators from both Ukraine and Russia held US-brokered direct talks aimed at ending nearly four years of war. The talks were expected to continue on Sunday in Abu Dhabi. Ukrainian forces have also suffered major losses - between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, of which between 100,000 and 140,000 were killed - from February 2022 to December 2025, the think tank said. “Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach two million total casualties by the spring of 2026,” CSIS said. In February 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a US television outlet that his country had lost nearly 46,000 troops since 2022 - a figure that analysts consider an underestimate - while tens of thousands of others were missing or had been taken prisoner. The BBC’s Russian service and the Mediazona outlet, which rely on publicly available data such as death notices, have identified more than 163,000 Russian soldiers killed in four years of war, while acknowledging that the actual number was likely higher. The war has also taken a heavy toll on civilians, with United Nations monitors recording more civilian deaths in Ukraine in 2025 than in any other year except 2022. More than 2,500 civilians were killed and over 12,000 wounded in 2025, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said, noting that the UN has verified almost 15,000 civilian deaths since 2022, but that the total “is likely considerably higher”. In a new attack, a Russian drone strike on a passenger train in northeastern Ukraine killed five people, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. The attack set a train ablaze hours after Russian drones hammered the southern city of Odesa overnight, killing three people and wounding 25 as Moscow intensified its strikes aimed at pushing Kyiv to give up fighting. In Kyiv, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said 710,000 residents remained without power in the aftermath of Moscow’s attack on the capital last week. Russia has waged a winter campaign of strikes on energy infrastructure. In northeastern Kharkiv region, prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the strike on the train by a village. “In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be considered in exactly the same way – purely as terrorism,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Our cause – and this is what should unite all normal people in the world – is to ensure the progress of protecting life. This is possible through pressure on Russia.” Zelensky had earlier decried a “brutal” attack by more than 50 drones on Odesa. “Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,” Zelensky wrote on X. Odesa, on Ukraine’s strategically critical Black Sea coast, has come under increasing attack in recent months. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 40 per cent of households had no electricity a day after a combined drone and missile attack. Ukraine’s air force said Russian troops had launched 165 drones overnight - 135 of them neutralised by air defences. Writing on X, Zelensky urged Kyiv’s allies to boost pressure on Moscow, which has demanded Ukraine cede land that Russian forces have been unable to capture before it stops fighting. “We expect the United States, Europe, and other partners not to remain silent about this and to remember that achieving real peace requires pressure precisely on Moscow.” Ukraine has been asking partners, particularly the US, for strong security guarantees in the event of a peace deal that would prevent Russia from attacking again. A source familiar with internal discussions told Reuters on Tuesday that the US has told Ukraine it must sign on to a peace deal with Russia to get US security guarantees. Additional reporting by Reuters

Ukraine war military casualties ‘near 2 million’ as more crunch talks loom

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}CSIS study estimates nearly 1.2 million Russian and 600,000 Ukrainian casualties, as the US tries to broker a deal between the warring sides

CSIS study estimates nearly 1.2 million Russian and 600,000 Ukrainian casualties, as the US tries to broker a deal between the warring sides