Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has reached a grim milestone — with the number of Ukrainians and Russians killed or wounded in the two-and-a-half war nearing one million.
Roughly 80,000 Ukrainian troops have died and as many as 400,000 have been injured, according to a confidential Ukrainian estimate shared with the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Western intelligence has tallied Russian casualties at close to 200,000 with the number of wounded at approximately 400,000.
However, exact figures are unclear and hard to determine, as both countries have declined to release estimates — or have put out figures that have not been deemed reputable.
The staggering tally has exacerbated a severe population problem in Ukraine, which was already battling a plunging population before the conflict.
The country’s population had already dropped some 8 million in the two decades from 2001 to 2022, the WSJ reported. The population was approximately 40 million at the beginning of 2022, before Russia invaded in February.
In addition to those who have been killed in the conflict, more than 6 million Ukrainians have also fled the under-attack nation, according to the United Nations.
Coupled with Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian land during the war, the total population on Kyiv-controlled territory has now plunged to between 25 million and 27 million, according to previously undisclosed Ukrainian government estimates reported by the WSJ.
Experts fear this could have disastrous, long-term effects on the future of Ukraine.
“Demographics is a priority for Putin, and he wants to use Ukraine and its people to consolidate the Slavic core of Russia,” Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian-born political scientist told the WSJ of the Russian president.
“But for Ukraine, the dilemma is existential: How many people can you lose in a war before losing your future?”
Ukraine’s birthrate has also hit a record low, which is one of the main reasons President Volodymyr Zelensky has declined to marshal men in the 18 to 25 age group, according to Ukrainian officials.
The average age for Ukrainian troops is 43, according to estimates provided by the military and government cited by the WSJ.
Meanwhile, for those left in the war-torn country, the Russian onslaught has made life extremely difficult.
Russian missile and drone attacks have wiped out swaths of Ukraine’s energy grid, which could force even more people to flee this winter.
But as the battle rages on, Zelensky is still begging Western allies to speed up weapons shipments.
About half of Ukraine’s brigades in the east are not properly equipped, which allows Russia to gain ground in the region, Zelensky said during an interview with CNN.
“So you lose a lot of people. You lose people because they are not in armed vehicles,” he told the network.
“We need 14 brigades to be ready. Until now … from these packages we didn’t equip even four.”
