Russia suffered 1 million casualties to capture just 12% territory in Ukraine

Russia has paid a disproportionately high cost in the ongoing war on Ukraine, according to publicly available data and a study published this week.

Since February 2022, when Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine at the orders of President Vladimir Putin, the country’s forces have just captured around 12 per cent of Ukrainian territories. But the costs have been huge.

In a study published this week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assessed that Russia has suffered around 1 million troop casualties since it launched the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Out of these casualties, around 250,000 soldiers were killed and the rest were injured, according to the study.

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Besides the soldiers, Russia’s material costs have been huge as well.

In the ongoing war, Russia has lost nearly a third of its Black Sea fleet, including the flagship Moskva and at least one submarine, and Ukraine has killed some of the top Russian generals. In an audacious drone attack over the weekend , Ukraine also destroyed nearly a third of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers’ fleet and also struck two of the six surveillance aircraft.

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Moreover, Russia has lost strategic autonomy to China. After Western sanctions threatened to cripple the Russian economy, China came to Russia’s aid and bought its energy exports and provided it with supplies needed to sustain the war and consumer goods as well. Far from being mutually-beneficial, the partnership is so lopsided that scholars say that China has become a subservient partner of China.

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With such losses to manpower, equipment, and strategic autonomy, Russia has just captured 12 per cent of Ukrainian territory. Since January 2024, the pace of Russia’s advance has been such that it has captured just 1 per cent of Ukrainian territory, as per the CSIS study.

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Overall, Russia currently controls around 19 per cent of Ukrainian territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

However, Russia has captured just 12 per cent of Ukrainian territory since 2022 and the rest 7 per cent territory was captured between 2014 and 2022.

In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea region, captured it, and annexed it after a sham referendum.

During 2014-22, pro-Russia insurgents captured nearly a third of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, comprising Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.

Together, Crimea (around 4-5 per cent) and Donbas (2-3 per cent) contributed to around 7 per cent of Ukrainian territory that Russia captured during 2014-22.