Since the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine, at least 31,665 Russian military personnel have died at the front, of which 3,534 were mobilized. Their identities were established by journalists from Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service.
In their study, based on data from open sources (obituaries in the media, messages on social networks of relatives of the victims, and so on), journalists noted that prisoners still constitute the largest category among losses, but the growth in their number is slowing down compared to the first half year 2023.
As of September 8, investigators have verified 5,968 convicts who have died in Ukraine since February 2022. The second largest category of dead was mobilized, and the third was volunteers – 3,110 people.
Journalists also reported that from February 24, 2022 to September 8, 2023, they identified more than 2,400 Russian officers killed in Ukraine, 295 of them with the rank of lieutenant colonel and above.
In terms of the number of losses confirmed by journalists among Russian regions, the leaders are Krasnodar Territory (1,205 dead), Sverdlovsk Region (1,111 dead), and Bashkortostan (996 dead). It is also known about 315 deaths from Moscow and 327 from St. Petersburg.
Earlier, journalists from Meduza and Mediazona reported that during the 15 months of the war, the total number of Russian soldiers killed in the war against Ukraine was about 47 thousand people. To make the calculations, investigators used data from the register of inheritance cases of the Federal Notary Chamber and data from Rosstat.
“In 2022, about 25 thousand men under 50 died in the war, and by May 27, 2023, about 47 thousand. To be as precise as possible, the number of deaths with a 95% probability lies between 40 and 55 thousand,” they indicate journalists.
The Russian side does not officially publish data on the dead. The last time the Ministry of Defense reported losses was in September 2022. Then Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 soldiers were killed. This number has nothing to do with reality: even then there were more names in the list of victims collected from open sources, investigators point out.
Mediazona editor Dmitry Treshchanin spoke in detail about how journalists made calculations based on open data:
