Washington Post: The staggering numbers of the Russia-Ukraine war

The Washington Post said that Russia has spent about $300 billion, lost more than 150,000 people and displaced more than 10 million citizens, in a war that killed tens of thousands in Ukraine, displaced millions, and dramatically changed the security landscape in Europe.

The Washington Post indicated a report that US President Donald Trump began to doubt, three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, future US support for Kiev, and held direct talks with Russia, and attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, complaining about the cost of US aid to Ukraine.

The Washington Post presented a numbered tally, which it said gives a picture, as the war enters its fourth year, of the human, regional and financial costs, as follows:

The number of Ukrainians displaced has reached 10.6 million, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, including 3.7 million inside the country and 6.9 million abroad, mostly in Russia, Germany and Poland.

The UNHCR said 1.5 million Ukrainian children are at risk of long-term mental health consequences from the war.

The Washington Post pointed out that more than two million homes, or about 10% of the housing stock in Ukraine, were destroyed, in addition to 153 thousand people, as a minimum estimate, soldiers and civilians, who were killed in the war, although the real number is more than that, especially since Russia and Ukraine greatly reduced their losses.

According to figures verified by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 12,654 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, and the real number may be much higher, given the impossibility of confirming deaths in Russian-occupied areas.

More than 95,000 Russian military personnel have been killed, according to researchers from the Russian media outlet Medizona and the BBC’s Russian service.

Zelensky told NBC this month that Ukraine had lost 46,000 soldiers, with tens of thousands missing in action or in captivity.

The Ukrainian territories under Russian control account for 20%, according to the newspaper.

Russia had controlled the Crimean Peninsula since 2014 before the invasion.

The separatists also control Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which are part of the Donbas region, while Ukraine now controls the Russian Kursk region.

Ukraine has lowered the conscription age to 25, and Russia has expanded its military, raising the maximum age for compulsory service from 27 to 30 in July 2023, as the minimum age remains 18.

The Washington Post said that the United States has spent $65.9 billion so far on military aid since the Russian invasion, according to State Department figures, and a congressional report in January indicated that Washington has allocated about $174.2 billion for Russia’s war against Ukraine from 2022 to 2024, a figure that includes assistance through the US Agency for International Development, the World Bank and other agencies.

The United States has used what is known as emergency presidential withdrawal authority 55 times since August 2021 to provide military aid to Ukraine worth approximately $27.6 billion from Department of Defense stockpiles.

The Western allies also agreed to step up arms supplies to Ukraine, including US Abrams tanks and German Leopard tanks, as well as 12 advanced surface-to-air missile systems with ammunition, three Patriot batteries, more than 40 self-propelled guns, more than 400 armored personnel carriers, and more than 300 Bradley fighting vehicles.

EU countries, along with the UK and Norway, would have to mobilize 300,000 troops to defend Europe without US support, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

The Washington Post reported that the total amount of aid that Ukraine received from donor governments throughout the war amounted to $279 billion, including military, financial and humanitarian aid, according to figures from the Kiel Institute.

The percentage of Ukrainians who trust Zelensky has increased by 5 points, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology this month, compared to a poll conducted in December.

However, Trump claimed, according to the Washington Post, that the Ukrainian leader’s approval rating doesn’t exceed 4%.