Kristian Kahrs
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
In an era where the information war rages as fiercely as the battlefield itself, the YouTube channel HistoryLegends — run by military historian Alex—has released an ambitious video and accompanying website that directly challenges the dominant narratives surrounding military losses in the Ukraine war.
The video, titled How Many Soldiers Died in the Ukraine War? (2022–2026), along with the site ukrainewarlosses.org, represents months of rigorous open-source intelligence (OSINT) work to compile verified counts of killed and missing soldiers on both sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoiP5Rfpmpw
The project positions itself as neutral and data-driven, aiming to strip away propaganda from Russian, Ukrainian, and Western sources alike — including think tanks.
Having followed the conflict closely, I find this effort valuable, though not without shortcomings—particularly in its handling of body exchange data. Let me break it down in detail, grounded in verifiable sources.
Methodology: transparent and verifiable approach
HistoryLegends’ project relies on hands-on data scraping and cleaning from open sources. For Russian losses, the primary source is the Granada-hosted database at svo.rf.gd/?i=1, which aggregates obituaries, social media posts, and official announcements. Ukrainian losses are drawn from lostarmor.info, a Russian-run site that tracks personnel casualties using similar methods.
Working with software developer Middle East Observer, the team employed advanced coding techniques: parallel scraping, AI verification of death dates, optical character recognition (OCR) for images lacking text, and duplicate removal (13% in Russian data, under 1% in Ukrainian). The process was arduous—spanning eight months—with multiple pauses to resolve issues like inconsistent entries (e.g., mismatched links in MediaZona data) and artificial spikes from bulk uploads (e.g., 8–9,000 alleged Russian deaths per month in fall 2025).
They deliberately excluded MediaZona en.zona.media for Russian figures due to 15–20% unverifiable entries (“own data” without links) and ualosses.org/en/soldiers/ for Ukrainian ones due to 36% duplicates from poor coding.The result: conservative minimum figures, each death verified with name, date, and source link—no extrapolation.As of February 19, 2026 (latest site update):
- Russia: 155,726 killed or missing (including PMCs like Wagner, but excluding pre-2023 LDPR militias—estimated additional 7–10,000 in 2022).
- Ukraine: 170,537 killed or missing (86,554 confirmed deaths + 83,983 missing, often reclassified as MIA to downplay official numbers).
- Ratio: 1:1.1 (Russia:Ukraine), near 1:1 across the war, with variations by battle (e.g., Bakhmut: 1:1.1; Ukraine’s 2023 summer offensive: 1:1.32 UA:RU).
The site offers interactive features: monthly/weekly/daily timelines, battle-specific filters (e.g., Avdiivka: ~10,000 RU vs. 12,000 UA), foreign volunteer breakdowns (562 RU, 1,083 UA — dominated by Colombians on the Ukrainian side), and graphs correlating Russian losses to territorial gains (average ~20 deaths per km² since January 2024; peak 80/km² during Avdiivka in January 2024).
This is transparent and evidence-based: figures come from verifiable sources, and the project invites critique and improvements in version 2.0 (e.g., integrating additional databases like MediaZona for comparison). Compared to official Ukrainian claims (1.2 million Russian losses) or Russian hack leaks (1.7 million Ukrainian deaths), this is far more grounded in actual named records.
Skepticism Toward Western Sources: An Interest in Portraying Russia as Losing
There is every reason to approach Western intelligence sources — such as US/UK agencies, The Economist, and CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) — with skepticism. These entities often estimate Russian losses at 300–400,000 dead or higher (e.g., CSIS’s 1.2 million total Russian casualties).
They are not neutral observers; they are active participants in the war through arms supplies, sanctions, and narrative shaping. The US and UK have invested billions in Ukrainian aid, and inflated Russian casualty figures help justify that support by depicting Russia as weakened and heading toward defeat.Their methodologies — frequently reliant on classified data without full transparency, excess mortality extrapolations, and modeling — lack the verifiable, name-based rigor of HistoryLegends’ work.
CSIS figures, for instance, partly draw from Ukrainian reports, which have clear incentives to exaggerate enemy losses.
