100 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the world is witness to a constant stream of heartbreaking scenes.
These images are only a small part of the story of Europe’s most severe armed conflict in decades. Let’s take a look at some statistics and numbers that, while still in flux and sometimes uncertain, shed more light on the destruction, death and economic havoc caused by the war, as it reaches this point with no end in sight.
THE HUMAN TOLL
It is impossible to know how many civilians or combatants have been killed.
U.N. agencies, government officials and other people who perform the grim task to count the dead often don’t have access to the places where the victims were killed.
Moscow has not provided any information on casualties among its forces or its allies and has not given an accounting of civilian deaths in its areas. Some places, such as Mariupol, the long-held city and potential war’s most deadly field, are under Russian control. Russian forces have been accused of covering up deaths and dumped bodies in mass graves to cloud the total toll.
All those caveats aside, “at most tens of thousands” of civilians from Ukraine have been killed so far, President Volodymyr Zilenskyy stated Thursday in comments to Luxembourg’s parliament.
Officials have reported more than 21,000 civilian deaths in Mariupol. According to the mayor, approximately 1,500 civilians have been killed in Russia’s offensive in Sievierodonetsk.
These estimates include both the deaths of Russian troops or strikes and those who died secondary to these effects, such as hunger and illness due to collapsed food supplies.
Zelenskyy stated this week that 60-100 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in combat each day and 500 others are wounded.
Russia’s last publicly available figures regarding its own forces were March 25, when a general stated to state media that 1,351 soldiers had died and 3,825 were wounded.
Ukraine and Western observers believe the actual number is higher. Zelenskyy claimed Thursday that more Russian servicemen had died, “more than the Soviet Union lost during 10 years of war in Afghanistan.” In late April, the British government put the Russian loss at 15,000
A Western official spoke Wednesday under anonymity to discuss intelligence issues. He said that Russia was “still taking casualties but… in smaller numbers.”
Moscow-backed separatist enclaves of eastern Ukraine have been reported by authorities as having lost over 1,300 fighters and nearly 7,500 wounds in Donetsk, along with 477 civilians killed, nearly 2,400 wounded, and 29 civilians wounded in Luhansk.
