By Alexander Motyl
Aug. 1, 2025
National Security Journal
Donald Trump just made a sensational assertion on his Truth Social site: “I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine. Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing. Ukraine has also lost civilians, but in smaller numbers, as Russian rockets crash into Kyiv, and other Ukrainian locales.”
If his numbers are to be believed, in the last seven months, 14 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded for every Ukrainian. This is an incredible ratio, which, if extrapolated to known Russian casualties during the entire war (1,055,210, according to the latest count), would translate into 75,372 Ukrainian casualties.
If true, these figures put to the lie Russian claims of inevitable victory and suggest that such a casualty ratio could mean that, Vladimir Putin’s seeming self-confidence to the contrary, Ukraine may have the upper hand.
But are the figures reliable?
We know that Trump plays fast and loose with numbers, so why not this time?
For two possible reasons. First, his wildest numerical claims are usually made in speeches or conversations, not in writing, which presumably requires some care and self-discipline.
And second, Trump’s statement begins with the claim that he’s “just been informed.” The implication is that the source is reliable, but of course, it could also be Laura Loomer.
The bottom line is that, regardless of the accuracy of Trump’s statistics, they reinforce what we know already: that Russia has suffered over a million casualties—which is unsustainable, even in a fascist dictatorship like Russia—and that Ukraine’s losses have been markedly fewer—which is sustainable in a resilient democracy like Ukraine.
But the most sensational thing about Trump’s statement is that Trump made it.
May we conclude that he has finally realized that Putin is a snarling paper tiger?
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations,
Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”