It’s Europe’s largest conflict since World Conflict II. It’s additionally Russia’s deadliest conflict since that battle. And it has reshaped the worldwide financial system — with Moscow dealing with probably the most sanctions that any nation has ever encountered.
As Russia’s conflict on Ukraine completes 4 years on February 24, Al Jazeera takes inventory of what has been misplaced — the individuals, territory and the cash spent.
Individuals
Casualty numbers — fatalities and people injured and presumably incapacitated — range extensively, with Russia and Ukraine each presenting figures that amplify the losses of their enemies and downplay their very own losses.
Nonetheless, their contrasting numbers provide a way of the dimensions of demise and devastation.
Russia’s conflict in Ukraine is estimated to have prompted roughly two million navy casualties in all.
Ukraine’s General Staff estimated that some 418,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded final yr, bringing complete Russian casualties for the conflict to only over 1.25 million.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) final month agreed, estimating that Russia had suffered 1.2 million casualties, together with not less than 325,000 deaths, from the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022 till December 2025. Ukraine estimated an extra 31,680 Russian casualties in January 2026.
“These numbers are extraordinary. No main energy has suffered anyplace close to these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any conflict since World Conflict II,” stated the CSIS in its report.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month stated 55,000 Ukrainian troopers had been killed in the whole conflict.
The CSIS estimated Ukraine had suffered as much as 600,000 casualties, with as many as 140,000 deaths.
Al Jazeera can not affirm casualty estimates from both facet.
Ukraine believes Russian mortality charges on the entrance strains are rising to ranges that can not be sustained by the present technique of voluntary recruitment.
“In December, 35,000 occupiers have been eradicated – and this has been confirmed with video footage,” Zelenskyy said in early January, evaluating this to 30,000 deaths in November, and 26,000 in October.
The CSIS agrees that Russian casualties have been rising all through the conflict.
“Why are Russian casualties and fatalities so excessive?” the CSIS requested. “There are a number of potential explanations, similar to Russia’s failure to successfully conduct mixed arms and joint warfare, poor techniques and coaching, corruption, low morale, and Ukraine’s efficient defence-in-depth technique in a conflict that favors the protection.”
Ukraine has moreover suffered vital civilian deaths.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) believes 15,168 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 41,534 wounded throughout 4 years of full-scale conflict.
It additionally believes the conflict is turning into extra harmful for civilians, with 2025 the deadliest yr thus far.
The open-source challenge Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) stated that not less than 2,919 Ukrainian civilians had been killed and 17,775 injured in 2025, largely from Russian drone strikes in Ukraine but in addition from actions in Russian-occupied areas. The figures represented a rise from 2024.
Along with navy and civilian casualties, Ukraine has misplaced a couple of quarter of its pre-war inhabitants of 42 million.
Some 5 million individuals have been residing below Russian occupation, estimated the federal government in 2023.
One other 5.9 million Ukrainians have left the nation, 5.4 million of them for Europe, estimates the UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees.
Lastly, Ukraine says 1000’s of kids have been kidnapped from occupied territories to be raised in Russia and re-educated as Russians. The Yale School of Medicine estimates there are greater than 19,000 abductees. Regardless of persistent pleas, Ukraine says, only one,238 have been returned.
Territory
At its zenith in March 2022, Russia’s invasion held 26 % of Ukraine, according to geolocated footage catalogued by the Institute for the Examine of Conflict, a Washington-based assume tank. That included Crimea, which Russia had seized in January 2014, and huge elements of the jap areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, the place pro-Russian separatist forces had fought Kyiv’s forces since February 2014.
The next month, Ukraine pushed Russia again from a string of northern cities – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv – leaving Russia in possession of 20 % of the nation.
In August and September of 2022, Ukraine’s then-ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrskii masterminded a marketing campaign to push Russia east of the Oskil River within the northern Kharkiv area, and Russia itself withdrew east of the Dnipro River within the southern area of Kherson, leaving it with 17.8 % of the nation.
Within the final three years, the conflict has been largely frozen: Russia has struggled to make any significant territorial positive factors. Throughout this time, Russian troops have inched ahead whereas they suffered staggering losses to boost the territory below occupation to 19.3 % of Ukraine by December 2025 – roughly 116,000sq km (44,800 sq miles).
Cash
Russia’s navy spending surged from slightly below $66bn in 2021 to $102bn in 2022, the primary yr of its full-scale invasion, after which as much as $109bn in 2023, in accordance with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Then, in 2024, defence spending surged to $149bn, stated SIPRI.
Estimates range for Russia’s defence spending in 2025. In accordance with Janis Kluge, a researcher with the German Institute for Worldwide and Safety Affairs, it went up once more, to $142bn for simply the primary 9 months of the yr — which, extrapolated for the entire yr, would have surpassed 2024’s $149bn spending.
However according to Craig Kennedy, an economist at Harvard College’s Davis Middle for Russian and Eurasian Research, precise Russian defence spending was on observe to fall by 15 % total final yr due to last-quarter finances cuts following an out-of-control deficit, and due to a drop in financial institution lending to the defence industrial base.
“Funding for the conflict in 2025, together with state-directed lending to arms producers, is on observe to contract by 15 % this yr,” he instructed Al Jazeera final October.
In accordance with paperwork seen by Reuters information company, Moscow is on observe to chop defence spending by not less than 7 % in 2026 as effectively.
Ukraine’s defence spending has additionally shot up, from $6.9bn in 2021 to $41bn within the first yr of the full-scale invasion, and $65bn for every of 2023 and 2024, in accordance with SIPRI. Its 2025 defence finances was raised final October to a document $71bn.
These will increase have been funded by Ukraine’s allies, primarily the European Union and the USA, which have collectively contributed greater than $300bn to Ukraine in navy and budgetary assist since 2022.
After Donald Trump was sworn in as US president in January 2025, the US withdrew 99 % of its assist, shifting the monetary burden onto Europe.
But in accordance with the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker, assist to Ukraine remained secure after the US withdrawal as a result of Europe elevated its contribution by about two-thirds. Final yr, Europe contributed about $70bn in navy and monetary help to Ukraine, whereas the US contribution fell to $0.4bn.
Russia has an extra monetary value. Half of its central financial institution’s gold and international change reserves – some $300bn – are held in Western monetary establishments, together with $230bn in Belgium. These have been immobilised, that means that Russia can not entry the funds or earn proceeds from them. In Could 2024, the EU determined to award these proceeds to Ukraine, allocating 90 % to navy wants and 10 % for reconstruction.
The EU has immobilised an extra $33bn in Russian non-public wealth belonging to sanctioned people.
