The BBC, together with Mediazona** and a team of volunteers, have identified the names of 287,831 Russian soldiers who died during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 52% of all the dead were volunteers, mobilized and convicted, who left penal colonies to fight, that is, people who were in no way connected with the army at the start of the war.
The actual death toll is higher because our list of names is based only on publicly available data: published obituaries, messages from relatives, data from cemeteries and public government registries. Reports of soldiers' deaths - especially in the last 12 months of the war - are often delayed due to intense fighting on the front lines.
An analysis of the dynamics of confirmed losses in 2025 showed: the bodies of dead soldiers were found on average 150 days after death (all this time, many of them were listed as missing). The state documented deaths even later—on average 236 days, that is, almost eight months after the date of death.
This delay makes it particularly difficult to estimate recent losses. While relatives are looking for the missing person, and documents about his death have not yet been completed, information about him may not be available in open sources or in state registers.
Rosstat data leak
In early November, hacker groups CyberPartisans BY and Silent Crow said they had gained access to internal data from Rosstat, Russia’s state statistics service, including information on deaths. The agency confirmed the cyber attack, but denies information leakage.
The hackers conducted an initial analysis of the data, and then handed over the complete database to journalists from a number of independent publications, including the BBC, for study. According to Belarusian hackers from CyberPartisan BY, since the beginning of a full-scale war, 393,881 Russians have died, for whom the cause of death in the Rosstat database is indicated as military actions or their consequences.
The Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow estimated losses higher - at 450,100 people. The difference stems from the choice of categories that groups included in the count. Silent Crow used a broader set of indicators, including information about non-combat deaths of military personnel.
Counting records with specific cause of death codes provides a starting point for analysis. But the first checks have already shown that this approach can lead to errors, both in the direction of decreasing and increasing the estimated loss figure.
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For example, among records with “military” codes, information about the death of infants and elderly people was found. Such cases require separate verification: errors may have been made when entering data. A small number of errors is insignificant and may be within the limits of statistical error. However, we have yet to find out how widespread they are both in the database as a whole and in its individual sections related to the deaths of military personnel. For example, the category of “damage as a result of military actions” used by Rosstat covers not only military personnel, but also civilians. Therefore, not all deaths classified in this category are necessarily Russian military casualties.
At the same time, calculations based only on “military” death codes may not take into account some of the dead military personnel if their death was recorded in other categories of causes.
Based on our initial review, the array of data provided to journalists appears to be genuine and in some respects consistent with what we already know from the analysis of the list of casualties. For example, the regional distribution of losses (in percentage terms, not in absolute numbers) presented by the hackers practically coincides with the data from the BBC and Mediazona list of names.
But it would be premature to summarize the analysis of the Rosstat data leak now: the BBC, together with colleagues from other independent media, is studying and verifying the data received. We will publish the findings of this study later.
Main trends
Volunteers continue to be the largest group among the identified dead on the BBC and Mediazona casualty list - 35%. This is what we call people who entered into a contract after the start of a full-scale invasion and were not associated with the armed forces at that time.
Prisoners account for 10% of confirmed casualties. In 2023, their share was twice as high: then every fifth person killed on our list was recruited from a colony. But now defendants can sign a contract before sentencing. Formally, such people are not found guilty, so we count them as volunteers.
Those mobilized account for about 8% of the identified dead. According to our analysis, 42% of people in this category died in the first 12 months after being sent to the front.
Bashkortostan and Tatarstan continue to lead in the number of confirmed deaths among Russian regions. The high figures are partly due to the fact that in both republics volunteers systematically collect and verify information about the dead.
The average age of those killed in our list of names is 38 years.
What are the real loss figures?
The real number of deaths is greater than the number of people whose names can be determined from open sources. Reports of deaths are not always made public, and many military personnel remain on the list of missing persons for a long time.
According to military experts, which we relied on in previous publications, analysis of military memorials, open state registers and obituaries allows us to establish from 45% to 55% of the real number of deaths.
Not all deaths are reported publicly. In addition, the bodies of a significant number of military personnel killed in recent months still remain on the battlefield. Attempts to evacuate them involve serious danger to the living, primarily due to the threat of drone strikes.
Based on expert estimates, the real death toll on the Russian side could range from 523,329 to 639,624 dead. This is an estimate of losses that the BBC gives every two weeks based on an analysis of the list of obituaries by name; it does not take into account the figures for a possible leak of Rosstat data.
The main count does not include the losses of the formations of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR before their inclusion in the Russian army in 2023. Based on obituaries and reports of missing persons, we estimated the number of deaths in these formations for 2022 at 21,000–23,500 thousand people.
Separately, we take into account the losses of the North Korean military. The BBC, having studied satellite images and official photographs of the war memorial in the DPRK, identified the names of 2,304 North Korean soldiers who died in 2024-2025 while participating in the war on the side of Russia.
Taking these data into account, the total losses of forces fighting on the Russian side could range from 546,633 to 665,428 people.
We continue to collect information about fallen servicemen. If you would like to share data on this topic please email us at bbcrussian@bbc.co.uk
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What do we think?
In Russia, the names of the dead and photographs from funerals are published every day. Most often, the names are given by the heads of Russian regions or representatives of district administrations, local media and educational institutions where the deceased previously studied, as well as relatives.
The BBC, Mediazona** and a team of volunteers are reviewing this data and adding it to the list we have been maintaining since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We consider a publication in a Russian official source or media, publications by relatives or posts in other sources if they are accompanied by photographs of the burial as confirmation of death.
We determined the types of troops by reports of where the deceased served, or by insignia on the uniform. Mobilized, volunteers and prisoners are not separate branches of the military, however, we highlight these losses in a separate category in order to compare them with the losses of professional (contract) units of the regular army.
The main calculation does not take into account the losses of the self-proclaimed “republics” of Donbass until 2023. Since January 2023, since units of the “People’s Militia of the DPR” became part of the Russian army, we count those killed from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as foreigners who fought as part of Russian units.
* The Russian authorities included Olga Ivshina in the register of “foreign agents”. The BBC strongly objects to this decision and is challenging it in court.
** The Mediazona publication has also been declared a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities.
Graphics by Yaroslava Kiryukhin, illustrations by Natalya Maka
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