Independent Russian media outlets have cited government data indicating that approximately 120,000 Russian troops have lost their lives since the full-scale invasion commenced under Vladimir Putin’s leadership. With an average of 250 deaths daily, this grim figure highlights the devastating impact of the ongoing conflict.
As of Saturday, Ukraine’s defense ministry has reported that Russian troop casualties have reached 549,840 since the war began on February 24, 2022. Daily updates have been provided by the ministry regarding this grim milestone.
Last year, Kyiv clarified that their daily figure for casualties included both those killed and wounded in battle, which was previously inconsistent with other Western estimates. However, in recent months, the figures have become more closely aligned.
In April, Leo Docherty, a former British minister of state for the Armed Forces, disclosed that the U.K. approximates the number of Russian losses to be over 450,000. Meanwhile, a U.S. estimate in December suggests the total to be 315,000, which is lower than Ukraine’s count of 340,650 during the same period.
Mediazona and BBC News Russian have been regularly publishing counts of killed Russian troops that they can confirm through publicly available information such as obituaries, social media posts, and regional media reports. As of Friday’s update, the number of identified casualties stood at 58,207. However, due to the stringent level of evidence required, the project acknowledges that these figures are a significant underestimate.
Mediazona and Meduza have conducted a separate count to provide “flash estimates” of Russian deaths. To calculate these figures, they analyzed databases of inheritance cases and compared the trends with mortality data from Russia’s State Statistics Service, the Russian Probate Registry, and obituaries.
Based on the data, the project announced on Friday that, as per their latest estimations, “roughly 120,000 Russian military personnel have lost their lives in the war since 2022. However, the actual figure could be as high as 140,000.”
According to the latest statistics, Russia has been experiencing a significant increase in casualties in recent months. The figures reveal that the average daily death toll has risen to around 200 to 250, which is almost twice the rate of the last three months of 2023, where there were approximately 120 deaths per day.
The Russian defense ministry has been contacted by Newsweek for comment regarding the official tally of nearly 6,000 troop deaths which has not been updated since September 2022.
There is a lack of detailed casualty figures from both Kyiv and Moscow regarding the ongoing conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed in February 2024 that 31,000 Ukrainian troops have lost their lives while in action during the invasion. However, the number of wounded soldiers was not mentioned.
In June, Putin claimed that Moscow’s losses were significantly lower than those of Ukraine, stating that the ratio of “irretrievable losses” was one to five in favor of Russia. However, he did not provide any evidence to support his claim. On the other hand, both the United States and Ukraine estimate that Russia has suffered far more casualties than Kyiv.
