 200,000 people have been killed in fighting between Russia and Ukraine. Some 200,000 people are thought to have been killed in fighting between Russia and Ukraine since February 24, 2022, when President Vladimir Putin opened the latest and perhaps final chapter of Moscow's 30-year effort to hinder Kiev's westward drift and regenerate a neo-imperial sphere of influence. This was reported by Newsweek Media outlet. It is noted that Kiev has been able to liberate around 50% of the territory seized by Kremlin forces since February 2022 and has its eyes set on Crimea and the area of the Donbas region occupied since 2024. Putin, meanwhile, shows no sign of backing down. Europe's largest conflict since World War II has become a war of attrition. Russia's initial invasion force numbered around 190,000 troops. Many of those have now been killed, captured or wounded so badly they can never return to the battlefield. Pentagon documents leaked earlier this year estimated 189,500 to 223,000 Russian casualties as of February, including as many as 43,000 killed. Russia's armed forces now have around 1.3 million troops, with a goal to expand this to 1.5 million by 2026. The active portion of Russia's ground forces is believed to comprise around 550,000 troops according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Numbers alone do not tell the whole story. Russia's regular armed forces have been augmented with auxiliaries of varying quality. Pavel Luzhin, a Russian political analyst and visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Newsweek that the on-paper expansion of Russia's army does not equate to a more robust fighting force. Russia is trying to create an illusion of its readiness for the long-term war, he said. Actually, it is making efforts to get a ceasefire for several years, before the next round of war and to keep captured territories.