Rosstat Leak: Over 450,000 Russians Killed in Ukraine War, Data Shows
Data stolen from Russia's state statistics agency Rosstat indicates more than 450,000 Russians have died in the war in Ukraine. Russia has not officially published its battlefield losses since September 2022.
A leak from Rosstat, Russia's state statistics agency, indicates that more than 450,000 Russians have been killed in the war in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began. By these figures, the war has become the fourth most common cause of death in Russia since 2022. The report, published by the independent outlet The Moscow Times, matters because Russia has not officially disclosed its battlefield losses since September 2022 and has dismissed independent estimates as unreliable.
How the data was obtained
Rosstat was hit by a cyberattack from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1, carried out by the hacking groups Belarus Cyber Partisans and Silent Crow. Both are banned in Russia as "extremist organizations." They took data on the Russian economy, demographics and wartime losses. The newspaper could not verify the dataset in full: it cross-checked a random sample of 50 names from the open-source "Counting the Dead" repository of Mediazona and BBC Russian against the leaked data.
The figure calculated by Silent Crow includes civilians killed in airstrikes and during Ukraine's 2024 incursion into Russia's Kursk region. It does not cover soldiers missing in action or the roughly 27,000 foreign fighters believed to have been recruited. Belarus Cyber Partisans released a lower number, 393,881 deaths, using a different method that counts only military personnel or civilians killed in combat or from the long-term effects of fighting.
Details in the data
- 14,160 cases describe deaths of service members from non-military causes such as illness, road accidents or suicide.
- More than 32,000 people died of wounds sustained at least a year earlier.
- 72% of deaths were registered in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic.
- 6.2 Russians have been killed for every kilometer of territory gained.
The leak supports research showing that Russia's ethnic republics have suffered disproportionately, while major cities such as Moscow account for a smaller share of casualties than their populations would suggest. Researcher Maria Vyushkova said the Kremlin's recruitment policies amount to the "extermination of entire nations" for some of the smallest ethnic groups.
The British Defense Ministry said in early September that more than half a million people had died fighting for Russia, with total casualties possibly reaching 1.5 million including the wounded.
Janis Kluge, head of the Russia and Eurasia division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the losses equal about half a percent of Russia's working-age population and are unlikely to have much economic impact alone. In his view, the main significance is political.
