"But but look at the exchanges of KIA, it shows that Ukraine is taking back more KIA than Russia so it means Russia is winning and Ukraine is losing!!!"
For the unsophisticated noncritical thinkers among us, I am sure that makes sense.
If more Ukrainian KIA are being exchanged in the Russia–Ukraine war, several—not mutually exclusive—interpretations might be inferred:
Battlefield Access: Russia may control more of the contested ground, allowing recovery of Ukrainian dead, while Ukrainian forces may be unable to retrieve Russian bodies from occupied zones.
Recovery Priority: Ukraine has shown a high commitment to retrieving and identifying its fallen, even under fire. Russia, by contrast, has historically deprioritized body recovery, particularly of conscripts, Wagner fighters, or mobilized troops.
Negotiation Strategy: Russia might be using Ukrainian bodies as bargaining material to gain leverage in prisoner swaps or as a show of “humanitarian” posture—returning bodies to families while avoiding the optics of returning its own. Accounting Discipline: Ukraine keeps tighter track of its dead. Russian records are notoriously opaque, and their dead are sometimes buried anonymously or left uncounted. Exchanges may thus reflect bureaucratic asymmetry, not battlefield outcomes.
Deliberate Underreporting: Russia may withhold its own dead to obscure true casualty figures, while Ukraine may accept unequal exchanges to bring closure to families and uphold morale.
So a higher number of Ukrainian KIA being exchanged doesn’t necessarily mean Ukraine has more losses. It often speaks to control of terrain, asymmetry in recovery efforts, and stark differences in state attitudes toward the dead.
