How many servicemen did the Russian army lose? Here are all estimates and counting methods available to us (spoiler: the losses are between 500 and 12000 persons)

Author:
Gleb Gusev
Date:
How many servicemen did the Russian army lose? Here are all estimates and counting methods available to us (spoiler: the losses are between 500 and 12000 persons)

Destroyed Russian machinery near Bucha (outskirt of Kyiv), March 2, 2022

Getty Images / «Babel'»

By the fifteenth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the losses estimates were provided by two independent investigatorsʼ groups, the US Ministry of Defense, the General Staff of Ukrainian Army, and the Russian side. “Babel” has collected all the data available to this hour.

12,000 persons

These are overall combat losses of the enemy according to the data provided by the General staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The General staff does not disclose their counting method (most probably it collects reports from all units and sums them up). The General staff does not provide details to this data: it is not clear if the number includes the wounded, or only the killed ones.

4500 killed

This is a conservative estimate by journalist Christo Grozev, who is one of the leading Bellingcat project investigators. He refers to the method that uses open data (publications and photos in social networks) to calculate the number of lost machinery — and then, using this data — the number of killed.

2000-4000 killed

This is an estimation by the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier. He voiced this number during the House Select Intelligence Committee hearing. He refers to the “intelligence data and open sources”.

2,000 killed and 5,000 wounded

This is an estimate by Ruslan Leviev — the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team ( CIT ), a group of Russian independent analytics (on March 5 CIT evacuated all their staff from Russia). The estimate is grounded on the data about lost machinery; Additionally, CIT accounts for the number of battalion tactical groups that Russia is withdrawing to the rear (which means that the group has lost at least half of its personnel).

498 killed and 1597 wounded

This is an estimate by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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