Introduction

This article examines a high-profile claim circulating in 2024–2025 that 2.7 million Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been lost (killed or missing in action) in the ongoing conflict. The claim—amplified through a chain of reporting that includes a Russian site (voennoedelo), an Economic Times piece, and a Hacker News thread—raises urgent questions about casualties, misinformation, information-warfare, verification, and the standards of war-reporting. Below is a structured, expert-level analysis that preserves the original threads and sources while scrutinizing methodology, demographic plausibility, and downstream effects.