"Russian Casualties Near One Million in Russia-Ukraine War"

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, the number of Russian casualties is estimated to be approaching one million, according to recent analysis.

On June 4 (local time), the British weekly magazine The Economist cited figures from Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies and organizations to make this estimate. This calculation is based on the recent trend of approximately 1,000 Russian soldiers being killed or wounded each day.

Taking into account the excess mortality rate among Russian men and the intensity of Russian military operations over the past year, the number of deaths is estimated to be around 250,000. This is the highest number of casualties for Russia since World War II. It is ten times the number of Soviet casualties in the Afghanistan War (1979?1989), and roughly equivalent to the number of British casualties in World War II (1939?1945).

Russian President Vladimir Putin has emphasized to the public that the war in Ukraine is a fight against the "imperialist" North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and he is offering increasing incentives and rewards to those willing to fight. According to analysis by Elena Racheva, a former Russian journalist and researcher at the University of Oxford, by the end of last year, the annual salary of Russian contract soldiers fighting in Ukraine was up to five times the average civilian salary, amounting to 3.5 million to 5.2 million rubles (61 million to 91 million won).

In the case of Ukraine, the government does not disclose detailed information about its own military losses. However, in December last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that 43,000 soldiers had been killed and 370,000 wounded.

Although the actual number of Ukrainian casualties is likely higher, according to The Economist's estimates, it remains lower than that of Russia.