Information about Ukrainian Armed Forces losses over the course of the conflict has recently become public after Russian hackers reportedly gained access to the electronic database of Ukraine’s General Staff.

According to the leaked figures, Ukraine lost more than 118,000 servicemen in 2022. The number rose sharply in 2023, exceeding 405,000, and reached 595,000 in 2024. In the first eight months of 2025 alone, the losses were reported at 621,000. Altogether, the total was estimated at around 1.7 million.

Grigory Kryukov, deputy head of the Russian Union of Afghan and Special Operations Veterans and one of the developers of a mathematical model for calculating losses, suggested that the data may be close to reality. He stressed, however, that these should be understood as cumulative losses, including not only those killed, but also the wounded, prisoners, and deserters.

Based on his calculations, the number of irretrievable losses — those who will never return to service — stands at about 400,000. The rest include over a million wounded and a smaller proportion of deserters. Kryukov explained that military assessments typically use a ratio of one to three, meaning that for every soldier killed, three others are incapacitated through injury, capture, or desertion. He also noted that inflating casualty figures serves no purpose, as it does not change the situation on the battlefield.

In his view, Ukraine is gradually approaching the limit of its mobilization capacity. The country is believed to be capable of mobilizing between 1.2 and 1.5 million people. If irretrievable losses reach 400,000, this could pose a severe challenge, potentially triggering a systemic crisis in the armed forces and even threatening the viability of the state itself. Kryukov warned that exceeding mobilization limits — drafting virtually everyone into service — risks undermining the economy and accelerating the decline of the state.