A new report warns that combined war casualties in Russia’s war on Ukraine could soon hit 2 million

People pass by damaged cars near an apartment building after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)

KYIV, Ukraine — The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia’s war on Ukraine could be 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War, a report warned Tuesday.

The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies came less than a month before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

As the war grinds through another bitterly cold winter, Russian strikes damaged an apartment block Wednesday on the outskirts of Kyiv, killing two people. Nine others were injured in attacks in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih and in the front-line Zaporizhzhia region.

The CSIS report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025.

“Despite claims of battlefield momentum in Ukraine, the data shows that Russia is paying an extraordinary price for minimal gains and is in decline as a major power,” the report said. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II.”

It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each side seeks to amplify the other side’s casualties.

Commenting on the report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the research could not be considered “reliable information” and that only Russia’s Ministry of Defense was authorized to provide information on military losses.

The ministry has not released figures on battlefield deaths since a statement in September 2022 that said just under 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.

The Ukrainian government had no immediate comment on the report. In an interview with NBC in February 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began.

The CSIS report estimated that at current rates, combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach 2 million by spring.

The figures from the CSIS were compiled using the Washington-based think tank’s own analysis, data published by independent Russian news site Mediazona with the BBC, estimates by the British government and interviews with state officials.

A war of attrition

Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say.

Mediazona, together with the BBC and a team of volunteers, has so far collected the names of more than 160,000 troops killed by scouring news reports, social media and government websites.

The report also said Russian forces were advancing at a sluggish pace since they seized the initiative on the battlefield in 2024, despite their much larger size.

Russia’s advance in Ukraine has largely settled into a grinding war of attrition, and analysts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is in no rush to find a settlement, despite his army’s difficulties on the roughly 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line.

The report said Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters (49 to 230 feet) per day in their most prominent offensives.

That is “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century,” the report said.

Putin told his annual news conference last month that 700,000 Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine. He gave the same number in 2024, and a slightly lower figure -- 617,000 -- in December 2023. It was not possible to verify those figures.

2 killed in attack in Kyiv region

Officials said Wednesday that two people were killed near the Ukrainian capital and at least nine others were injured in attacks across Ukraine.

A man and a woman died in an overnight attack in the Bilohorodka area on the outskirts of Kyiv, according to Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional military administration.

Officials in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih, as well as the Zaporizhzhia region, also reported Russian strikes overnight, wounding at least nine people and damaging infrastructure.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia attacked overnight with one ballistic missile and 146 strike drones, 103 of which were shot down or destroyed using electronic warfare.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its air defenses destroyed 75 Ukrainian drones overnight. Twenty-four were shot down over Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar region, with 23 more shot down over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2016.

Two drones were reportedly shot down over Russia’s Voronezh region, where Ukraine’s General Staff said Wednesday that it had struck the Khokholskaya oil depot. Regional Gov. Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram that falling drone debris sparked a fire involving oil products, but did not give further details.