Since the beginning of 2023, at least one thousand people who were supposed to serve their sentences in Russian prisons have died in the war in Ukraine. This is stated in a joint investigation of the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona.
Only from March 1 to March 16, according to investigators based on data from open sources, more than 400 prisoners died in the war in Ukraine. Many of them died in the battles for Bakhmut, follows from the obituaries studied by journalists. In total, the names of 2092 prisoners of Russian colonies who died during the hostilities in Ukraine are known.
In my country blocked
present tense
In two weeks of March, according to investigators, 1,304 Russians were killed in battles on the territory of Ukraine, which, as journalists emphasize, is significantly higher than the average figures for 2022, when 250-300 deaths per week were reported.
The number of mobilized dead has also increased: if, as of the beginning of March, investigators confirmed the death of 1,314 mobilized, the latest report refers to 1,531 mobilized who died in Ukraine since October 2022.
At the same time, Krasnodar Territory (714 deaths), Sverdlovsk Region (664 deaths) and Buryatia (567 deaths) are leading in terms of the number of casualties among the regions of Russia.
By mid-March, journalists were able to confirm the death of 17,375 Russian soldiers. A third of all these losses are accounted for by those who were not associated with the army before the invasion began – volunteers, mobilized, prisoners and newly recruited PMC fighters.
At the same time, as the investigators note, the total irretrievable losses of Russia (those who were out of action due to injury or death or went missing) can be at least 157 thousand people.
“From 130,000 to 270,000 killed and wounded, that’s just the military.” Ruslan Leviev from CIT – about the losses of Russia during the year of the war in Ukraine:
