At least 75,000 dead Russian soldiers

Meduza calculates that Moscow loses 120 men per day in Ukraine, and the rate isn’t slowing after two years of war

Throughout two years of invasion, troop losses have been one of the greatest taboo subjects in Russia. Discussing how many men Moscow has sent to die in Ukraine is forbidden even among the war’s most vocal supporters. For example, in February 2024, following harassment by propagandists in pundit Vladimir Solovyov’s circle, “war correspondent” Andrey Morozov apparently killed himself after being pressured to delete a blog post about Russia’s irretrievable losses in the capture of Avdiivka. In this suffocating environment, it’s particularly vital to inform Russians about the terrible price they are paying as a country for the aggression waged in their name. In the summer of 2023, working with colleagues from Mediazona and excess mortality researcher Dmitry Kobak, Meduza used to most reliable method available to estimate how many Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine up to that point in the war. Basing our calculations on data from Russia’s Inheritance Case Registry, Federal State Statistics Service records, and the list of confirmed killed soldiers compiled by volunteers and journalists at Mediazona and BBC Russian, we estimated at the time that 47,000 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine.

Meduza is now updating that research at the full-scale invasion’s two-year mark, drawing on data that covers the period between February 24, 2022, and late 2023. Using this information and our previous methodology, we estimate that roughly 75,000 Russian combatants have been killed in Ukraine, and Russia’s rate of losses is not slowing.

Establishing a range

Comparing and analyzing the lists of names of dead Russian soldiers with data retrieved from Russia’s Inheritance Case Registry allows Meduza to estimate that the total number of Russian combatants killed between the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 and late 2023 is 75,000 men. This isn’t an exact figure but a statistical estimate — the most probable value within an admittedly wide range, between 66,000 and 88,000.

Our method doesn’t allow us to “see” Russia’s losses in more recent months, but the total number of losses over the entire two years of the war would be roughly 83,000 soldiers if the pace in the fourth quarter of 2023 (approximately 3,900 men per month) remained constant in January and February 2024.

Dying for Bakhmut

Though Ukraine’s frontlines effectively froze in 2023, the rate of losses accelerated significantly. If roughly 24,000 Russian soldiers died in 2022, almost twice as many were killed in 2023. The greatest losses occurred during the Battle for Bakhmut between January and March 2023. According to our data, as many as 2,000 men were dying each week during this period, and most of these soldiers were former inmates recruited out of prison.

Dying for Avdiivka

After the capture of Bakhmut, the rate of losses declined somewhat but remained at a high level exceeding even Russia’s losses in the first days of the full-scale invasion when troops suffered a devastating defeat trying to advance on Kyiv. More recently, beginning in October and November 2023, Russia’s rate of losses has started accelerating again, likely due to the offensive on Avdiivka — an operation that could turn out to be a “second Bakhmut” (though not enough time has passed yet to assess Russia’s losses here accurately).

Ride of the Valkyries

The demographics of the Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine have changed drastically several times during the war. Initially, the overwhelming number of troops at the front were professional military personnel. However, by the end of the year, during the cold season, these men were virtually exhausted and replaced by former prisoners, mobilized soldiers, and Wagner Group mercenaries.

In the summer of 2023, Wagner fighters suddenly disappeared from Russia’s losses, just as deaths among enlisted soldiers spiked. This shift clearly reflects former Wagner mercenaries falling under the Russian Defense Ministry’s direct control.

The trouble with ex-cons

Ex-prisoners constitute a key share of Russia’s troop losses. In total, we estimate that between 20,000 and 75,000 of these fighters have died on the battlefield in Ukraine. Former inmates differ from other groups in Russia’s Armed Forces insofar as they far less often leave behind any inheritance, which means they more rarely appear in Russia’s Inheritance Case Registry. This is not a problem for Meduza’s methodology, as we consider such differences between groups.

The greater challenge is accounting for the number of prisoners among the roughly 20 percent of killed Russian combatants for whom we lack enough background information to know from which group they came. We assume a proportional distribution of groups among such cases in our calculations, but this approach may not capture reality. Nonetheless, even if we excluded these killed soldiers of unknown origin (20 percent of Russia’s total losses), the “low end” of our estimates would still be an unimaginable 60,000 dead men.

The fate of draftees

The third largest group of killed soldiers (after contract soldiers and former prisoners) is mobilized men, making up roughly 16,000 of Russa’s total 75,000 losses. Losses among draftees have been stable since October 2022, averaging roughly 250 mobiki killed in battle every week.

The missing wounded

We base our calculations on reliable data, but these estimates concern only Russia’s killed soldiers. Irrecoverable losses in war traditionally also include combatants who are severely wounded or missing in action, but our methodology has no insights into trends among these soldiers (given that they are not reflected in inheritance records). In our previous study, Meduza discussed the challenges inherent in counting wounded and missed soldiers.

Since then, no new information has emerged that would allow us to refine our estimates. We can say only that the ratio of wounded to killed soldiers varies by the war and depends (among other things) on the types of injuries. A highly conservative assumption of 1.7–2 injured men for every soldier killed would mean Russia has suffered 130,000 wounded combatants, bringing the total casualty count to more than 200,000 men.

Not so missing after all

Concerning soldiers who have gone missing in action, what we know from specific cases indicates that a significant number of these men are already included in Russia’s loss assessments. Despite simplifying the procedure last year for declaring a missing person deceased, we do not observe a spike in such court cases, suggesting that there isn’t likely a large number of missing soldiers who are unaccounted for in our calculations.

A steady death factory

Overall, the dynamics of battlefield losses in 2023 indicate that the Russian authorities have established a stable conveyor belt for supplying Russian men to frontline Ukraine. In battle, in the past six months, these soldiers have died at a rate of 120 men per day.