The war between Russia and Ukraine, the deadliest conflict seen in Europe since World War II, celebrates its 1,000th day today. More than one million people have reportedly been killed or seriously injured since the beginning of the war.
Ukraine’s cities, towns and villages have been devastated and now lie in ruins, amid the grim reality of the deadliest war of the 21st century. The loss of human life and material wealth continues to mount in a never-ending series of heart-wrenching stories emerging from the war-torn country.
Ukraine is now more vulnerable than at any time since the beginning of the war.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, “According to people familiar with the matter, a confidential Ukrainian estimate earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian soldiers at 80,000 and the number of wounded at 400,000. Western intelligence estimates about Russian casualties vary, with some putting the number of dead at The numbers are said to be as high as 200,000 and as many as 400,000 injured.”
Russia and Ukraine both have declining populations and were already struggling before the war. The staggering number of deaths caused by the war will have far-reaching demographic implications for both countries.
civilian deaths
While the approximately one million casualties include mostly soldiers and paramilitary personnel, civilian casualties in Ukraine as of August 31, 2024 have been documented at at least 11,743 killed and 24,614 wounded. These figures are according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
UN and Ukrainian officials say the actual number of deaths and injuries is likely much higher, adding that deaths and injuries are difficult to confirm, especially in areas like Mariupol that are now in Russian hands. As of November 14, 2024, 589 Ukrainian children have also been killed.
According to a Reuters report, thousands of people have been killed in intense fighting amid sustained artillery fire on heavily fortified forward lines coupled with increased attacks by tanks, armored vehicles and infantry on trenches. The report also noted that both sides closely monitor their own military loss numbers as national security secrets, and that Western public estimates vary widely based on intelligence reports.
It is estimated that Russia also suffered heavy losses in terms of military deaths, with over 1,000 soldiers killed per day during the intense periods of the war. Ukrainian President Zelensky said in February, 2024 that more than 31,000 Ukrainian service members were killed, which analysts believe is a very conservative estimate.
Due to the war Ukraine’s birthrate has fallen to one third of what it was 2.5 years before the war began. While more than four million people have been displaced within Ukraine, the war has caused more than six million Ukrainian citizens to flee abroad – mostly to European countries. Not only has Ukraine’s death rate from causes other than war increased since the conflict began, United Nations estimates show that Ukraine’s population has declined by more than 10 million people, half of its total population. That’s about a quarter, suggesting that 25 percent of the population has died. Was erased.
lost area
News agency Reuters reported that Russia now controls about a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have taken over an area the size of Greece. It said Moscow’s forces attacked northern, eastern and southern Ukraine in early 2022, reaching the outskirts of Kiev in the north and crossing the Dnipro River in the south.
Moscow has also captured almost the entire Donbass region in the east of Ukraine and the entire coast of the Sea of Azov in the south.
Reuters reports that many cities in the frontline zone captured by Moscow have been destroyed, the largest of them being the Azov port of Mariupol, which had a population of about half a million before the war. Over the past year, Russia has gradually increased its stake in intense fighting, primarily in Donbass. Ukraine, for its part, launched its first large-scale attack on Russian territory in August and has captured a portion of the Kursk region in western Russia.
economic impact
In 2022, Ukraine’s economy shrank by about a third (33 percent) compared with before the war. However, in 2023, the war-torn country made a modest comeback and managed to reduce economic losses to about 22 percent of its original size.
According to a Reuters report, the latest available assessments from the World Bank, the European Commission, the United Nations and the Ukrainian government found that direct war damage in Ukraine could reach $152 billion by December 2023, along with housing, transport, commerce and industry, energy Had reached. And agriculture is the most affected sector.
The total cost of reconstruction and recovery was estimated at $486 billion by the end of December last year by the World Bank and the Ukrainian government. According to data from the Ministry of Economy, this figure is 2.8 times higher than Ukraine’s nominal GDP in 2023.
Ukraine’s electricity sector has been particularly badly hit, with Russia regularly targeting infrastructure in long-range attacks. Ukraine is also one of the world’s main sources of grain, and the interruption of its exports at the beginning of the war worsened the global food crisis. Exports have since recovered largely because Ukraine has actually found ways to circumvent the Russian blockade.
Roksolana Pidlassa, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s budget committee, said Kiev is losing more than $140 million every day in the war. The draft 2025 budget envisages that about 26% of Ukraine’s GDP, or 2.2 trillion hryvnia ($53.3 billion), will be spent on defense. Ukraine has already received more than $100 billion of financial assistance from its Western partners.
What we know as Ukraine today was once part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Vladimir Putin has stated on several occasions that he wants to bring Ukraine back into the Russian Federation. President Putin has refused to recognize Ukrainian identity and statehood and claims that the people of Ukraine, who are mostly Slavic or Orthodox Christians, are actually the Russian people.
