Russia suffers heaviest losses since WWII as casualties in Ukraine conflict near 2 million

The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia's war on Ukraine could hit two million by the spring, a report has warned - with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War.

The study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies revealed the slow, deadly grind of the conflict, and comes before the fourth anniversary of the Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

The report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025. "No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” the authors said.

It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.

The figures have been described as unreliable by the Russia, as the country’s advance in Ukraine remains in a grinding war of attrition. Analysts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in no rush to find a settlement, despite his army's difficulties on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

Putin has repeatedly said Russia will take all of Ukraine's Donbas region, of which Moscow's forces control 90 per cent, by force unless Kyiv gives it up in a peace deal.

This weekend, a third round of negotiations between the two countries, brokered by the US, will take place aimed at ending the war.

US secretary Marco Rubio said active work was underway to reconcile the territorial issue of Donetsk in the Donbas, describing the disagreement as a key remaining issue that is "very difficult" to resolve.

Kyiv has said it will not gift Russia territory that Moscow has failed to win on the battlefield.

"It's still a bridge we have to cross. It's still a gap, but at least we've been able to narrow down the issue set one central one, and it will probably be a very difficult one," Rubio told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

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In Ukraine on Wednesday, Russian strikes killed a couple near Kyiv and hammered the southern city of Odesa, a day after a drone attack killed five people on a passenger train.

President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks. “The strike hit a residential neighborhood, with no military targets anywhere nearby,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on social media. “We will respond fairly to Russia for this and other similar attacks.”

Several buildings sustained damage in the attacks on Odesa, though no casualties were reported. Several fires are said to have broken out, with emergency crews extinguishing a major fire at a construction and architecture college in the city.

Emergency services said that religious sites including a monastery were damaged in the bombing.

Energy infrastructure has continued to be targeted with deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba saying that the strike damaged manufacturing facilities, a locomotive and hangars, and sparked a fire that was being extinguished.

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Hundreds of thousands of residents already remain without power following relentless attacks on infrastructure during one of the country’s coldest winters on record.

Ukraine's Sea Ports Authority said the Black Sea port of Pivdennyi came under attack but continued operating normally.

Three people were hurt in the attack that also damaged port infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram on Wednesday. A residential building and buildings in the vicinity of an Orthodox monastery were also damaged, he added.