According to CSIS estimates, from the start of the war in February 2022 to February 2023, between 60,000 and 70,000 people have died in Ukraine. Russians.
These estimates include not only soldiers from the regular Russian army, but also members of the Rosgvardiya (National Guard), the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Protection Service, members of pro-Russian militias in the so-called People’s Republics (Luhansk and Donetsk) and mercenaries from private military companies. Like the Wagner group.
The total number of dead, missing and injured (of all the above formations) is estimated at 200-250 thousand.
Russia is waging a war of attrition
According to the analysis, the average monthly number of Russian soldiers killed is at least 25 times higher than the number killed in Chechnya and 35 times higher than the number of Soviet Union soldiers who died in Afghanistan.
According to various estimates, from 12,000 to 25,000 people died in Chechnya over a decade and a half. Russians in Afghanistan for 10 years of conflict – no more than 16 thousand. According to CSIS analysts, this proves that Russia is fighting a war of attrition, and that the Ukrainian military has been doing well from the start against the larger and better equipped Russian army to begin with.
One factor possibly contributing to Ukraine’s success is innovation on the battlefield, exemplified by Ukraine’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles. The other reason is that the Ukrainians introduced many innovations from the bottom up, thanks to the army management system that encourages junior officers and enables them to look for unconventional solutions.
See also: Sanctions were supposed to crush the Russian economy. After a year of war, some numbers are better than Poland
