The NY Times LIes About Russian and Ukrainian Casualties

2 July 2026 by Larry C. Johnson

The NY Times published an outrageous article on Wednesday that perpetuates the myth that Ukraine is inflicting massive casualties on Russia. I suppose this is just another part of the propaganda game to deceive the US public about Ukraine’s chances to prevail in the war with Russia. Let’s start with the NY Times ridiculous assertions:

Russian Casualties: Estimated at over 1.1 million total (killed and wounded) since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Russia is losing soldiers at a high rate but continues to replenish forces through recruitment and convicts. Russian Killed in Action (KIA): Approximately 350,000 – 400,000.

Ukrainian Casualties: Estimated at around 400,000–500,000 total (killed and wounded). Ukraine’s losses have been severe, particularly in 2025–2026, due to Russian artillery and drone superiority. Ukrainian Killed in Action (KIA): Approximately 180,000 – 220,000.

This is utter nonsense. Let’s start with the Russian/Ukrainian exchange of soldiers bodies. The exchanges have had two distinct phases. Starting in March 2022, the Russians and Ukrainians did informal, small-scale repatriations, which continued intermittently through 2022, 2023, and 2024. The exchanges were facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross as one of the very few working humanitarian channels between the two sides even after diplomatic ties were severed.

The large-scale, regularized program began on June 11, 2025, when the first formal exchange under the Istanbul Agreements took place — 1,212 Ukrainian bodies were returned in that initial transfer. The Istanbul framework, agreed during direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Turkey in late May and early June 2025, committed both sides to exchange 6,000 bodies each on a roughly monthly basis going forward.

Since June 2025, the ratio of Ukrainian bodies returned versus Russian bodies returned runs at approximately 35–37 to 1. As Kyiv-based analytical platform VoxUkraine has explained, this directly reflects the ground war’s asymmetry: advancing Russian forces capture Ukrainian positions and the bodies of Ukrainian defenders who died holding them, while Ukraine recovers comparatively few Russian bodies in return. In other words, there is no stalemate and Ukraine is retreating, not advancing since June 2025.

As of December 2025, the Kyiv Post put the total Ukrainian bodies returned at around 16,000 since the start of the full-scale invasion. Adding the three documented 2026 exchanges through April (3,000 more), the figure stands at approximately 19,000 Ukrainian bodies repatriated in total. This contrasts sharply with Russia’s total KIA recovered in the same period — roughly 500–600 bodies. Yet the NY Times wants you to believe that Russia is suffering more than double the casualties of Ukraine.

Next, let’s look at the disparity in artillery fires. Artillery, through mid-2025, remained the primary weapon for killing and wounding soldiers on both sides. Across the full war, Russia has fired approximately 3 to 4 times more artillery rounds than Ukraine — consistent with RUSI’s assessment that “Russia has fired about four times more rounds than Ukraine, on average, since the start of the invasion.” The ratio varied dramatically within that average: as low as 1:1 briefly in summer 2023 when Ukraine’s Western ammunition arrived in volume, and as high as 10:1 in the worst months of early 2024.

The most significant recent development is what West Point’s Modern War Institute described as the “industrial window” problem. In 2025, Russia produced approximately 7 million rounds per year — roughly 19,000 per day — while consuming an estimated 10,000–15,000 per day. This means Russia in 2025 was rebuilding its stockpiles, not drawing them down, for the first time since 2022. The “window closes” for Russia only if Western supply to Ukraine can either push Ukrainian consumption above Russian production, or if Ukrainian deep strikes on ammunition plants and depots sufficiently degrade Russian throughput.

The following tables illustrate the horrific disparity in artillery fires:

Once again, the NY Times wants you to believe that Russia, which is firing almost four times the number of artillery shells than Ukraine, is suffering double the casualties.

What about drones? Russia is inflicting significantly more damage on Ukraine through its drone campaign than Ukraine is inflicting on Russia through its equivalent program. Russia launched more than 54,000 Shahed-type drones against Ukraine in 2025 alone, at a sustained rate of 135–200 per day. Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign against Russia has achieved genuine operational results — the refinery strikes are documented, the damage to Russian fuel supply is real, and Putin’s public admission of a domestic fuel crisis confirms this. But the scale and human cost of what Ukraine is absorbing vastly exceeds what Russia is absorbing.

Ukraine’s problems from Russia’s drone campaign are existential pressures on a society that is already absorbing 30,000–34,000 military casualties per month. In short, Russia’s drone force is larger, is producing at greater scale, is hitting more targets successfully, and is inflicting more damage on its adversary. Yet, to hammer home the point again, the NY Times wants you to believe that Russia is suffering double the casualties of Ukraine.

Last, but certainly not least, do not forget about the FAB glide bombs. The term is used loosely to cover Soviet-era free-fall bombs — FAB-500 (500kg), FAB-1000 (1,000kg), FAB-1500 (1,500kg), and FAB-3000 (3,000kg) — fitted with the UMPK (Universal Glide and Correction Module) kit, a roughly $20,000 add-on package of pop-out wings and satellite guidance that converts a dumb iron bomb into a guided glide munition. The UMPK gives the FAB-500 a range of 60–70km, and newer versions extend that to 100–200km.

Since 2023 Russia has dropped approximately 125,000–135,000 glide bombs on Ukrainian defensive positions. The glide bomb campaign has played a significant role in Russia’s military advances. The fall of Avdiivka, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk were each preceded by intensive glide bomb preparation that destroyed fortifications faster than Ukraine could repair or reinforce them. And yet the NY Times wants us to believe that these bombs barely killed or wounded Ukrainian soldiers manning defensive positions… Right! 125,000 bombs and few, if any, casualties.

Finally, let’s turn to MediaZona. According to data collected through cross-referenced open sources — i.e., obituaries, civil death certificates, geo-located graves, social media announcements, regional media reports, funeral notices, and cemetery records — the Russian KIA, confirmed by name, is 227,700 as of June 19, 2026. This is the running total of individual Russian military deaths that Mediazona, BBC News Russian, and a team of volunteers have confirmed.

The West continues to lie about Russian losses while blithely ignoring Ukraine’s staggering losses… Ukrainian KIA are estimated to be in excess of 1.5 million. And they died for what? Sacrificed to Western hegemonic ambitions.

Here is my latest Counter Currents video… only 12 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7-8rPSsy3M