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by iammjm 18 days ago
About Russo Ukrainian war 2022:

> Estimates: 600,000+ Ukrainian military deaths; 100,000+ Russian deaths; 30,000-40,000 civilian deaths.

This is VERY wrong. Almost all estimates go for at least 3x higher Russian casualties than Ukrainian. Russia has been attacking for 4+ years just throwing bodies at the problem with Ukrainians defending with technology. Where do these estimates even come from? Makes me question the validity of the information on this site

2 comments

The website cites "Wikipedia: Russo-Ukrainian War; Ukrainian Ministry data" as its source, but the figures in the overview (600,000+ Ukrainian military deaths, 100,000+ Russian) aren't close to anything in either source [1].

The UI looks like what Claude would generate, and I'd guess the data was scraped and compiled the same way - but it's not clear how it could reference a Wikipedia page and use numbers that contradict it.

Unless russian efforts to flood the internet with English-language news sites pushing the russian narrative into training sets and retrieval [2] are working. There is even a website tracking the known russian networks that flood the internet with news articles [3].

[1] https://waratlas.org/#year=2026&conflict=russo-ukrainian-war...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/21/english-langua...

[3] https://portal-kombat.com/

That is the Western media narrative anyway. The casualty rate for the current mode of offensive warfare with small infantry teams infiltrating under cover of darkness (e.g. Ukraine for the latter part of the 2023 counteroffensive, Russia in its more recent offensive in the Donbas) has been extremely high on both sides. But I'm pretty sure Russia had a favorable kill ratio during their 2022 summer offensive in the Donbas where they just pummeled fortifications with standoff weapons like the Buratino, and many of Ukraine's most experienced troops died in that offensive.

Anyway, the Western stereotype of "Russian human wave attacks" is mostly wrong. Even when Russia is just throwing bodies into the fray (like the convict troops in Bakhmut), those can't really be described as "human wave" tactics (again, they're small infantry teams infiltrating at night). And Ukraine has thrown lots of hastily mobilized cannon fodder at the front as well: look for videos of protesting TDF soldiers and their relatives on Telegram if you don't believe me.

Impressive that people still try to pretend there's any grand strategy here when it's easy to watch 100+ new Russians (mostly old dudes, not in a team, not at night) get FPV'd every single day now. Tell us about the 'Kyiv feint' next
It is not human waves, but they have been on the attack for quite some time now relying on small infantry units while obtaining very little ground. What does that tell you about what's happening to those infantry?
You said human waves, not the person you are replying to. Russian did throw bodies at the problem and has shown callous disregard for the welfare of its soldiers.

I feel like you're not really replying to the comment above.

At the start of the war there was plenty of meat being thrown into the trenches on the Ukraine side. Have you not seen any videos of men being press-ganged off the streets or in their homes? Or of the protesting wives of TDF units thrown into the trenches with virtually no training and only token weapons and ammo? (You can find plenty of both on Ukrainian Telegram channels.)

If Ukraine is treating their soldiers better now, it’s at least partly because they’re running out of them.

Again, I feel like you're not really replying to the comment above. Or mine, really.

We are talking about the numbers being way off, and you are seemingly picking a bone with Ukraine. It’s like you are having an entirely separate and somewhat related discussion.

Numbers range from 323 k to 2 mio. total war deaths since 2022. Hugh leap.

But the numbers for Ukraine and russian federation seem to be swapped: Ukraine does not even have 600 k soldiers, so probably in 10-20 or so years cannot have these many loses without front collapse.

You are counting wounded (as in missing limbs). The map is only counting deaths.
What are you talking about? Mediazone already has 230k confirmed! russian deaths with names. Current confirmed rate of ~30k/month casualities for Russia couldn't be sustainable for much smaller population of Ukraine if they were trading 1:1 or even worse
With Western media narrative and both sides it's clear he is completely lost in propaganda. Every single method of analyzing the numbers points to well about 1 million casualties to be most realistic guess.

Even the Russian MOD own numbers for recruitment and numbers stationed in Ukraine shows that there is at least ~1.1 million personal missing.

Again, you are confusing causalities (wounded and dead) with KIA (just the dead). That's why you are getting such different numbers. Its a pretty easy mistake to make and there are lots of media reports that make the same mistakes.

PS Also, some numbers count civilians and others just count military. And usually civilian dead > military dead in most wars.

That last point (fortunately) does not apply to this conflict. In fact, the fraction of civilian deaths might be the lowest for any conflict with comparable casualties. I haven’t verified this, but would be interested if someone did.
It’s easy to see that is true given media reports of civilians deaths (lately has been ranging from a few to a dozen per day) compared to estimated military deaths (all sides seem to agree it’s in the thousands per day).
Casualties do not mean deaths. A wounded soldier can return to combat later.

I can't find numbers or more information about this because Google has stopped returning results that match my queries.

In the modern warfare with drones that made "killzone" to be 30-40kms from the frontline, with current russian tactics of infiltration by small groups and inability of them running medivac groups, the ratio of wounded vs dead in casualities are nowhere near to what it was in previous wars. Don't have the exact number but some estimates were 1:1 wounded:dead ratio on Russian side
That is grim but fascinating
Should try to use alternative searches. Can recommend Kagi
How come no one on this website uses the word “I”