Russia's losses exceed total number of invading troops supposed to seize Ukraine one year ago

At the beginning of the war, Oleksandr Kovalenko joined a group that collected data on Russian losses. He writes in his blog Zloy Odessit that the team received information from sources in the temporarily occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, occupied Crimea, Belarus, and even Belgorod and Rostov regions of Russia. 

“Over time, the incoming reports started shrinking proportionally to the number of our sources who remained in touch,” the journalist writes. 

Consequently, the number of wounded became more and more difficult to count.

However, in recent days, Russian losses have become a trending topic in the Western media. Some of those publish data that include the wounded. 

But how do they manage to count them? Unless these publications have access to reliable information from Russian clinics, field hospitals, and other medical facilities about the number of wounded and how many of them died later or lost their combat capability forever. 

Kovalenko’s team’s last report was published on July 30, 2022. The number of Russian WIAs was at 79,500 and the number of KIAs at 42,500. That means that by July 30, 2022 Russia’s overal losses were 122, 000. 

At that time the ratio of wounded to dead averaged 1.8. However, since then, the number of eliminated occupants has increased significantly. For example, in April last year, 5,800 occupants were killed, while in January 2023 — 21,700. 

Obviously, if the number of killed has increased, so has the ratio of wounded. 1.8 is no longer an option. But if we take this ratio as the minimum, then the calculation of losses since March, according to Kovalenko, will be as follows.

March: 3,900/7,020

April: 5,800/10,440

May: 7,200/12,960

June: 5,050/9,090

July: 5,280/9,504

August: 7,320/13,176

September: 11,260/20,268

October: 12,860/23,148

November: 16,970/30,546

December: 17,280/31,104

January: 21,700/39,060

Total: 114,620/206,316

KIA+WIA: 320936

“The real losses today are likely higher. Much higher,” Kovalenko assumes, considering that Shougu in September claimed that the army had lost only 6,000 soldiers. But for some reason, Kremlin announced the mobilization of 300,000. 

This is because, Oleksandr Kovalenko concludes, by September 2022, Russia's total losses in Ukraine exceeded 100,000, which is more than 50% of the initial invasion force and more than 1/3 of the entire combat-ready Russian army.