The war has probably taken the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. However, there is no reliable and independent information.
One hundred days will have passed since the start of the Russian invasion war on Ukraine on Friday. Russia attacked on a large scale on 24 February.
Even before that, there had been fighting in eastern Ukraine for eight years, in which 14,000 had died.
How many soldiers and civilians have died in Ukraine in the last hundred days?
In this story, we gathered estimates and claims from various parties about the number of dead.
Deaths of Ukrainian soldiers
Currently, 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers die every day and 500 are wounded, the Ukrainian president says.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Tuesday Kyiv Postin (you switch to another service) according to that the strength of the army is dwindling by hundreds of soldiers every day. According to Zelensky, the number of casualties is highest in the Donbass region, but losses also occur in the northern Kharkiv region and the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson.
Russia launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine in mid-April. Before the big attack, Zelenskyi said CNN (switch to another service)that 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died. In other words, at the beginning of the war, Ukrainian soldiers died in an average of 50-60 days. In addition, Zelenskyi said 10,000 soldiers have been wounded.
Based on the average, Zelensky’s reports suggest an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. There would be a maximum of 35,000 wounded.
The figures offered by Russia are quite different. Russia claimed that at least 14,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died by the end of March.
Colonel Petteri Kajanmaa The National Defense College has been urged to treat the figures with caution. According to him, no one can have the right information about the real numbers. Even if they are, they don’t want to be told because they don’t want to give the enemy information about their own fighting ability.
Deaths of Russian soldiers
As much as a third of Russia’s offensive power has been lost, according to British intelligence. The 30,000 crashes are still likely to be in the top corner.
Ukrainian army tweet (switch to another service) According to the report, there were about 30,850 Russian soldiers liquidated or crashed on Thursday. According to it, about 150 of them were killed in the previous day.
By comparison, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, in the first days of the war, Russia lost a total of 4,300 troops.
A few weeks ago, U.S. and British military intelligence estimated that the number of Russian soldiers killed was about a third lower than the Russian casualties reported by the Ukrainian armed forces.
British intelligence your tweet (switch to another service) in mid-May that Russia has lost a third of the infantry that was deployed in February. The attack force was initially estimated to be 190,000 troops strong, so the loss would be significant. However, it does not only mean the dead, but the loss also includes, for example, escapes, imprisonment and injuries.
In April, Russian news site Readovka published news that 13,400 Russian soldiers had been killed and 7,000 missing. The news was quickly removed, Next (switch to another service)news site on its tweet.
Russia’s estimates of the crashes are more moderate. At the end of March, Russia said 1,351 Russian soldiers had died in the war, although in April the Kremlin had also spoken of “significant losses” e.g. Al Jazeeran (switch to another service) in the news.
Civilian casualties
Russia has bombed entire cities. Only some of the civilian casualties have been counted.
– We are not able to estimate the total number of victims right now, but it is significantly higher than the number of confirmed cases. It will take months or even years for us to make sure every case is reported to OHCHR by email.
The OHCHR says it will secure cases by gathering information from trusted NGOs and authorities, among others, and, where possible, by visiting places of attack.
To date, the most devastating place in Ukraine has been the bombing of the city of Mariupol. 1,348 deaths have been confirmed there. According to OHCHR communications, the actual number of deaths is thousands, but not tens of thousands, higher.
OHCHR only statistics directly on those who died in hostilities. According to it, there are at least 3,000 indirect deaths caused by war. The deaths are due to, for example, either a lack of hospital care or stress. This figure will also rise.
Amnesty Director: No figures can be trusted
Executive Director of Amnesty International Finland Frank Johansson Like Finnish military experts, is skeptical about all the figures reported.
He estimates in ‘s telephone interview that the figures for civilian casualties have been underestimated. They have not been secured because independent human rights organizations or journalists do not have access to the territories occupied by Russia. Severodonetsk, for example, is now being bombed so hard that it is there The Guardian (switch to another service) had to stop counting the dead.
In addition, Johansson suspects that the Ukrainian authorities do not want to tell all the figures.
– If they are very large, they can affect the mood of the meaning of the war, Johansson says.
On the figures for the soldiers who died, he notes that both sides have a desire to increase the losses of the enemy and reduce their own losses.