Victory at what price in Ukraine?

How many Ukrainian lives is full-out victory over Putin and recovery of the Donbas and southern Ukraine worth? 100,000? 500,000? A million?

Despite the flurry of Ukraine War coverage in Western media, a February 2023 Responsible Science Journal article on the war with insight into the true human cost until now went almost completely without notice. That article asked an obvious question: “How many Ukrainians have died as a result of this war?” The likely answer was 150,000 excess deaths, deaths above the normal expected rate, only by February of this year. One might expect this question in every article about the war. To improve human security in Ukraine and prevent future conflicts, we need to ask new questions, scrutinize war in new ways, and reflect on what it means to work for peace.

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Virtually all day-to-day coverage of deaths and injuries in Ukraine focus on direct acts of violence: shelling, bombing, drone strikes, etc. Most Western reports cite Ukrainian claims for Russian casualties, suggesting catastrophic Russian losses while Ukraine loses small but distressing numbers of civilians and soldiers. But this accounting distorts the real costs of war, showing a rosy and false picture to keep up war morale.

In the last year-and-a-half, Ukrainians lost much access to food, electricity, medicine, medical care, and heat, and saw reduced access to medical care. By February, Ukraine probably suffered 150,000 excess deaths, perhaps with a further 70,000 deaths in Europe more broadly due to high power prices in the cold. With tens of thousands of Ukrainians since dead, this adds up to maybe four to five times the Russian losses, based on estimated Russian excess deaths. Hundreds of thousands of healthy young people have been injured and/or traumatized in an already-poor health care system. Millions live as refugees in Europe, with only 1/3rd of the refugees wanting to return to Ukraine despite impoverishment and vulnerability to sex exploitation. Ukraine’s birthrate has plummeted. Realistically, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have already been killed or injured and next winter may well again be very hard, perhaps even harder. War is crucifying Ukraine, and Ukraine is likely losing.

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