Journalists confirmed the death of 6,000 prisoners of war in Ukraine
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Journalists of the Russian Service of the BBC and “Mediazon” together with a team of volunteers confirmed the death of 34,857 Russian soldiers during the war in Ukraine. Over the past two weeks, the list has increased by 953 names.
Losses increased the most among the mobilized. In total, journalists found 4,056 obituaries in open sources dedicated to subjects who were sent to war for mobilization. More than a thousand of them died in the period from June 2023, that is, after the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
During the war, 6,410 prisoners and 3,532 volunteers died.
“The above figures of casualties are the most conservative estimate of the casualties among the mobilized, as we only take into account those cases when the death was confirmed publicly and when it is possible to establish the status of the combatant,” the journalists emphasize.
In a previously published joint study by “Meduza” and “Mediazon” it was said that 47 thousand Russian soldiers died during the 15 months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not including the losses during the current Ukrainian counteroffensive.
- Russia and Ukraine do not disclose war losses. The Ministry of Defense of Russia last reported on the total number of casualties on September 21 last year, announcing the death of 5,937 people. A relatively independent assessment of Ukrainian losses was last given in the spring. Then in the documents leaked online, supposedly containing the data of American intelligence, it was reported that Washington estimated the losses of the Ukrainian army at 15.5–17.5 thousand people killed and 109–113 thousand wounded.
- From the spring of 2022, information began to appear in the mass media that PMC “Wagner” was recruiting prisoners in Russian colonies to participate in the war with Ukraine in exchange for a pardon. It is still unknown how this is legally formalized. The Kremlin said that this information is classified.
- How many people were recruited for the war from Russian colonies is not reliably known. FSIN announced a reduction in the number of prisoners last year by almost 30,000 people. According to the US, convicts make up a significant part of PMC detachments, and 40 of the 50,000 mercenaries fighting in Ukraine are prisoners recruited from Russian colonies. The head of the “Sitting Russia” fund, Olga Romanova, reported that by the end of 2022, 42-43 thousand people had been recruited from the colonies.
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