At 100 Days, Russia-Ukraine War by the Numbers

A view of the city of Mariupol on June 2, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (AFP)
A view of the city of Mariupol on June 2, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (AFP)
TT

At 100 Days, Russia-Ukraine War by the Numbers

A view of the city of Mariupol on June 2, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (AFP)
A view of the city of Mariupol on June 2, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (AFP)

One hundred days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war has brought the world a near-daily drumbeat of gut wrenching scenes: Civilian corpses in the streets of Bucha; a blown-up theater in Mariupol; the chaos at a Kramatorsk train station in the wake of a Russian missile strike.

Those images tell just a part of the overall picture of Europe's worst armed conflict in decades. Here's a look at some numbers and statistics that - while in flux and at times uncertain - shed further light on the death, destruction, displacement and economic havoc wrought by the war as it reaches this milestone with no end in sight.

The human toll
Nobody really knows how many combatants or civilians have died, and claims of casualties by government officials - who may sometimes be exaggerating or low-balling their figures for public relations reasons - are all but impossible to verify.

Government officials, UN agencies and others who carry out the grim task of counting the dead don't always get access to places where people were killed.

And Moscow has released scant information about casualties among its forces and allies, and given no accounting of civilian deaths in areas under its control. In some places - such as the long-besieged city of Mariupol, potentially the war's biggest killing field - Russian forces are accused of trying to cover up deaths and dumping bodies into mass graves, clouding the overall toll.

With all those caveats, "at least tens of thousands" of Ukrainian civilians have died so far, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday in comments to Luxembourg's parliament.

In Mariupol alone, officials have reported over 21,000 civilian dead. Sievierodonetsk, a city in the eastern region of Luhansk that has become the focus of Russia’s offensive, has seen roughly 1,500 casualties, according to the mayor.

Such estimates comprise both those killed by Russian strikes or troops and those who succumbed to secondary effects such as hunger and sickness as food supplies and health services collapsed.

Zelenskyy said this week that 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying in combat every day, with about 500 more wounded.

Russia's last publicly released figures for its own forces came March 25, when a general told state media that 1,351 soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded.

Ukraine and Western observers say the real number is much higher: Zelenskyy said Thursday that more than 30,000 Russian servicemen have died - "more than the Soviet Union lost in 10 years of the war in Afghanistan"; in late April, the British government estimated Russian losses at 15,000.

Speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday to discuss intelligence matters, a Western official said Russia is "still taking casualties, but ... in smaller numbers." The official estimated that some 40,000 Russian troops have been wounded.

In Moscow-backed separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine, authorities have reported over 1,300 fighters lost and nearly 7,500 wounded in the Donetsk region, along with 477 dead civilians and nearly 2,400 wounded; plus 29 civilians killed and 60 wounded in Luhansk.

The devastation
Relentless shelling, bombing and airstrikes have reduced large swaths of many cities and towns to rubble.

Ukraine’s parliamentary commission on human rights says Russia's military has destroyed almost 38,000 residential buildings, rendering about 220,000 people homeless.

Nearly 1,900 educational facilities from kindergartens to grade schools to universities have been damaged, including 180 completely ruined.

Other infrastructure losses include 300 car and 50 rail bridges, 500 factories and about 500 damaged hospitals, according to Ukrainian officials.

The World Health Organization has tallied 296 attacks on hospitals, ambulances and medical workers in Ukraine this year.

Fleeing home
The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that about 6.8 million people have been driven out of Ukraine at some point during the conflict.

But since fighting subsided in the area near Kyiv and elsewhere, and Russian forces redeployed to the east and south, about 2.2 million have returned to the country, it says.

The UN's International Organization for Migration estimates that as of May 23 there were more than 7.1 million internally displaced people - that is, those who fled their homes but remain in the country. That's down from over 8 million in an earlier count.

Land seized
Ukrainian officials say that before the February invasion, Russia controlled some 7% of Ukrainian territory including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and areas held by the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.

On Thursday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces now held 20% of the country.

While the front lines are constantly shifting, that amounts to an additional 58,000 square kilometers (22,000 square miles) under Russian control, a total area slightly larger than Croatia or a little smaller than the US state of West Virginia.

The economic fallout in Russia and Ukraine ...
The West has levied a host of retaliatory sanctions against Moscow including on the crucial oil and gas sectors, and Europe is beginning to wean itself from its dependence on Russian energy.

Evgeny Gontmakher, academic director of European Dialogue, wrote in a paper this week that Russia currently faces over 5,000 targeted sanctions, more than any other country. Some $300 billion of Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves in the West have been frozen, he added, and air traffic in the country dropped from 8.1 million to 5.2 million passengers between January and March.

Additionally, the Kyiv School of Economics has reported that more than 1,000 "self-sanctioning" companies have curtailed their operations in Russia.

The MOEX Russia stock index has plunged by about a quarter since just before the invasion and is down nearly 40 percent from the start of the year. And the Russian Central Bank said last week that annualized inflation came in at 17.8 percent in April.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has reported suffering a staggering economic blow: 35% of GDP wiped out by the war.

"Our direct losses today exceed $600 billion," Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office, said recently.

Ukraine, a major agricultural producer, says it has been unable to export some 22 million tons of grain. It blames a backlog of shipments on Russian blockades or capture of key ports. Zelenskyy accused Russia this week of stealing at least a half-million tons of grain during the invasion.

... And the world
The fallout has rippled around the globe, further driving up costs for basic goods on top of inflation that was already in full swing in many places before the invasion.

Crude oil prices in London and New York have risen by 20 to 25 percent, resulting in higher prices at the pump and for an array of petroleum-based products.

Developing countries are being squeezed particularly hard by higher costs of food, fuel and financing, according to economist Richard Kozul-Wright of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

Wheat supplies have been disrupted in African nations, which imported 44% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine in the years immediately before the invasion. The African Development Bank has reported a 45% increase in continental prices for the grain, affecting everything from Mauritanian couscous to the fried donuts sold in Congo.



Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
TT

Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights

Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 24 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.

In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said. Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, 12 people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month. The military says it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.

Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge - Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun - said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.

An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.

"The strike also destroyed the hospital's main generator, and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital," it added. It said 85 wounded people including children and women were inside, eight in the ICU.

Later on Friday, the Gaza health ministry said all hospital services across the enclave would stop within 48 hours unless fuel shipments are permitted, blaming restrictions which Israel says are designed to stop fuel being used by Hamas.

Gazans saw the ICC's decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave's plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.

"The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable," said Saber Abu Ghali, as he waited for his turn in the crowd.

Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said even if justice were to arrive, it would be decades late: "We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven't done anything for us."

Since Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.

The court's prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of the top Hamas commander Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif. Israel says it has already killed him, which Hamas has not confirmed.

Israel says Hamas is to blame for all harm to Gaza's civilians, for operating among them, which Hamas denies.

Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war. Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step towards justice.

Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt backed by the United States to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.