Tens of thousands fighting for Russia are dying unnoticed on the frontlinepublished at 12:32 Greenwich Mean Time
Olga Ivshina
BBC Russian Service
Over 95,000 people fighting for Russia’s military have now died as the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year, according to data analysed by the BBC.
This figure doesn’t include those who were killed serving in the militia of the self-proclaimed Donbas republics which we estimate to be between 21,000 and 23,500 fighters.
The list includes names of the deceased that we verified using information from official reports, newspapers, social media, and new memorials and graves. The real death toll is believed to be much higher.
With the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, civilian men were drafted en masse, often inadequately trained and poorly equipped before being assigned to near-impossible missions. This resulted in a staggering number of dead and missing soldiers, the fate of whom often remains unknown for months or years.
Despite many people in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine having relatives or friends in Russia, they are far less integrated into the country’s everyday life, which makes their losses less “visible” to ordinary Russians.
Russia’s actual losses are almost certainly substantially higher than open-source data can reveal. The true number of Russian military deaths could range from 146,194 to 211,169.
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