Millions of casualties, metres gained: Russia’s Ukraine war nears two million losses with battlefield gains measured in feet

Far from marching toward victory, Russia is absorbing battlefield losses on a scale unmatched by any major power since the Second World War, while achieving only minimal territorial gains and placing growing strain on its economy, military and future prospects as a global power.

When Russian forces crossed into Ukraine in February 2022, the prevailing assumption in Moscow, and in parts of the West, was that the war would be short and decisive.

A rapid strike, a collapsed Ukrainian defence, a political capitulation in Kyiv. That assumption collapsed almost immediately. What followed instead has been a grinding war of attrition, and its human cost has grown far beyond what most observers anticipated at the outset.

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A major new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies lays out the scale of that cost in stark terms.

Drawing on US and British intelligence estimates, open-source reporting and battlefield analysis, the study concludes that Russian forces have suffered close to 1.2 million casualties since the invasion began, including as many as 325,000 troops killed.

Ukrainian losses are estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, with up to 140,000 fatalities.

Taken together, combined military casualties are approaching 1.8 million and, at current rates, could reach two million by the spring of 2026.

Those numbers are extraordinary. No major power has suffered losses on this scale in any war since 1945. Russian fatalities in Ukraine now exceed those suffered by Russia and the Soviet Union across all conflicts since the Second World War combined.

In 2025 alone, Russian forces are estimated to have suffered more than 400,000 casualties, an average of nearly 35,000 every month.

Yet despite this cost, Russian battlefield progress has been painfully slow.

Since seizing the initiative in early 2024, Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 metres per day in their main offensives.

In some sectors, progress has been slower than the notoriously bloody Battle of the Somme during the First World War.

Over the past two years, Russia has gained less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory, even as it continues to occupy around one fifth of the country overall, much of it seized early in the war.

This gap between loss and gain is the defining feature of the conflict at its current stage. Enormous human sacrifice for minimal territorial return.

The nature of the fighting helps explain why. The battlefield is now saturated with drones, sensors and electronic warfare. Heavy armour and large-scale manoeuvre have become increasingly vulnerable.

Russian forces have shifted toward small-unit infantry assaults, often using poorly trained troops sent forward to draw fire and identify Ukrainian positions.

Those positions are then targeted with artillery, glide bombs and first-person-view drones. It is reconnaissance by sacrifice.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has constructed deep defensive systems of trenches, mines, obstacles and deception. Vehicle movement is dangerous well behind the front line.

Infantry often advances on foot for kilometres under constant observation. This is a war fought inch by inch, where defence holds the advantage and breakthroughs are rare.

Despite holding numerical superiority, with roughly three times as many troops and a far larger population to draw replacements from, Russia has failed to translate mass into decisive momentum.

Moscow has sustained its force levels through mobilisation, financial incentives and the recruitment of prisoners and debtors. As we reported previously, North Korean troops have also been deployed alongside Russian units in western regions. As well as a number of men from African nations who were tricked into fighting for Russia.

Ukraine, by contrast, is losing a far greater share of a much smaller force, placing immense strain on its military even where absolute losses are lower.

Beyond the front line, the war is also reshaping Russia itself.

While the Russian economy has not collapsed under sanctions, it is showing clear signs of strain. Manufacturing contracted throughout much of 2025. Consumer demand has weakened. Inflation remains high. Labour shortages are severe. Economic growth slowed to just 0.6 percent last year and is expected to remain weak.

Russia now spends roughly half its state budget on the military, internal security and debt servicing. That spending sustains the war effort but produces little long-term economic value. Tank factories run overtime while civilian industries cut shifts. Higher taxes and interest rates weigh on households and businesses alike.

In structural terms, Russia no longer resembles a first-tier economic power. Its GDP is closer to that of Italy or Canada than to the United States, China, or Germany. It has no globally competitive technology firms. Not a single Russian company appears among the world’s top 100 technology companies by market capitalisation. In fields Putin once described as decisive for global leadership, such as artificial intelligence and space, Russia now lags badly behind its peers.

To sustain its war economy, Moscow has become increasingly dependent on China for trade, technology and critical dual-use components. Chinese exports have helped Russia maintain missile production, drone manufacturing and other key military capabilities. That dependence underlines a deeper reality: this is not the behaviour of a rising power, but of a state trading long-term autonomy for short-term survival.

Still, President Putin remains publicly undeterred. He continues to frame the war as one of inevitable progress, supported by an aggressive domestic propaganda campaign and rising state media spending. Inside Russia, there are signs of declining public enthusiasm for the war, but repression and information control have so far contained dissent.

Diplomatic talks continue intermittently, often accompanied by cautious optimism, particularly from Washington. That optimism has surfaced many times before, usually without result. Without sustained pressure, there is little incentive for Moscow to compromise. The Kremlin has shown itself willing to absorb extraordinary casualties in exchange for time, territory measured in metres, and the appearance of momentum.

After nearly four years of fighting, the central reality of this war is difficult to escape. Russia is not manoeuvring its way to victory. It is grinding forward incrementally, at enormous human cost, while steadily weakening itself militarily, economically and demographically.

This is not a story of sweeping offensives or decisive breakthroughs. It is a story of attrition, of feet gained, economies strained and lives expended on an industrial scale.

History has seen wars like this before. The outcome rarely favours those who confuse endurance with success.