More or Less: Behind the Stats Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?
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Jun 28, 2025 The podcast dives into the staggering claim of one million Russian casualties in the Ukraine war. It unpacks the difficulties of gathering accurate military data amid chaos. Experts discuss the traditional methods for assessing losses and highlight the lack of credible sources. The conversation reveals shocking estimates of Russian military deaths, ranging from 200,000 to 250,000, emphasizing the unprecedented human cost of this ongoing conflict. Tune in for insights on how these figures shape our understanding of the war.
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Casualty Definition and Estimate Uncertainty
- The figure of one million Russian casualties includes both dead and wounded soldiers.
- This number is an estimate with medium confidence due to the difficulty of accurate counting in war conditions.
Risk of Inflated Casualty Counts
- Counting lightly wounded soldiers repeatedly can inflate casualty figures since they may return to the front line multiple times.
- A traditional military casualty estimate would likely be lower than one million for Russian forces.
Documented Russian Deaths and Missing Counts
- The BBC Russian service has documented around 113,000 confirmed Russian soldier deaths using open-source data.
- They estimate actual Russian deaths could be around 250,000 based on cemetery information.