- WIADOMOŚCI
Ukraine lost more soldiers in Kursk than in Bakhmut
The Kursk operation, carried out by the Ukrainian military on Russian territory in 2025, appeared to be a strategic plan aimed at diverting Russian troops from further advances in the Donbas. However, it turns out that more Ukrainians were killed in the Kursk Oblast than in the defence of Bakhmut.
Bakhmut was for years considered the bloodiest episode of the Russia-Ukraine war. According to Ukrainian estimates, as many as 30,000 Russians were killed there. Ukrainian losses are, as a rule, kept confidential; however, through an analysis by the LossesUA service, we can also gain insight into Ukrainian casualties.
The Kursk operation in numbers (DeepState maps, UALosses records) Ukraine held up to 902 km² of Kursk oblast (Sep 2024), about 430 km² by Feb 2025 and 80 km² by the end of Mar 2025. It cost 9,946 Ukrainian records there: 3,691 KIA, 5,760 MIA and 495 POW. Losses did not spike at the advance: 651 records in Aug 2024. They rose while Ukraine held shrinking ground, peaking at 1,397 in Dec 2024. In March 2025 the held area fell from 425 to 80 km². The number of losses stayed within the range of the months before (1,104), but 72% of them are MIA today, against 47–57% for the months before.
— Vitaly (@M0nstas) October 29, 2026
LossesUA is a data aggregator regarding the deaths and disappearances of Ukrainian soldiers. Analysts utilise open sources, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ missing persons databases and official obituaries published by local government bodies. This is not an ideal or fully precise method of counting casualties, but it provides a certain overview.
According to calculations from August 2024 – the commencement of the Kursk operation – to its conclusion in January 2025, Ukrainian losses reached nearly 10,000 people. Of these, almost 3,700 soldiers were killed, 5,700 are listed as missing, and nearly 500 were taken prisoner.
Ua losses updated their count, methodology and map on Ukrainian 🇺🇦 losses in the war, following KIA, MIA and POW Ukrainian losses : 🔸29k losses in 2022 🔸31k losses in 2023 🔸47k losses in 2024 🔸51k losses in 2025 🔸30k losses in 2026 The database is very useful : we have multiple units, WIA and POW, a map of losses and the possibility to track key battles of the war. The recent data is much better than the Russian one and includes MIA, which is the main difference with Mediazona's count of Russian losses (it is also less conservative). 🔸 ~2k Ukrainian soldiers died during the Kostiantynivka battle, most of which are MIA 🔸~4k Ukrainian soldiers died during the Pokrovsk battle 🔸~1.2k Ukrainian soldiers died in Krinky, Kherson oblast 🔸~6k Ukrainian soldiers died in the Bakhmut battle 🔸~2k soldiers died in the Robotyne counter-offensive and ~1k in the Velika Novosilka counter-offensive 🔸~8k Ukrainian soldiers died during the Kursk operation (all lenght of it) Check @LossesUA for details
— Clément Molin (@clement_molin) October 28, 2026
By comparison – in the defensive operation of the city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian losses reportedly amounted to approximately 8,000 killed and missing.
