More than 43 thousand Russian soldiers have been confirmed dead in Ukraine

Journalists of the Russian Service of the BBC and “Mediazony” together with a team of volunteers established the names of 43,014 Russian soldiers who died in the war in Ukraine since February 2022.

The names of the dead have been established from an open source: reports from officials and mass media, publications by close relatives of the dead on social networks, and information from cemeteries. The real number of losses on the Russian side, according to the most cautious estimates of the authors of the study, is at least twice as high.

As noted by the Russian service of the BBC, despite the absence of significant changes on the front line, the Russian side continues to suffer heavy losses. In the last two weeks alone, journalists have confirmed the deaths of 1,283 soldiers — this exceeds the average figures for 2022 (300 confirmed deaths per week) and is comparable to the figures for the winter of 2023 (600-800 confirmed deaths per week), when Russian forces tried to attack several areas at once Donetsk region.

The main burden on the front line still lies with the mobilized, volunteers (including those who now sign contracts with PMC “Redut”) and recruited from prison colonies. That is, on those who joined the army already after the start of the war. They account for almost half of all combat casualties, the publication says.

Out of 5,169 mobilized people, whose death was confirmed by publications in Russia, 4,130 people, that is, 80%, died in the last 12 months, journalists note. At the same time, the real losses among those mobilized may be much higher, since many reports about soldiers who died in Ukraine since October 2022 do not indicate their status.

In order to make up for losses at the front, in Russia they continue to actively recruit prisoners. Moreover, everyone who signs a contract from September is obliged to serve not for six months, as before, but until the end of the war.

On January 26, the BBC and Mediazone managed to establish the names of 8,062 prisoners who died on the territory of Ukraine, fighting as part of Russian units.

Since the beginning of the invasion, 3,079 officers are known to have died. 800 of them were in the rank of major or higher, the authors of the publication note.

• Moscow and Kyiv do not disclose losses in the war in Ukraine, telling only about the losses of the enemy. Parties to military conflicts tend to exaggerate their successes and downplay their failures, a study by the BBC and Mediazone is one of the most important independent estimates of the number of casualties.