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Russian Military Losses Surpass 300,000 Killed and Wounded Since Beginning of 2026
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Russia has lost 301,030 military personnel killed or wounded since the beginning of 2026, Ukraine’s General Staff reported on September 15.
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To illustrate the scale of the losses, the General Staff said the figure is equivalent to the personnel of nearly 150 motorized rifle regiments, assuming an average strength of around 2,000 troops per brigade.
Russia sustained its heaviest personnel losses during the three summer months, when 124,170 troops were reported killed or wounded. Of those, 39,290 were recorded in June, followed by 42,860 in July and 42,020 in August.
Losses have continued into September. As of the beginning of September 15, Russian forces had lost another 20,360 personnel since the start of the month, according to the General Staff.
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The figures come amid broader assessments pointing to the scale of Russia’s personnel losses since the beginning of its full-scale invasion. British military intelligence estimates that around 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since February 2022.
Most of those deaths have occurred since January 2023, a period during which Russian forces captured only around 2% of Ukrainian territory, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, chief of the UK armed forces, told Sky News on September 11.
“I think these numbers illustrate clearly the senseless and futile waste of human life for such little progress, and against such an illegitimate aim of President Putin,” Knighton said in a prepared statement to journalists.
Ukraine’s General Staff, meanwhile, has reported that Russia’s overall military personnel losses, including both killed and wounded, have reached around 1.5 million since the start of the full-scale invasion, describing the toll as the Russian military’s highest in a single war since World War II.
According to the General Staff, the figure exceeds the combined losses sustained by Soviet and Russian forces in all wars and armed conflicts during the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century.
As Russian forces continue to suffer substantial battlefield losses, Moscow is moving to increase the size of its military. Russia could mobilize up to 600,000 additional personnel by the end of 2027 in an effort to replace losses and maintain sufficient manpower for continued offensive operations in Ukraine.
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-c48ada580368e27eb0f86be76e71d543.jpg "Ukrainian soldiers of the 54th Mechanized Brigade named after Hetman Ivan Mazepa during military training on October 1, 2025 in Ukraine. (Source: Getty Images)")
