China-linked fake: Kremlin pushes false claim of “700,000 Ukrainian losses”

Russian media outlets and Telegram channels are spreading reports citing the Chinese online platform Sohu. These publications claim that since the start of the full-scale war and as of the end of 2025, Ukraine has allegedly lost “more than 700,000 soldiers.”

This claim is false. The original source of the disinformation is an anonymous Chinese blogger using the nickname 凌波爱生活 (“Ling Bo Loves Life”). In his post, he speaks about allegedly heavy losses among members of the International Legion. As “evidence,” the author refers to an anonymous so-called channel titled “Tracking Nazi Mercenaries,” without providing a hyperlink or specifying on which social network it supposedly exists. Our team was unable to find any channels with this name in open sources.

As for alleged losses among Ukrainian servicemen, the pseudo-blogger provides no official sources. Instead, he refers to a supposed charity campaign by Kyivstar which, according to his claim, “confirms” the stated figures. However, no such campaign has ever existed. A similar fake was circulated by Russian resources back in 2023, when the figure of “400,000 killed soldiers” was mentioned.

Thus, Russian propaganda is attempting to use a so-called “foreign source” to promote fake reports about inflated Ukrainian military losses in the war. The goal of such information attacks is to undermine the morale of the military and society and to push a false narrative about the alleged inevitability of Ukraine’s defeat, targeting audiences in China.

It should be noted that earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that confirmed Ukrainian losses since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion amount to 55,000 fallen soldiers.

As reported by Ukrinform, Russian propaganda previously spread a fake video allegedly from MI6 in an attempt to accuse Ukrainians abroad of “terrorism.”

By Andrii Olenin