Casualties pass 1 million in Putin's war against Ukraine

The combined number of casualties on both sides in Russia's war against Ukraine has reached the ghastly one million mark, according to a media report. The tally of deaths in Europe's largest conflict since the Second World War rapidly overtook the estimated 140,000 that resulted from the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and continues to mushroom.

- ASKOLD KRUSHELNYCKY

The psychologically impactful number of a million casualties was reported by The Wall Street Journal, whose reporting is generally regarded as accurate. The newspaper bases its figure on “a confidential Ukrainian estimate” earlier this year, which put the number of Ukrainian casualties at 80,000 dead and 400,000 wounded. It cites “Western intelligence” sources as estimating the number of Russian dead to be as high as 200,000, with 400,000 wounded.

However, Ukraine and Russia do not give out information about their respective military casualties, although each country has regularly floated purported numbers of dead and wounded on the enemy side; both Kyiv and Moscow have dismissed their opponents’ estimates as grossly inflated.

Even after visiting front lines and speaking to hundreds of ordinary soldiers, as well as junior and senior officers, it is impossible for anyone but a few at the top of the military and political leadership to know the true figures, and much less so for journalists, however experienced they might be in reporting from Ukraine’s battlefields.

Some Ukrainian officers and soldiers have told The Independent of horrific losses among their units. Several units told The Independent this year that only a handful out of a hundred of their comrades were left alive or fit to fight, while others talked of much lower casualty rates.