24,005 Russian servicemen have been killed in the war in Ukraine, BBC Russian Service and MediaZone have calculated based on open sources. In the past two weeks, the number of victims has increased by 1,361.
Volunteers, mobilized, prisoners and newly recruited PMC mercenaries account for a third of all casualties. The Krasnodar region and the Sverdlovsk region lead in terms of the total number of deaths.
The greatest losses are sustained by the enlisted prisoners – among them 4,315 people have already died. It is also known about 2,293 victims among the mobilized. 60% of them died since December 1, 2022, when the Russian army tried to advance in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Losses among officers are also increasing. The number of such deaths has reached 2,063.
The journalists’ calculations do not reflect Russia’s actual losses in Ukraine. They only take into account public reports of deaths, which include posts by relatives, news in regional media, and reports by local authorities. In addition, the number of missing persons and prisoners of war is unknown.
The BBC estimates, based on a study of burials in 65 Russian settlements, that the real number of dead is at least twice as high at 48,000. And total irrecoverable losses, that is, the number of those who have been disabled due to injury or death or are missing in action, could be as high as 216,000.
Earlier, the founder of the Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin said that since the start of the invasion in Ukraine, 20,000 of his mercenaries have died, half of whom were recruited prisoners. The Russian Defense Ministry reported losses in September 2022, confirming the deaths of 5,937 servicemen.
During the entire war, Russia may have lost about 110,000 men, according to an FSB estimate that was intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies and made public by leaked Pentagon records.
A figure of about 200,000 people was cited in the West. One of the classified documents gave an estimate for February 2023, according to which Russia could lose from 189.5 to 223 thousand people, including up to 43 thousand killed. NATO and British intelligence reported between 40,000 and 60,000 Russian servicemen killed.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin said Russia still has plenty of “human resources”. “We know what we want and we know the means by which we achieve our goals”, he added.
