Russian Soldiers Injured in Combat in Ukraine Far More Likely to Die than Their Predecessors or Combatants Elsewhere, Kyiv’s ‘Come Back Alive Initiative’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 30 – The ration of killed to wounded has always been “a key indicator of an army’s viability,” Ukrainian commentator Yury Fedorenko says. In the distant past, armies typically suffered far more wounded than dead; in World War II, the ratio was three wounded to every death; and in Afghanistan, ten wounded for each death.

            And because of this trend, the Ukrainian writer says, most people assumed that in modern war, with advances in medicine, better transportation an logistics, even more of the wounded would survive and fight again. But in the case of Putin’s war in Ukraine, that has not been happening (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/1/30/671817/).

            Instead, he says, as Ukraine’s “Come Back Alive Initiative” has documented, slightly more than half of all Russians wounded in combat in Ukraine are dying, the result of the strategy and tactics of both armies and the failure of the Russian command to evacuate and provide medical treatment to the wounded in an effective way.

            “More than half” of Russian losses are thus “irreversible;” and Moscow has to send a disproportionately larger number of men to the front each month just to keep the size of its forces at the current level. “Every month,” this task gets “harder and harder,” the Ukrainian commentator says.

More than half of the losses are irreversible. This can only mean one thing: the human resource of the enemy is being wiped out at an unprecedented speed. Russia needs to bring more than 35,000 new creatures to the frontline just to keep the numbers on the frontline every month. Every month it gets harder and harder.

            That Russian losses are mounting has been frequently and well documented (e.g., bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/russia-s-war-death-tally-spurs-european-scrutiny-on-recruitment), but there is as yet no independent confirmation of the Return Alive figures, although they are quite plausible given reports of rising deaths among Russian troops.

            Kyiv, of course, has a vested interest in promoting such statistics given that they will only add to fears among Russians that being called or bribed into service in Ukraine is likely to be a death sentence; but Moscow has if anything even more compelling reasons for not releasing such data lest it face even more difficulties in meeting its military manpower needs.