Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine has cost a breathtaking price, with more than 1 million Russian soldiers said to have been killed or injured since the conflict started in 2022, Western estimates say.
Addressing a Ukraine Defense Contact Group session, British Defence Minister John Healey claimed Russia had incurred around 240,000 military casualties dead or injured over the first seven months of 2025 alone. This takes the number of Russian casualties in the conflict beyond the one million figure.
Healey's comments coincide with US and Ukrainian authority, as well as external research bodies, having made similar evaluations. The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, put the number of Russian troops killed this year at a minimum of 100,000 earlier this month. Ukrainian military officials place the total number of Russian troops killed or wounded in 2025 at over 252,000.
These statistics also corroborate reports from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank. CSIS, in a June report, estimated that Russia had incurred about 1 million total casualties since it started the full-scale invasion. Of those, the report said about 250,000 were deaths, with the remaining number being wounded soldiers.
Russia's battlefield strategy has been partly responsible for such massive losses. Since the invasion started, Moscow has utilized what observers have termed a "meat-grinder" approach launching huge waves of troops to breach Ukrainian defenses, usually at the expense of heavy casualties. As much as this strategy has delivered some gains in territory, observers caution it can be unsustainable, especially if Western weapons supplies to Ukraine continue.
Even though Russia's recent gains on the ground are encouraging, the massive human cost is making one wonder how long this kind of warfare can be sustained before the country's army and people's will break.
With no terminus in sight, the conflict continues to drain both sides but new figures indicate that Russia is paying the heavier price.
