Historic Comparisons To Russian Casualties And Prospective Casualties In The Ukraine War

Russia has annexed four regions, or oblasts, of eastern Ukraine, although it does not control all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow also controls Crimea, the peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine which it annexed in 2014. Russia's control over the regions is not internationally recognized, and Kyiv has vowed to reclaim the annexed territories.

From Newsweek.

The same link recounts that the top British General and Admiral say that to control the four regions in Eastern Ukraine (in addition to Crimea), that Russia claims to have annexed, would require a total of 1.5 to 1.8 million casualties and five years. This is double the size of the entire Russian military in early 2022 which had about 900,000 active duty service members at the time.

The British military estimates that Russia has suffered 550,000 casualties since early 2022 (only modestly less than Ukraine's estimate of 570,000), and the BBC estimates that this includes at least 60,000 deaths, so far. According to Ukraine, Russia adds about 30,000 new soldiers a month, and has slightly more casualties each month.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea was almost bloodless.

This is in addition, of course, to the immense losses of military equipment Russia has suffered which continue to accrue daily. For example, Russia has already lost tanks equal to 125% of the number initially assigned to the mission in February of 2022, and has lost daunting amounts of almost every other conventional military resource.

The British military estimates that it will take Russia at least five years after the conflict ends to restore itself to something approaching its 2022 situation.

Ukraine is suffering epic casualties, both civilian and military, as well, in addition to losing control of a significant part of its territory, since the war is being fought mostly on its territory.

But the Ukraine War has strengthened the military position of NATO.

NATO has expanded, has seen its members strengthen their militaries in reaction to the Ukraine War, and is seeing Russia, the primary adversary it exists to protect members from, incredibly weakened in its capacity to engage in conventional warfare from casualties and loss of military equipment. The Ukraine war has also revealed Russia's military tactics and weaknesses, and its actual state of readiness free of propaganda claims of a larger military, which was hollow, which helps NATO prepare for any future conflicts with Russia.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Russia has one of the largest nuclear arsenal's on Earth if it gets desperate enough to use it.

Comparisons To U.S. Wars

By comparison, in the Vietnam War, the U.S., which had a population one-third larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 48,100 deaths and 153,300 non-deadly casualties over nine years. In the three years of the Korean War, the U.S., which had a population 5% larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 35,600 deaths and 103,300 non-deadly casualties over three years. The current Ukraine War has cost Russia more than either of these wars cost the U.S., but are on the same order of magnitude.

Despite suffering lower casualties in those wars, the U.S. had more troops involved in the Korean War (5.7 million) and Vietnam War (8.7 million) than Russia does, either in absolute terms or proportionately, in the current Ukraine War.

The current Ukraine conflict is on track to be more costly to Russia than World War I was for the U.S. with 106,500 deaths and 204,000 non-deadly casualties over a year and a half, when its population was 70% of Russia's current population. Relative to the U.S. population at the time, the total U.S. casualties in World War I are already comparable to those of Russia in the Ukraine War, and the number of Russian deaths is so far about half of the U.S. deaths in World War I adjusted for population (but has no end in sight).

Russia's war in Ukraine is so far, not so costly to it as either World War II or the U.S. Civil War were to the U.S., however. Both World War II and the U.S. Civil War also involved far more U.S. soldiers relative to its population than the Russia has deployed in the current Ukraine War.

The ratio of deaths to total casualties in the current Ukraine war is likewise lower than in any of these five major historic U.S. wars (probably, to a significant extent, due to better medical care).

Other U.S. Wars Compared

Russian casualties in the current Ukraine War far exceed those of the U.S. in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War of 1846-1848, Spanish-American War, Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, and other lesser U.S. military engagements (like the "Indian Wars" with tribes in U.S. territory, and the most recent invasion of Panama) in both absolute terms and relative to the U.S. population at the pertinent times.

The number of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf War (2.2 million) was roughly comparable, relative to the U.S. population in 1991, which was about 75% larger than Russia's current population (the U.S. force then was equivalent to about 1.3 million soldiers on a population adjusted basis) to the number of Russian troops involved in the Ukraine War. But, the Persian Gulf War was a rout that resulted in few U.S. casualties.

Comparison To Historic Soviet And Russian Wars

Russia and the Soviet Union have been involved in many military conflicts over the course of history.

How does the current Ukraine War compare to some of the bigger conflicts it has been a part of since the mid-19th century?

The Crimean War of 1853-1856, resulted in about 450,000 Russian deaths, including 73,100 in combat, in a war it lost, in an area that overlaps with the site of the current Ukraine War, when Russia's population was about a third of what it is now. This was clearly worse than the current Ukraine War so far.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 resulted in 43,300 to 71,500 Russian deaths, 146,000 non-deadly casualties, and 74,400 Russian soldiers captured. There were also 18,600 combatants killed on both sides combined, at least 20,000 wounded, and at least 38,000 captured in the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. These two wars took place when Russia's population was about 60% to two-thirds of its current population. These conflicts combined are of the same order of magnitude of losses as the current Ukraine War so far.

The Ukraine conflict has been much more costly for Russia than the war in Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union (although a vastly greater number of its Afghan allies and civilians died in that war than have died in the Ukraine War so far). The Soviet Union fought a counterinsurgency action in Afghanistan for nine years from December of 1979 to February of 1989, a war that ended pretty much as badly as the U.S. war in Vietnam and the U.S. war in Afghanistan, in terms of benefits achieved. At the time that war started, the Soviet Union had a population 80% larger than the current population of Russia. The Soviet Union suffered about 14,500 deaths and 53,800 non-deadly casualties in that war.

It was also more costly than the Russia's First Chechen War of 1994-1996 that left 14,000 Soviet soldiers dead, or Russian's Second Chechen War of 1999 to 2009, which left 6,000 Soviet soldiers dead.

The Russo-Georgian War in August of 2008, meanwhile, only caused about 200 deaths.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was almost bloodless.

Indeed, the Ukraine War has in two and a half years been more costly to Russia than all five of these conflicts (counting Donbas and Crimea in 2014-2015 as one conflict) from 1979 to 2015 combined.

The Soviet Union's casualties in World War I (and including the overlapping Russian Civil War from 1917-1923, and Polish-Soviet War of 1918-1919 which itself caused 60,000 deaths which is comparable to current Ukraine War casualties), however, were far greater than Russia has suffered so far, with about 2 million deaths at a time when the population of the USSR was about 2% smaller than the current population of Russia (of 144.2 million) and would have been almost exactly the same but for 1-2 million people emigrating from Russia at that time.

World War II (including the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and the Soviet-Japanese War in 1945) was likewise much worse, causing about 27 million Soviet deaths, including 8.7 million military deaths, at a time when the Soviet Union had a population about 26% larger than the current population of Russia.