In less than a year, Putin's troops managed to capture one and a half Luxembourgs.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russia may have lost 1% of its pre-war male population in combat deaths, writes The Economist. Based on the latest pre-war census data from 2020–2021, which indicated that there were over 68 million men in Russia, the number of Russian military casualties could exceed 680,000. If we consider only the working-age male population, this amounts to approximately 430,000 killed in the war. Previously, Western intelligence agencies provided their estimates of Russian losses, stating that during the war, the Russian Federation lost between 115,000 and 200,000 men killed.
According to The Economist's calculations, total Russian losses, including dead and wounded, amounted to between 1 and 1.35 million soldiers and officers — this is more than the number of American soldiers killed or wounded during World War II.
In less than a year, Russian troops, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), managed to capture 4,562 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. This is 22% more than in 2024, when the Russian Armed Forces took control of 3,734 square kilometers of Ukraine (which significantly exceeds the area of the EU and NATO state of Luxembourg - 2,586.4 km²). Even despite certain successes by Russia in the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad area of Donetsk region, in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv direction, as well as accelerated advances in Zaporizhzhia region, the overall pace of its progress remains slow, notes The Economist. Over the past three years, the Russian Federation has managed to occupy only an additional 1.45% of Ukraine's territory, where approximately the same proportion of the population lived as before the invasion.
In fact, during this time, no major city has come under Russian control. Even in Pokrovsk, where fighting has been ongoing for almost a year and a half, before the war, it had a population of 61,000 and was only the 73rd largest city in Ukraine. According to ISW, the city has not yet been fully captured by Russian troops.
To fully capture the regions of eastern Ukraine — Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions — which Russia has enshrined in its Constitution, it needs to take control of another 20,345 square kilometers. At the current pace of advancement, this will take at least two and a half years, and fighting will have to continue until May 2028, notes The Economist. Overall, Russia controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory — approximately 120,000 square kilometers.
According to NATO estimates, in November, the Russian army in Ukraine was losing approximately 1,100 men per day due to killed, wounded, and captured, which is higher than the figures from October, when it was about 1,000 men per day. The total number of killed and wounded in the Russian Armed Forces may be approaching 1.15 million, a source in NATO reported.
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