Four years later: The Russia-Ukraine war by the numbers
What began as what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” has hardened into Europe’s largest and deadliest conflict since World War II, experts say.
The Russia-Ukraine war is entering its fifth year this week as both sides remain locked in a grinding stalemate.
What began as what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” has hardened into Europe’s largest and deadliest conflict since World War II, a protracted conflict in which neither side appears willing to give ground on the battlefield, experts say.
“It’s been sort of a slow drag-out, or what many call a war of attrition,” said Peter Fraunholtz, assistant teaching professor in history and international affairs at Northeastern University, adding that it has, and will continue to be, “a very resource-intensive conflict.”
Here is a look at the war as it’s played out over four years, by the numbers.
Casualties
Official casualty figures for the Ukraine War remain highly uncertain and variable. Counts from both sides differ, and independent estimates vary widely, with experts noting that deaths both directly and indirectly as a result of the war are difficult to verify.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that monitors the war, in January put total Russian casualties at over 1.2 million, including up to 325,000 deaths. The think tank noted Ukrainian military casualties at around 600,000, with roughly 140,000 killed. Casualties include those killed, wounded and missing.
Other outfits have different sources and methods. A joint estimate by the BBC Russian Service, the BBC’s Russian-language branch, and Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, identified the names of 186,102 Russian soldiers killed in the war, they reported this month. The two organizations put Ukrainian losses at around 200,000.
According to CSIS, Russian forces have suffered roughly two to two-and-a-half casualties for every Ukrainian soldier lost.
Russia last published its own death toll in September 2022, when it said it had incurred about 6,000 military losses.
Displaced by war
The war has also triggered one of the largest displacement crises in Europe since World War II, forcing millions from their homes.
As of February 2026, about 3.7 million people were internally displaced within Ukraine and roughly 5.9 million Ukrainians had registered as refugees abroad, according to data from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. refugee agency that tracks and assists people uprooted by conflict.
All in all, more than 10.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the war, according to the agency.
Military assets
Both sides deployed vast numbers of artillery, armored vehicles and aircraft, with Ukraine increasingly relying on drone warfare for reconnaissance and strikes. Russia, meanwhile, fields thousands of tanks, artillery systems and combat drones in its ongoing offensive operations.
According to Russia Matters, an academic research outfit that issues monthly reports on the war, Russia has lost roughly 24,000 military vehicles and pieces of equipment, including about 13,800 tanks and armored vehicles, 361 aircraft and 29 naval vessels. Ukraine’s losses, by comparison, have totaled roughly 11,300 military vehicles and equipment, including 5,570 tanks and armored vehicles, 194 aircraft and 42 naval vessels, according to the news digest.
Peace talks
There have been numerous attempts at peace talks since Russia’s initial invasion. In 2022, there were at least five rounds of talks, including three in Belarus and two in Turkey, before the negotiations broke down in April of that year.
China also attempted to broker peace between the sides, putting a 12-point peace plan forward in 2023 that tried to negotiate an end to the war. Ukraine largely rejected the proposal as favoring Russian interests.
Then came the latest round of negotiations following President Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory in which he promised to press the sides to come up with a deal to end the war.
The administration’s peace initiative went through several iterations, calling for a negotiated ceasefire, security guarantees and territorial compromises. But both Kyiv and Moscow expressed skepticism and, after a visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15, 2025, the proposal did not lead to a formal agreement.
Territorial changes
Four years since the invasion, Russia controls roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, according to estimates from the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank that monitors the war. That 20% occupied by Russia had been taken fairly early on in the war, Fraunholtz said.
Today, Russian forces occupy significant swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine — including large parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, as well as the Crimean Peninsula annexed in 2014.
Altogether, the occupied territories amount to roughly 116,000 square kilometers (about 46,000 square miles) — an area about the size of Pennsylvania, according to reporting from the Kyiv Independent, an English language news outlet. In 2025, Russia gained roughly 4,800 square kilometers of territory, the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, a Washington, D.C.-based defense and security think tank, has reported.
But an ISW assessment published this week shows that Russian forces remain largely bogged down in sluggish offensive operations, with limited territorial breakthroughs along eastern and southern Ukraine. While Russia still holds significant footholds on the frontlines and seeks to capture additional ground, including full control of Donetsk Oblast, the pace of advancement has been slow, ISW analysts note.
“The lines haven’t really moved that much” since the start of the war, Fraunholtz said.
