DISINFO: Ukraine has lost 1.5 million soldiers since 2022, half a million in 2025 alone
SUMMARY
Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, detailed Ukraine's staggering losses in an interview with Russian media. Ukraine’s military lost 1.5 million soldiers since 2022, half a million in 2025 alone. Russian forces now hold the entire strategic initiative.
RESPONSE
The figure of Ukrainian casualties is made up, aimed to advance a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying Russia as overwhelmingly prevailing over Ukraine and the Russian military as an unstoppable fighting force whose victory in Ukraine is inevitable. This number was expressed by Russia’s General Staff in early 2026, adding 500,000 more casualties to figures previously uttered by Russia’s MFA Sergei Lavrov two months earlier. No evidence is provided to support the claim beyond the testimony of Russian authorities, which cannot be considered as reliable given their proven history of making unsubstantiated affirmations based on faked or inexistent proofs.
In early February 2026, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned 55,000 Ukrainians killed in the war. More independent sources such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which in January 2026 published a widely quoted report on this topic, elevated the figure to 600,000 casualties including up to 140,000 killed. According to UALosses, a project considered as reliable by multiple international media and experts, the number of Ukrainian dead and disappeared reached more than 186,000 in late February 2026. In any case, even the highest estimations are much lower than the figures expressed in this disinformation story.
The mentioned CSIS report also included much higher numbers of Russian casualties compared to Ukraine’s, which led many analysts to conclude that Russia’s current rate of losses is unsustainable, as Russia’s rates of casualties surpassed its recruitment capabilities for several months since late 2025. The timing suggests that this may be an attempt to manipulate the information space by mirroring the allegations without actual evidence, which is a frequent pro-Kremlin disinformation technique.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Zelenskyy is concealing the number of war casualties, that Ukrainian Forces face morale crisis echoing Nazi Germany's 1945 struggles, that Ukraine’s government is forcibly sending people to the frontline as no one goes to war voluntarily anymore, or that Zelenskyy confirmed that all Ukrainians will be slaughtered.