Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?

This More or Less podcast episode investigates the reported one million Russian casualties in the war in Ukraine. Tim Harford interviews Seth Jones, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Defence and Security Department, and Olga Ivshina from the BBC Russian service. Jones confirms the figure is roughly accurate, defining casualties as both dead and wounded, but acknowledges the inherent difficulty in precise counting. Ivshina raises concerns about potential double-counting in the Ukrainian government's figures due to the Russian military's practices of repeatedly sending lightly wounded soldiers back to the front. The discussion then shifts to the more reliable figure of Russian soldiers killed, estimated by Ivshina and her team at around 250,000 based on open-source verification. Jones contextualizes these losses within historical Russian military conflicts, highlighting the exceptionally high number of fatalities in the Ukraine war compared to previous engagements since World War II. The interview also touches upon the slow pace of Russian advances, comparing them to historical battles like the Somme in World War I.