The Ukraine War in data: More than 100,000 Russian casualties — and almost as many on the Ukrainian side

So it was stunning to hear the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, say that his current estimate of Russian casualties — again, dead and wounded combined — was now more than 100,000. And equally surprising that the assessment of Ukrainian casualties was of a similar magnitude.

“You’re looking at well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” Milley said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York. “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.”

Milley did not distinguish between numbers of dead and numbers of wounded, but regardless, these are staggering figures for both sides. The Kremlin’s highest publicly disclosed figure of war dead has been 5,937. The Ukrainian side has given occasional estimates — the highest at 11,000 — and multiple reports recently have suggested a running toll of 20 to 100 troops lost per day. If indeed Russia has lost more than 100,000 soldiers to death and injury, it’s not only vastly more than its leaders have acknowledged; it also would exceed the toll for Soviet forces in the decadelong Soviet war in Afghanistan. To take another metric, around 7,000 U.S. troops were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. And in terms of the current war, this latest assessment means that more than two-thirds of the estimated 150,000 troops Russia massed at Ukraine’s borders prior to the invasion have been lost to death or injury.

For its part, the U.S. has said it arrives at these figures via a combination of satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and media reports. And for the record, no officials in Russia or Ukraine have disputed Milley’s figures.

We offer a more comprehensive set of data points on the war in Ukraine below. Grid originally published this document on March 24. We update it every Thursday to provide a fuller picture of the conflict.

Civilians killed: at least 6,500 (probably thousands more)

Ukrainian soldiers killed: 5,500 to 11,000

Russian soldiers killed: 5,937 to over 82,000

Total displaced Ukrainians: more than 14 million

Internally displaced Ukrainians: more than 6.5 million

An overview of the violence

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Recent Grid coverage

Learn more: Grid’s 360s on the Ukraine War