On this day last year, Vladimir Putin ordered his troops across the Ukraine border, marking the start of a deadly conflict which has taken the lives of thousands.
An exact death toll for the number of people lost to the war has not been calculated, but estimates reveal that thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers from both sides as well as abroad have been killed since the invasion began on February 24, 2021.
But the estimates are likely to be much lower than the actual number of casualties.
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UN human rights experts have attempted to count the number of civilians killed and wounded in Ukraine, but know their tally falls significantly short, while neither Russia nor Ukraine have provided recent figures for the number of their troops lost.
Here are some of the official figures that make up a devastating death toll in Ukraine.
8,006 confirmed civilian deaths in Ukraine
The UN human rights office says there have been 8,006 confirmed civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion up until February 15.
However, it says they are still waiting on verification of thousands of reported casualties in Russian-occupied cities such as Mariupol, Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk, meaning the actual number is likely much higher.
The UN office says it recorded 3,382 deaths in March 2022 - the highest number for a single month of the war.
According to the US military, the estimated number of civilian deaths is around 40,000.
13,287 civilians injured in Ukraine
The UN has recorded more than 13,000 civilians injured in the war over the last year.
Around 200,000 Russian troops killed or wounded
Western estimates put the number of Russian troops killed or wounded at around 200,000. Britain’s Ministry of Defence has estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 Russian troops have died fighting in Ukraine.
However, the most recent figure that Russia has published itself puts the number of its troops killed at 5,937. That figure was released in September.
More than 100,000 Ukrainian troops killed or wounded
The estimate for the number of Ukrainian troops killed or wounded is more than 100,000 according to Western officials.
Ukraine’s most recent count of its troops losses since the invasion is 9,000. This official figure was provided in August by General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. In December, Kyiv’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak suggested that up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
Eight Brits killed in Ukraine
Seven Brits have died in Ukraine since the war began and have been named, while another man whose identity has not yet been revealed was confirmed to have died earlier this month.
In January, British nationals Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry were killed in eastern Ukraine while attempting a “humanitarian evacuation”. Simon Lingard was killed in Ukraine last November, while in June ex-British soldier Jordan Gatley was shot dead in the city of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine.
Scott Sibley, from Lincolnshire, died in southern Ukraine in April after a drone dropped mortars on his regiment. Craig Mackintosh, from Norfolk, was killed while volunteering as a medic in Ukraine in August, and Paul Urey, a British aid worker, died last July while being detained by Russian-backed separatists.
Why is the death toll so hard to calculate accurately?
According to Full Fact, information on casualty numbers during an ongoing conflict is likely to come from intercepted communications on the battlefield, satellite imagery and contact reports, but it involves a lot of guesswork.
An accurate death toll is hard to come by because each side is likely to inflate estimates of the numbers killed on the opposite side, while underplaying their own casualties. The true figure is likely to lie somewhere in between.
To make things more complicated, Russian military deaths are reportedly classed as state secrets, and divulging them can result in prison sentences, Full Fact said.
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