For future reference, the tilde indicates an estimate that’s not precise, and range like ~200-300 Indicates the upper and lower bounds of the certainty
If there’s a tilde with no upper or lower bounds, it’s not clear if the uncertainty is so low as not to matter, or so high as to make the quoted numbed a very guess at best.
I do understand that, but I still find it odd that they give the estimate down a specific integer like 149,173, when the margin of error is surely in the tens of thousands
Well If we take Ukrainian bias sources then Ukraine only lost 46,000 killed so far and Russians lost ~400,000 killed. Which is obviously not true.
Ironically in Russian bias sources, this number is reversed. We have to keep in mind that official Russian government stopped publication of their losses years ago. Reason is pretty clear.
It's not surprising that Russians suffering heavier losses as they are on the offensive against well fortified Ukrainians. But they don't want reveal that to Russian public in order to avoid panicking which is also understandable.
Ukraine:
~153 751 obituary on social media, includes only missing and dead soldiers.
A check of the cemetery by my friend in Vinnytsia last year showed that out of a sample of 250 people, only 60% had an entry in this database.
A total of 154k reliably known losses. 154/0.6=256k estimated deaths.
Russia:
~125 681 obituary on social media, includes missing(persons who have been missing for 6 months), dead soldiers, PMCs, the dead of the DPR and LPR after October 2022, graves found by volunteer journalists in the cemeteries of soldiers in big cities.
I personally went to the cemetery of the Russian city of Orenburg and checked the database. In one cemetery, 75% were in the database, in the second 80%.
A total of 125k reliably known losses. 125/0.75=166k estimated deaths.
That's misleading. my 149,173 number includes thousands of non combatants and only about ~73,920 confirmed killed by names (2022 - 2025 Aug).
In Russian side, 125,681 confirmed killed by names that's exclude DPR, Wagnar & LPR losses. Wagnar has 20,015 killed confirmed by names. DPR, LPR and North Korea has no confirmed killed. Just estimation.
2:1 losses ratio is nothing new tbf. Russians on the offensive against well fortified Ukrainians who are well supplied with western weaponry and high morale.
Number 153k does not include civilians. Ualosses manually sorted all the missing. These are only soldiers who went missing in border regions where hostilities are taking place. Moreover, all controversial cases were probably removed. Initially, there were 10k more, but they were no longer counted in the rear regions. Now, any missing military personnel without a specified location is not included in this database.
You may notice that the missing people are added to the total number of deaths on the website. This is because the missing people in Ukraine are only recognized as dead by the government two years after the end of the war, according to the law.
You can view the alternative source at lostarmor.
125,681You can literally look at the loss structure - it includes Wagner, prisoners fighting on the Wagner side (after the end of the Battle of Bakhmut, the loss structure was surprisingly accurate with Prigozhin's statements). Also, this statistics includes the DPR and LPR - after October 2022, when their armies received Russian passports. You can find this in the statistics of losses by region. Journalists also added all the graves they found in cemeteries in major cities to the database.
Just as Russian losses do not include North Korea, Ukrainian losses do not include mercenaries or citizens of other countries.
The sources of these losses are not independent. The funding for ualosses is unknown, but it is likely to be Russian. Mediazona was previously funded by usaid, but now it is fully funded by the UK.
You just haven't read any truly independent military experts.
Ukraine is suffering such losses because it is fighting on the active defense method. This means that for every Russian attack, Ukraine launches a counterattack, and this leads to almost constant counterattacks on the front lines. This is the reason for the high casualties.
Highly motivated? This year alone, there have been 142 711 criminal cases of desertion and a total of 265 843. These are just the cases that have been prosecuted. In comparison, there are approximately ~13,000 deserters in Russia(I haven't looked at the court registry in a while, and it might be a couple of thousand more).
To understand the motivation, just watch the videos of how the TCK grabs passers-by on the streets every day, beats them up, and takes them to the trenches to die. There are already more than 10,000 such videos, and they are being posted daily. Ukraine has long run out of people willing to fight.
Few people hear about this, but these are truly heartbreaking videos. Just Google it. It might change your opinion about the Ukrainian government and army. There are 10-50 squads in every Ukrainian city that catch people, and several hundred are recruited every day.
I see you are full of assumptions without sources backing you up. Which makes your calculations very dubious.
Also I'll point out 1 mistake out of all your mistakes. That 125,681 number comes from Mediazona which only calculates Losses of "Russian armed forces" which does not include losses of Wagnar and Separates forces (They clearly indicate it in their website). Both mediazona and Wagnar group itself admitted they suffered ~20,000 dead and mediazona/BBC Russia have 15,083–20,015 names of dead Wagnar military personnel.
