Trump Claims Ukraine War Has Killed ‘A Million’—Here Are the Facts

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview this week that he would have prevented the war in Ukraine, adding that had he been elected in 2020, “a million people” would be alive right now.
In an interview with Dr. Phil, Trump returned to an oft-used line that the war between Ukraine and Russia would never have happened if he had been elected. However, Trump colored this belief by claiming that had he been elected, “you’d have a million people living right now.”
Trump had just suggested that a win this November could be a sign from an “incredible power up there that wanted me to be involved in…maybe it’s saving the world,” before bringing up the war.
“I get along with all those tough guys and Russia wouldn’t have gone into Ukraine,” Trump said. “You’d have a million people living right now.
“You’d have cities all over Ukraine, I mean these magnificent cities with the domes, and the golden domes, and towers they’d all be up. They’re, right now, demolished.”
The Republican presidential nominee’s claim that he would have saved “a million” lives stands out. While hundreds of thousands are estimated to have died in the conflict, ongoing research to estimate the ongoing cost of life does not appear to match his words.
The number of military casualties on either side of the war is difficult to estimate. From verifiably reporting deaths in a conflict zone to competing combat figures provided by the Russian and Ukrainian governments, the work of creating a reliable figure has been carried out on the sidelines.
Research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from 2023, which assessed 4,609 reports of military and civilian losses on both sides, found that Ukraine and Russia “likely overestimate the personnel losses suffered by their opponent and that Russian sources underestimate their own losses of personnel.”
Nichita Gurcov, a Europe & Central Asia regional specialist with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), told Newsweek that it had recorded 87,000 fatalities in non-civilian targeting events in Ukraine, including Russian and Ukrainian military fatalities, which may also include civilian fatalities caught up in fighting.
“We assume that the number of military fatalities is comparable on both sides,” Gurcov said.
ACLED, one of the groups trying to create accurate combat loss estimates, codes its data to specific locations and dates. Where numbers of fatalities are not numbered, it assumes the number of fatalities as three or 10, depending on context. A guide to its coding states that in the case of conflicting reports, it codes the most conservative available estimate unless the source of a higher estimate is considerably more reliable.
It added that Russia regularly claims high fatality counts but that the claims cannot be corroborated by “independent sources or overall expert assessments of the deadliness of the conflict.”
“Possible explanations are that the number is inflated by counting injured personnel as ‘fatalities,’ by overestimating the effectiveness and deadliness of a strike in general, and possibly by fabricating fatalities outright,” it said.
“In order to mitigate this problem of exaggerated fatality counts, ACLED limits how it codes Russian MoD claims of Ukrainian military fatalities that cannot be verified through other sources. Claims that exceed 10 fatalities are capped and recorded as being 10.”
ACLED added that while it has not found similar overestimations for Russian military fatalities by the Ukrainian government, these may exist for aggregated claims.
“The actual number of military fatalities is likely higher but not in the hundreds of thousands,” Gurcov added. “Any estimate should be treated with caution since the variable is the least verifiable.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in February that about 31,000 soldiers had died fighting against Russia.
“Each person is a very big loss for us,” he said in a rare statement addressing Kyiv’s losses, adding, “31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war. It is very painful for us.
“I won’t say how many wounded [Ukrainians] there are because Russia will know how many people have left the battlefield.”
In November 2022, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said that Ukraine had “probably” suffered 100,000 troop losses to death or injury, similar to Russian casualties at the time.
A New York Times report from August 2023, based on unnamed U.S. officials, said that 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
Joris Van Bladel a senior associate fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels, told Newsweek that recent Ukrainian figures regarding Russian losses were “likely exaggerated” with a recent tally of 610,100 implying “approximately 203,000 KIA and 406,000 WIA.”
Van Bladel said that figures compiled by BBC News and Russian independent media outlets Meduza and Mediazona were “closer to the truth.” Their standard for recording a death requires “an official publication or social media post from a relative with corresponding details, accompanying photos or dates of burials from local messaging groups, or photos from cemeteries.”
“We do not count military losses of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR republics,” a statement by Mediazona said.
“However, if a Russian citizen voluntarily went to war and joined the armies of these republics [or was sent there after mobilization], we will count them.”
Its most recent update brought the recorded names total to 61,831. According to its Probate Registry estimate, based on public database figures in which notaries record inheritance cases, there have been roughly 120,000 deaths as of July 5.
An estimate presented by NATO earlier this year was that 350,000 Russian troops had been lost in Ukraine, which included both those injured and killed.
The United Nations said in its latest report on the protection of civilians in Ukraine that an estimated 35,160 civilians have been killed or injured since the invasion on February 24, 2022.
The U.N. cautioned in its reporting that it believes the actual figures “are considerably higher, as many reports, particularly from certain locations and from the immediate period after 24 February 2022, are still pending corroboration.”
“This concerns, for example, Mariupol [Donetsk region], Lysychansk, Popasna and Sievierodonetsk [Luhansk region], where there were allegations of high
civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure,” it added.
If you were to combine the loss estimates on both sides, including deaths and injuries of soldiers and civilians, with the consideration that these are likely undercounted, then you might reach a figure near 1 million lives lost or otherwise impacted by injury since the invasion.
However, Trump’s claim is quite clear that there would be a million people “living right now,” a number that does not appear to be supported by any of the evidence compiled by researchers and intelligence officials.
“It seems that some politicians, such as Mr. Trump…might be repeating the figures from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, which, as we know, tend to be exaggerated,” said Van Bladel, a Russian military expert.
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for Trump via email for comment.