It’s almost impossible to learn the exact number of casualties the Russians have suffered thus far in their war on Ukraine. The war is not going as expected for them, and the Kremlin keeps the exact numbers of its dead soldiers close to their vest. It is Putin’s attempt to appease his people and retain a firm grip on the reigns of control.

There exist, however, reliable estimates of combat losses.

Russian Combat Losses

The US intelligence community has conservatively estimated that more than 7,000 Russian warfighters have died in Ukraine since they invaded that country in late February. If that is the case, it is greater than the number of Russian soldiers killed in the first two years of the Chechen war.

On the Ukrainian side, they estimate that they have killed more than 15,000 Russian invaders in the first month of the war. If this is the case, it rivals the number of losses the Soviets took in their decade-long campaign in Afghanistan. That war, of course, saw Ivan withdraw from the country defeated, only to witness the fall of the Soviet Union shortly after that.