I disagree with assessments from Grok (xAI), which assisted me in transcribing YouTube auto-captions and analyzing data from ukrainewarlosses.org. Grok’s analyses lean on these sources without demonstrating credible methodology. It estimates 250–350,000 Russian killed or missing and 120–180,000 Ukrainian (ratio 1.5–2:1), but offers no detailed breakdown of how US/UK intelligence or The Economist arrives at such numbers beyond vague references to satellite data and models.
This is unconvincing when those sources have a clear bias toward maximizing Russian losses for political ends.
Critique of HistoryLegends: insufficient emphasis on body exchanges
While HistoryLegends’ work is impressive, it places too little weight on the enormous disparity in body exchanges between Ukraine and Russia — an aspect the video debunks but does not fully explore.
Since November 2024, multiple humanitarian exchanges have seen Ukraine receive thousands of its fallen soldiers while Russia receives far fewer (e.g., total 15,480 Ukrainian bodies for 429 Russian in 2025–2026, a 36:1 ratio).
HistoryLegends correctly attributes this to territorial control: the side that advances and holds ground (usually Russia) retains its own dead within its lines, while the defender (often Ukraine) leaves bodies behind. A hypothetical scenario in the video illustrates how a 2:1 Russian loss ratio could still result in 150 Ukrainian bodies returned versus zero Russian.
Yet this explanation underplays the potential implication: if Russia controls more territory yet returns fewer bodies, it may indicate lower overall Russian losses — or systematic underreporting.
Data from Reuters reports supports this asymmetry (e.g., December 2025: 1,000 Ukrainian bodies for 26 Russian; January 2026: 1,000 Ukrainian for 38 Russian — see Reuters December 2025 and Reuters January 2026).
Below, I embed here a response from my friend Christen Krogvig, whom I have known since 2015. Christen has demonstrated genuine support for Ukraine through humanitarian aid and refugee assistance, yet he highlights the same disparity in body exchanges as painful evidence of the war’s asymmetry. He views Ukraine receiving far more of its fallen sons back than Russia does as a signal that Ukraine is paying a disproportionately high price in lives — what he calls a “meat grinder.” Christen advocates for swift peace negotiations to prevent further unnecessary Ukrainian deaths.His reply to US Congressman Don Bacon on February 16 — who promoted wildly inflated claims of 27 Russians killed per Ukrainian—received over 1,100 likes:
https://x.com/CkrogvigKrogvig/status/2023290308276973870
Conclusion: a valuable contribution in a polarized debate
HistoryLegends’ video and ukrainewarlosses.org provide an important corrective to inflated figures from all sides, prioritizing verifiable data over speculation. The sources offer a solid foundation, even as the project acknowledges limitations like underreporting.
Still, greater emphasis on aspects like body exchanges — documented by Reuters and others — is needed to grasp the full asymmetry.
In a war where truth is the first casualty, this reminds us to remain skeptical — especially toward Western sources, politicians, intelligence agencies, think tanks, and media that have staked everything on crushing Russia by any means necessary.
Also published in Norwegian, on the site Uten Filter, without filter in English, a conservative, anti-globalist magazine. Automated translation of my articles there.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
There is every reason to approach Western intelligence sources — such as…
Who funds Ukraine War Losses Tracker? They don’t say on their website or even provide a location. This tells me it’s part of the massive CIA propaganda effort. No one believed their previous BS, so rather than admit 5 Ukes for every Russian, they attempt to admit 1 to 1.1. With Russia using five times more firepower and far better trained troops, that is absurd.
Sorry I didn’t comment earlier; thank you for a very interesting and insightful post. I follow ‘HistoryLegends’ and, in my opinion, he is a pretty good source. Unlike most, he is very objective; while he points out Ukrainian lies, he also admits to Russian lies, which is rare nowadays. I actually missed this episode of his, so thank you for pointing it out to me. I also wrote a post and an analysis similar to yours about a year ago. From what I deduced, casualties were around 1 Ukrainian to 1.1 Russians. However, that was before support for Ukraine got… Read more »