The Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, Aug. 20, 2025

Find past issues in the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card archive. 

Aug. 19 update: In the period of July 22–Aug. 19, Russian forces gained 237 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which marks a 2% decrease from the 241 square miles these forces gained in the period of July 15–Aug. 12, 2025. Comparing shorter periods, such as the past week to the preceding week, shows that in the period of Aug. 12–19, 2025, Russia gained 25 square miles of Ukrainian territory (roughly one Manhattan island), which marks a 67% decrease from the 76 square miles Russian forces gained in the period of Aug. 5–12, 2025. However, this change is a continuation of a pattern of weekly gains that has been fairly consistent since mid-June 2025: whipsaw. On average, one week Russia will make incremental gains, followed by a week at roughly two to three times the previous week’s rate, followed again by a week of about half or one-third the previous week’s rate.1 (See graph below based on RM’s War Report Cards and data from ISW/AEI’s Critical Threats Project.) One of the reasons Russia has been able to make gains every week since mid-June 2025 is that it has more personnel than Ukraine to employ in combat. “Today, Russia recruits about 1,000 soldiers a day,” which is “about twice as high as Ukraine's” recruitment, according to The New York Times. 

Who’s Gaining and Who’s Losing What?

Territorial Control (figures as of Aug. 19, 2025)

 

Report Card*

Change in Russia’s control of Ukrainian territory and change in Ukraine’s control of Russian territory

(Based on data from the Institute for the Study of War.)

  • Since Feb. 24, 2022:
    • Russia: +28,183 square miles. 12% of Ukraine. (Area roughly equivalent to half the size of the U.S. state of Iowa).2
  • Total area of all Ukrainian territory Russia presently controls, including Crimea and parts of Donbas, Russia had seized prior to the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022:
    • Russia: +44,808 square miles. 19% of Ukraine. (Area roughly equivalent to the U.S. state of Ohio.)
  • In the period of July 22–Aug. 19, 2025: Russian forces gained 237 square miles of Ukrainian territory; a rate almost unchanged from the 241 miles it gained from July 15–Aug. 12, 2025.3
  • In past week (Aug. 12–19, 2025): Russia gained 25 square miles of Ukrainian territory (roughly one Manhattan island)—a 67% decrease over the previous week’s (Aug. 5–12, 2025) gain of 76 square miles.
  • In Russia, Ukraine’s foothold across the Kursk and Belgorod regions remained the same this week: 4 square miles.

Russian net territorial control in Ukraine by month: February 2022–July 2025. (Based on data from the Institute for the Study of War.) 

 

Military casualties  

  • Russia: More than 790,000 killed or injured, according to an April 2025 estimate by then-SACEUR Cavoli.3 48,000 missing.4
  • Ukraine: 400,000 killed or injured, according to a January 2025 estimate by Zelenskyy.5 35,000 missing.

Civilian fatalities

Military vehicles and equipment7

  • Russia: 22,540 lost.
    • Tanks and armored vehicles: 13,145.  
    • Aircraft: 332.8
    • Naval vessels: 22.9
  • Ukraine: 9,582 lost.
    • Tanks and armored vehicles: 4,885.
    • Aircraft: 188.10
    • Naval vessels: 35.11

Citizens displaced

  • Russia:
    • Internally displaced: 182,000 (as of 2024)
    • 800,000 left Russia for economic or political reasons, 0.6% of Russian population.
  • Ukraine: 9.4 million displaced Ukrainians, 21% of Ukraine’s pre-invasion population of 44 million, including:
    • Internally displaced: 3.7 million as of Spring 2025.
    • International refugees: 5.7 million, including 5.1 million in Europe, as of July 2025.

Economic impact12

  • Russia’s economic growth: 5.6% GDP since 2022 (through 2024)
    • 0.9% GDP growth forecast for 2025.
    • Budget deficit in 2024: 1.7%  of GDP.
    • Russian ruble: 0.01238 U.S. dollars. 5% since the invasion.
    • 3-year bond yield: 13.2%.
  • Ukraine’s economic growth (negative): -22.6% GDP since 2022 (through 2024)
    • 2% GDP growth forecast for 2025.
    • Budget deficit in 2024: 20.4% of GDP, excluding grants.
    • Ukrainian hryvnia: 0.02416 U.S. dollars. -28% since the invasion.
    • 3-year bond yield: 24.8%.

Infrastructure

  • Russia:  
    • A journalistic investigation estimated in March 2024 that Ukrainian strikes had rendered facilities which accounted for 1/6th of the production of gasoline and diesel fuels in Russia non-operational.
    • A journalistic investigation estimated in March 2025 that Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s energy sector have caused at least 60 billion rubles ($714 million) in damage.
  • Ukraine:  
    • Ukraine's extensive transmission infrastructure has suffered severe damage in the war, with capacity falling from 56 GW to an estimated 9 GW by the end of 2024.
    • Some 64%, or 36 out of Ukraine’s 25 GW electricity generating capacity destroyed or occupied as of 2024.13
      • For a recent visualization of vulnerability of Ukraine’s power grid to Russian aggression, see this FT product, updated June 17, 2025.
    • Ukraine had lost 80% of its thermal capacity due to Russian attacks as of September 2024.
    • Ukraine relied for 2/3rds of its electricity generation on three functioning Soviet-era NPPs, which it still controls, as of 2024.

