More than 283,000 names of Russian servicemen killed in the war against Ukraine have been compiled in the Russia 200 database, maintained by Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian Service. Mediazona’s latest update, dated November 6, lists 286,000 confirmed deaths by name. The list is not considered exhaustive, as many casualties are not publicly reported.
The data has been collected from posts by relatives, local media, regional authorities and other public sources. The evidence also includes photographs from funerals and cemeteries. It is precisely the photographing of military graves that has become the target of pressure from the Russian authorities.
In September, a court in Yaroslavl sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for photographing the gravestones of Russian servicemen. According to Politico, in recent months the Federal Security Service has been patrolling cemeteries, while several dozen people have been arrested in various parts of Russia. The cases are being heard behind closed doors, with the charges linked to treason and alleged cooperation with Ukrainian intelligence services.
Estimates of the Number of Dead Differ
Broader estimates of Russian casualties are significantly higher than the cases confirmed by name. The British Foreign Office and Dutch intelligence estimate Russia’s losses at more than 500,000 servicemen. In July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the number of dead Russians had reached 700,000.
These figures are not fully comparable. The count by name includes only cases for which publicly verifiable data is available, while government and intelligence estimates also cover losses that have not been individually confirmed. Therefore, the difference between the various estimates does not necessarily indicate a contradiction, but rather reflects different methods of calculation.
“The growing number of graves is probably what greatly concerns the authorities, because they remind them of the failure of Putin’s war. Too many people have died,” said Jan Berends of the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Germany.Moscow Ends the Publication of Official Statistics
In September 2022, six months after the start of the full-scale invasion, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that 5,937 Russian servicemen had been killed. After that, official reports on Russian casualties almost disappeared.
In April 2024, the Kremlin spokesman said that information about the casualties was a state secret and that its disclosure was the “exclusive prerogative” of the Defense Ministry. Later that year, Rosstat restricted access to data on excess mortality in Russia.
Such a policy has a historical precedent. During the war in Afghanistan, Soviet authorities restricted the ways in which it could be indicated on graves that a person had died at the front. According to historian Jeff Jones, some families were even forced to hold funerals at night so as not to attract attention.
Sources: unian.net, politico.eu, en.zona.media