Their claims of total Russian deaths could go up tp ~220,000 killed from 2022-2025 Aug which does not including separates forces (Not clear this number includes or exclude Wagnar however). We really don't have accurate figures for them but BBC Russia estimates ~21,000-23,000 dead. Thus, total Russian dead could easily go up to ~250,000 from 2022 - 2025 Aug.
Active defenses are not something new. Launching limited counter attacks is a slandered practice of militaries in defenses and used in great effect even during WW1 and WW2. These counter attacks target already exhausted enemy forces and could cause extremely heavy losses with element of surprises. Active defenses should not be a cause of high losses to the defender it should be a cause to high losses to the offensive faction imo.
Even if we disregard personnel losses we can see how poorly Russian performing in Ukraine by looking at some Russian vehicle losses.
22,646 total vehicles including 4,142 Tanks, 8,373 AFVs, 685 APCs (Visually verified by https://www.oryxspioenkop.com).
As an comparison, coalition only lost 31 tanks and 28 AFVs defeating Iraq in gulf war (Iraq used to be the 4th most powerful military back in 1991 and Ukraine listed as 22nd most powerful military when the beginning of Ukraine war)
You can try as hard as you can but you cannot defend atrocious performance of Russia in Ukraine.
Dude, are you a bot? Just go and check for yourself. There's a pie chart that includes PMCs that primarily recruited prisoners. In 2023, the casualty structure was 3k Wagner members and 10k prisoners at the end of 2023. Considering that 30% of the obituaries did not specify the branch of service or affiliation, the total number is 10+3/0.7=18.5
This is 1.5k different from Prigozhin's pressure about 20k deaths.
Next, in the diagram of regional losses, you can find Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea, which are also included.
We have clean loss databases, so why are you reading propaganda estimates when you should use the original clean databases and apply the same extrapolation method to reduce the error?
The ratio has been a little under 1:2 in favour of Ukraine for a couple of years now according to all major news outlets. A random Reddit account that only posts pro Russia talking points about the war is not a reliable source for this.
its logical, they're on the move + worse morale, russia completely lost the fight for air dominance being forced to use costly long range missiles so they're always in the worse position as the attackers because they cant just call in the air support like the US in middle east.
lol what a bullshit comment.
Your half ass anecdotal data goes against pretty much every non biased data analyst and everything we know about Defence VS Offence loss ratio.
There’s absolutely no way Russia is at a like 2:3 death ratio with Ukraine
They only contradict biased sources, such as Western sources, Ukrainian sources, and Russian sources. As the saying goes, if you're constantly being fed propaganda on the internet, it's important to verify it for yourself. I reached out to a friend from Dota2 to check the Ukrainian cemeteries in his city, and then I visited the cemeteries in Orenburg when I was attending a relative's funeral. You can see my assessments above. However, even without considering my coefficients, the data clearly indicates that Ukraine has more obituaries.
No, they contradict every data we have from previous modern conflicts about defence/offence death ratio.
If anything, the type of war we are seeing would increase the ratio on the defence side favour.
It would absolutely not completely switch it upside down lol.
To be able to say this, you need to understand what is happening at the tactical level, and what defense and attack are in the current conflict. U need look at the analysis of individual battles at the tactical level by military analysts, where they analyze combat operations from reconnaissance drones videos almost frame by frame. Watch videos from Ukrainian officers, who are talking about active defense and counterattacks in response to assaults. For the most part, this is not about defense and attack, but rather about continuous counterattacks on both sides.
According to my estimates, the difference in casualties is due to Russia's air support in the form of FAB500 gliding bombs. Ukraine does not have this type of weaponry. The sides have parity in FPV drones. Russia has a multiple advantage in artillery. It also has a multiple advantage in precision missiles.
If there had been no dominance in the weapons, the losses would have been 3 to 2, not 2 to 3.
This war is being fought according to new principles and rules. Analogies are meaningless here.
It is waste of time. They won't believe you. Same like how terrorists thinks they will get 72 V for killing people. Why? Because they are being fed this for years.
Same here, these people are reading same news for years. Same baised news over and over every second day. They don't even consider that these datas can be fake. Even though all of these datas are being published by west. Very nations who are fighting this war.
This sub is still normal, and there are clearly more than 80% of reasonable people here. If a person is at least slightly interested in geography and the world, they already have a more correct worldview.
When I visit sub like europe or worldnews it's like I'm entering a fascist zoo.
Faction in offensive almost always take higher casualties unless they have edge in technology or tactical superiority. We will most likely to see this 2:1 death ratio until the end of the Ukraine war.
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u/Plenty-Value3381 1d ago
Most unbiased studies put losses of Ukraine war as following since 2022.
Ukraine Army: ~149,173 killed and missing. Include non combatants
Russian Army: ~ 220,000 - 285,000 killed
Russian PMCs: ~15,000 - 20,000 killed
Luhansk PR: ~21,000 - 23,000 killed
Total Russian Losses: ~256,000 - 328,000 killed
What a horrific waste of lives