Popular support

  • Russia: 63% support peace negotiations.
  • Ukraine: 69% support negotiated peace.

Other criteria which may be even more important (about which we continue to search for reliable indicators):

  • Ammunition supply
  • Foreign military aid
  • Force generation
  • Military leadership
  • Training
  • Morale
  • Control of strategic locations
  • Information war: with U.S./Europe; with world.

 

Footnotes

  1. The average rate of change across all weeks in this period was +48%. The average rate of increase during this period was +187%, while the average rate of decrease in this period was -62%.
  2. According to Ukraine's DeepState OSINT group's map, as of Aug. 19, 2025, Russian forces occupied a total 114,526 square kilometers of Ukrainian land (44,219 square miles), which constituted 19% of Ukrainian territory.
  3. Here are more estimates of Russian servicemen killed and injured [in chronological order]:
    1. 600,000 killed or injured, according to Trump’s December 2024 estimate.
    2. 1,000,000 killed, according to Trump’s January 2025 estimate.
    3. More than 750,000 killed or injured, according to a March 2025 estimate by DNI/U.S. intelligence community.
    4. More than 700,000, according to a May 2025 estimate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
    5. 950,000 killed or injured, according to CSIS’s June 2025 estimate, including 250,000 killed and 700,000 injured.
    6. More than 1,000,000, including 250,000 killed, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry’s June 2025 estimate.
    7. 100,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war this year, NATO Secretary General Matt Rutte said in July 2025.
  4. More than 100,000 Russian families have contacted Ukraine’s “Want to Find” project set to count number of Russian MIAs as of June 2025, according to Ukrainian media.
  5. Here are more estimates of Ukrainian servicemen killed and injured [in chronological order]:
    1. 400,000 killed or injured, according to Trump’s December 2024 estimate.
    2. 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 370,000 injured, according to Zelenskyy’s December 2024 estimate.
    3. 700,000 killed, according to Trump’s January 2025 estimate.
    4. 400,000 killed or injured, according to CSIS’s June 2025 estimate, including somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 killed and 300,000-340,000 injured.
      1. “Millions” killed in the war, according to Trump’s April 2025 estimate.
  6. This estimate was given by Russia’s Investigative Committee in March 2025. A July 2025 estimate by Russia’s Foreign Ministry put the total number of “peaceful residents” who were allegedly killed by “actions of the Ukrainian authorities and their armed formations” from early 2022 to June 2025 at “almost” 7,500.
  7. Oryx, “Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” Oryx (blog), https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html; “The Military Balance 2022,” IISS, https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/the-military-balance-2022; Oryx, “List Of Aircraft Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/03/list-of-aircraft-losses-during-2022.html; Oryx, “List Of Naval Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/03/list-of-naval-losses-during-2022.html. According to a June 2025 study by CSIS, Russia has lost roughly 1,149 armored fighting vehicles, 3,098 infantry fighting vehicles, 300 self-propelled artillery, and 1,865 tanks since January 2024.
  8. Oryx is not updating its estimates of aircraft losses as of June 24, 2025. In May 2025, Ukraine claimed to have shot down two Russian Su-30s by missiles launched from drone boats. On June 1, 2025 Ukraine destroyed an estimated total of 11 to 12 Russian strategic bombers. On June 7, 2025 Ukraine said  that its forces shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet over the Kursk region, according to MT. On June 27, 2025, Ukraine claimed to have struck four Su-34 aircraft in Russia’s Volgograd region.
  9. Oryx is not updating losses of warships as of January 1, 2025. According to a May 2025 estimate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, since the war’s start, Russia has lost at least 10,000 ground combat vehicles, including more than 3,000 tanks, as well as nearly 250 aircraft and helicopters and more than 10 naval vessels.
  10. Oryx is not updating its estimates of aircraft losses as of June 24, 2025. Ukraine was reported to have lost 3 F-16s as of May 2025. On June 28, 2025 Ukraine admitted to losing a pilot and his F-16 jet.
  11. Oryx is not updating losses of warships as of January 1, 2025.
  12. International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Russian estimates. “Russia and Ukraine 3-Year Bond Yield,” Investing.com, https://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/russia-3-year-bond-yield; World Bank Group, “Europe and Central Asia Economic Update,” https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/94bdc078-9c64-4833-992a-fda7b3d1a640/content; World Bank, “Russian Federation MPO,” https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/d5f32ef28464d01f195827b7e020a3e8-0500022021/related/mpo-rus.pdf; Trading Economics, “Russia 3-Year Bond Yield,”  https://tradingeconomics.com/ruge3y:gov ; World Bank, “The World Bank in Ukraine,” https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ukraine/overview#3; https://www.exchange-rates.org/exchange-rate-history/rub-usd-2024-11-01.
  13. Combining the occupied, destroyed and damaged power capacities, Ukraine has lost a total of approximately 48% (27 gigawatts) of its pre-war installed capacity of 56.1 GW, according to an alternative estimate in a July 2025 report by CSIS.

* This card was produced by RM staff and Belfer Center Avoiding Great Power War Project’s research assistant Maryana Schnitser.

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