Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 13,000 Russian soldiers and officers have died. Most of the dead over the past three months are mobilized, volunteers and mercenaries of the Wagner PMC, including prisoners. This is stated in a joint investigation of the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona.
From open sources, journalists learned about the death of 924 mobilized Russians. This number includes those killed during the shelling of Makiivka on January 1. The publications managed to establish the names of 101 Russian soldiers who died as a result of a rocket hit on a vocational school, of which 99 people were mobilized. The families of at least 18 more soldiers cannot find them among the dead or among the living. The Russian Ministry of Defense previously acknowledged the death of only 89 Russians.
In my country blocked
present tense
Journalists have been studying the dynamics of losses for 11 months. They came to the conclusion that now the bulk of the losses are accounted for by volunteers, Wagner PMC mercenaries (including prisoners) and mobilized. Together they account for 25% of the total number of confirmed losses.
At the first stage of the war, the greatest losses were suffered by the Airborne Forces, the Marine Corps, the GRU special forces, as well as the special squads of the Russian Guard – professional and well-trained formations, staffed mainly by contract soldiers.
Journalists note that they rely only on confirmed death reports and the data collected does not reflect the real level of losses, so the number of deaths may be at least twice as high.
According to the most conservative estimates of publications, during the invasion of Ukraine, Russia could have lost more than 26,000 people dead. The total irretrievable losses of Russia (that is, the number of those who are out of action due to injury, death or missing) can be at least 117 thousand people. The Russian Ministry of Defense last reported on losses on September 21, when the department reported the death of 5937 people.
Solemn funerals, commemorative plaques, posthumous medals to thieves and murderers. How in the Russian Federation they glorify the Wagner PMC mercenaries who died in the war:
