Russia's costly invasion

Russian President Vladimir Putin heads to China this week to meet his counterpart Xi Jinping. Under the leadership of these two men, who have met dozens of times, Russia and China have forged what they call a “no limits” partnership. Russia is a major source of natural resources for China, while Beijing has helped Moscow weather increasingly harsh Western sanctions and technology restrictions triggered by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

That conflict will certainly be on the agenda for Putin and Xi, especially as the costs for Putin mount while the gains start to evaporate.

On the ground, Russia has begun to lose territory regularly for the first time in nearly three years. Meanwhile, Putin’s economy is struggling: after an initial war-related production boost, Russia is now suffering labor shortages, inflation, and rising deficits. Even the recent oil price spike resulting from the Iran war hasn’t been much help: Moscow last week cut its economic growth forecast for this year from 1.3% to 0.4%.

But the true cost for Russia is human: Russia’s battlefield losses in Ukraine since 2022 are staggering. As many as 350,000 Russian troops have been killed, according to an estimate by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona. The total number of Russia’s dead, wounded, and missing likely exceeds a million.

In fact, as the graphic truth above shows, Russian fatalities in Ukraine surpass all combat-related deaths suffered by the US in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and Russia’s post-Soviet wars in Chechnya – combined.

Yes, you read that right: combined. This is Moscow’s deadliest military engagement since World War II, when the Soviet Union lost tens of millions of people. Ukraine, for its part, has suffered as many as 150,000 dead of its own.

And yet the conflict drags on. Putin still believes he can take more land in order to “raise the price” at eventual peace talks. Ukraine, undaunted after more than four years of full scale defensive war, refuses to cede territory or agree to a shaky peace.

As Putin heads east for talks with his biggest external backers in Beijing, there seems little prospect of an end to the fighting, or the death toll, in Ukraine.