Payments from the calculation of 100,000 soldiers killed in Ukraine were included in the budget

The Russian authorities included in the draft state budget for the next year payments for the families of military personnel who died in Ukraine, based on the estimate of approximately 100,000 victims. This follows from the calculations of the “We can explain” publication, which studied the draft federal budget for 2024-2026.

As the publication notes, in addition to one-time insurance payments for the deceased, relatives also receive monthly compensation. This year, it amounts to 21,922.12 rubles. Compensation is paid from the Social Fund of Russia. More than 16 billion rubles have been allocated in the draft budget to support the families of the injured and disabled, as well as compensation for the dead, of which more than 5.2 billion are for monthly payments for the dead servicemen. This means that the budget provides funds for payments for approximately 240 thousand people.

This number also includes servicemen who died in other wars or while performing official duties. “We can explain”, however, indicates that 2.2 billion rubles more was allocated for these purposes in the 2024 budget than in the 2022 budget adopted before the war in Ukraine. This difference should be enough to pay the relatives of more than 102 thousand people. As noted by “We can explain”, this figure may not reflect the total losses of the Russian army right now, but be predictive for 2024.

The Ministry of Defense does not provide data on Russian military casualties in Ukraine. “Mediazone” and the BBC were able to establish the names of more than 30,000 servicemen who died since the beginning of the large-scale invasion in February 2022, using an open source. Presumably, the real losses are higher, since there is information about not all the dead in open sources.

As noted by “We can explain”, the relatives of the dead are also entitled to one-time compensation in the amount of several million rubles – that is, if 100 thousand people died, the Russian authorities will have to pay more than 1 trillion, including payments to the wounded.