The Kremlin on Wednesday rejected a U.S. think tank’s estimate that Russian casualties in the war in Ukraine have reached 1.2 million, calling the figures unreliable.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a study that around 325,000 Russian soldiers were killed between February 2022 and December 2025, with another 875,000 wounded or missing.
“No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” the study said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the findings, saying casualty figures should only be trusted if they come from Russia’s Defense Ministry.
“I don’t think such reports can and should be viewed as reliable information,” Peskov told reporters at a daily briefing.
Russia last disclosed its battlefield losses in September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion.
A verified list of Russian war dead maintained by the exiled outlet Mediazona in collaboration with the BBC stood at 163,606 as of mid-January. The CSIS report cites that list in its own estimate.
Meanwhile, for Ukraine’s military, CSIS put losses at between 100,000 and 140,000 killed, with another 460,000 to 500,000 wounded or missing. In other words, Russian forces have suffered roughly two and a half casualties for every Ukrainian soldier killed or wounded.
The UN has verified nearly 15,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since February 2022. The number of Russian civilians killed is estimated to be in the hundreds.
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