Spike in Russian deaths in Ukraine reported as confirmed death toll surpasses 74,000

Researchers using open-source intelligence have confirmed the deaths of over 74,000 Russian troops in Ukraine, BBC News Russian reported on Friday.

Working with Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, BBC News Russian said that it had been able to identify the names of 74,014 Russian soldiers who had been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The BBC noted that the past three weeks had seen a noticeable spike in Russian deaths, with approximately 1,000 new deaths being confirmed each week, though it stressed that this did not mean that more Russian troops had been killed recently, as many deaths being confirmed by its researchers date from early this year or even earlier.

BBC News Russian suggested that the spike in deaths could be a result of Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine, such as the capture of Vuhledar in early October and the ongoing assault on Pokrovsk.

Delays in confirming fatalities during the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, which began in August, as well as in Russia’s summer offensive, could also explain the sudden increase in confirmed deaths, the BBC said.

The Russian military was continuing to use its “meat grinder” tactics in Ukraine, sending wave after wave of infantry units to wear down Ukrainian forces, and causing major Russian troop losses, the BBC wrote, adding that Russians who had enlisted voluntarily to fight in Ukraine continued to make up the largest group of fatalities, comprising about 21% of the total number of Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war.

While neither Russia nor Ukraine publish official data on their own combat losses, The Wall Street Journal estimated in September that roughly 1 million troops from both sides had been killed or wounded in total.

September was estimated to be the “bloodiest month of the war” for Russian forces in Ukraine, The New York Times reported last week, citing US officials who said that the total number of Russia’s dead and wounded since the start of the war had now surpassed 600,000.