Was David Lammy right to claim 45,000 Russian troops died in November?

“Russia lost 45,000 troops, dead, in November alone.”

On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme [2:18:20] on Thursday (9 January), foreign secretary David Lammy MP claimed that Russia had “lost 45,000 troops, dead, in November alone” in the war with Ukraine.

Figures shared by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) earlier this week, attributed to the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, estimate that in November 2024 Russian casualties totalled 45,680. But this figure includes both troops who were killed and those who were wounded—it doesn’t refer solely to deaths.

The MoD told Full Fact it does not have a breakdown of the number of these casualties who were killed, versus those wounded. In December Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that over the course of the war approximately 198,000 Russians had been killed, and 550,000 wounded, suggesting that wounded troops substantially outnumber those killed.

It’s worth noting there is always considerable uncertainty over casualty figures in armed conflict, and it’s not possible for us to verify any of these estimates. Russia has reportedly disputed the figures.

We’ve asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office whether Mr Lammy misspoke, or was referring to a different set of figures, and will update this article if we receive a response. If an MP makes a false or misleading claim on broadcast media they should take responsibility for ensuring it is appropriately corrected, and make efforts to ensure the correction is publicly available to anyone who might have heard the claim.

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, exact casualty figures have been hard to confirm. A study published in August 2023 found that “both sides likely overestimate the personnel losses suffered by their opponent and that Russian sources underestimate their own losses of personnel”. We’ve written previously about the challenges of verifying Russian casualty figures.