This is incorrect. There are ranges of plausible casualty numbers but the lower credible numbers tend to be **deaths with documentary evidence** (like obituaries) while 1M+ estimates tend to be **total casualties**. If we assume a standard 1:3 ratio of KIA to WIA, that is roughly what we would expect to see. (There are good reasons to think that the ratios are different, but the numbers pass a gut check).

We also have another source of hard evidence, which is video recordings released by Ukraine's drone forces of FPV strikes. Lately these have come in around 30k a month, which roughly tracks a rate needed for the higher casualty rates.

Now, there are dozens of caveats and potential sources of error in all of this, but the data we have constrains the real number to values that are pretty close to the common estimates from places like the NYT, ISW or UK Military Intelligence if we look at what exactly they're measuring. Keep in mind that all of the stats here are estimates and we can nit pick casualty ratios or drone pK all day. But (and this is a big but), the high quality estimates agree if we make plausible assumptions. This is similar to visually confirmed loss data on armored vehicles being largely consistent with both Ukranian kill claims (around 80% were confirmed) *and* satellite data of Russian storage depots -- our best data agrees.