July 9th 2025

To track the war in Ukraine, The Economist uses satellite data from a NASA programme originally designed to monitor forest fires. Our algorithms assess if these fires are linked to the conflict—letting us map Russia’s summer offensive in near real time.

Captured Russian officers in Ukraine reportedly say the summer offensive was presented to them as “one last push”. Mr Putin seems intent on breaking Ukrainian morale and snatching a victory after more than three years of war. He also seems willing to pay for it: our new modelling suggests that Russia’s daily death toll is higher than at any other point in the conflict.

There is no official tally of losses on either side. But our daily war tracker offers some clues. Our satellite data and shifts to areas of control suggest when the fighting is intensifying. This lines up well with more than 200 credible estimates of casualties from Western governments and independent researchers. By combining this data we can, for the first time, provide a credible daily death toll—or an estimate of estimates.

…MORE