Moscow's own assessments reveal staggering losses in Ukraine, intelligence suggests
The Kremlin's own classified assessments estimate that 1,315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded on the battlefield since the start of Russia's full-scale of Ukraine in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 10, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.
Zelensky, who made the comments following a meeting with Oleh Ivashchenko, the new head of military intelligence (HUR), said on social media that the estimate of Russian losses comes from documents obtained by Ukraine's intelligence networks
"We have reason to believe that these figures are understated," Zelensky added.
The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the intelligence reports.
The latest reports fall relatively in line with estimates made by Ukraine's General Staff, which, as of March 10, estimate that Russia has lost around 1,274,990 troops in Ukraine. The figures do not specify killed or wounded, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing, and captured.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russian authorities have refused to release figures on their army's losses. While some official information was initially published, it has now been over three years since the last time Russia provided any figures, even heavily downplayed ones.
"A change has been recorded in the killed-to-wounded ratio among Russian forces: out of 100 percent of losses, 62 percent are killed and 38 percent wounded," Zelensky said.
The president did not specify the total number of losses to which the ratio applies. It was not immediately clear whether the figure refers to the 1,315,000 Russian soldiers he said Russian reports list as killed or seriously wounded.
In a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, Zelensky said that almost 250,000 Russian soldiers were killed, although that number has risen significantly over the past year.
Western analysts have repeatedly found 2025 to be the bloodiest year of the full-scale war, with Russia's battlefield losses in Ukraine, reaching no fewer than 400,000 killed, wounded, and missing that year. According to some estimates, Russia could have lost more soldiers in 2025 than it did between 2022 and 2024 combined.
Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona in collaboration with the BBC Russian service, has confirmed the identities of over 200,000 Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine as of March 2.
Zelensky told France TV in an interview on Feb. 4 that at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed on the battlefield since the start of Russia's full-scale war.
A January 2026 CSIS report said Ukraine has likely suffered between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties from February 2022 to December 2025, of which between 100,000 to 140,000 are thought to be killed in action (KIA).
