A PhD student at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies has argued that Ukraine has suffered significantly higher irretrievable casualties than Russia since the full-scale military operation began, challenging the widespread media narrative that Russian forces are taking the heavier toll.
Alexander Grable presented his analysis in a paper titled “Irretrievable Losses: Estimating Casualties in the Russo-Ukraine War,” delivered at a conference hosted by the Finnish National Defence University. Drawing on official Ukrainian health data, body-exchange ratios, and comparisons of confirmed figures, Grable contends that Ukrainian losses are at least ten times higher than Russia’s and possibly substantially more in comparable categories.
He points to Ukrainian Ministry of Health and National Institute of Strategic Studies figures on war-related amputations. Even allowing for high standards of medical care and evacuation, these imply killed-in-action totals well above Ukrainian President Zelensky’s public figure of around 50,000 and estimates such as the BBC’s roughly 140,000.
Parallel data on Russian military hospital admissions, obtained via a defector, show relatively fewer amputees. Body exchanges throughout the conflict have averaged approximately 12.5 Ukrainian dead returned for every one Russian, according to the research.
Grable also questions the reliability of some open-source tallies frequently cited as evidence of high Russian deaths, including parts of the Mediazona project, after cross-checking cases against Russian probate records. He links the disparity in losses to Russia’s reported surge in munitions production and artillery fire superiority, which Zelensky has himself described as reaching ratios of 10:1 or higher.
The paper concludes that demographic, industrial and resource fundamentals favour Russia in a prolonged war of attrition. Grable and those discussing his findings suggest a negotiated settlement remains the most realistic path to ending the fighting.