Independent analysts reveal Russia’s staggering military losses in war with Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine continues, the true human cost of Russia’s military efforts remains shrouded in secrecy, with both Moscow and Kyiv keeping casualty figures closely guarded, The New York Times highlights.

In October, Russia made its largest territorial advances in over two years, pushing deeper into Ukraine's eastern Donbas region—but at a significant cost. Both British and Ukrainian military officials, along with BBC researchers, report that Russia experienced its highest number of dead and wounded soldiers during that month.

The arrival of thousands of North Korean troops in Russia has also raised concerns about whether the Kremlin can replenish its losses with enough soldiers. So, what do we truly know about Russia’s casualties and its capacity to replace them? Accurate information on Russian casualties—both deaths and injuries—remains difficult to obtain. Moscow has a strong incentive to downplay its losses, often withholding details, while Ukraine and its allies may have a tendency to exaggerate them. 

Even when Western estimates are reported, they often combine deaths with all injuries, which military experts argue is too broad a category to provide a clear picture of the war’s state. For instance, lightly injured soldiers can recover quickly. What ultimately determines a military’s fighting capacity are its irreplaceable, permanent losses—soldiers who are either killed or so severely injured that they will never return to battle. Both Russia and Ukraine consider such statistics state secrets. Ukraine is particularly secretive about its casualty figures, limiting journalists' access to information, withholding details from allies, and suspending the publication of demographic data. 

However, some independent Russian journalists and researchers have found innovative ways to track Russia’s dead and wounded, gathering data from diverse sources such as obituaries, cemetery records, disability payments, and notary databases. Their work has begun to provide a clearer picture of the war’s human toll, offering insights into Russia's ability to sustain its military efforts. These estimates also suggest that Russia has suffered more casualties in this conflict than any industrialized country has in a war since World War II. Independent journalists from Mediazona, a Russian news outlet, and the BBC Russian Service have been documenting Russian military deaths in Ukraine since the early stages of the invasion. Their methodology involves collecting and cross-referencing public records, including obituaries and cemetery burial records. 

This research has led to the most comprehensive database of confirmed Russian combat deaths, which reached 78,000 soldiers by November, not including Ukrainian separatists and foreign fighters aligned with Russia. By mid-November, a similar—but less transparent—study of Ukraine’s casualties found 65,000 military deaths. Mediazona’s tally, however, remains incomplete: Some soldiers’ deaths leave no trace. The journalists estimate that their records account for roughly half of all Russian military deaths. Another independent outlet, Meduza, worked alongside Mediazona and the BBC on a statistical analysis of war casualties. 

By Naila Huseynova