Russian authorities have recorded 11,335 deaths of foreigners linked to the war in Ukraine. The data cover the period from February 24, 2022, to the end of August 2026 and include people born outside Russia or holding foreign citizenship at the time of their death.
The information was extracted from a database containing more than 11 million death certificates held by Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat. It was obtained by a Belarusian opposition hacking group and a Ukrainian hacking operation, and was subsequently provided to Bloomberg. In the documents, the connection to the war is indicated through special codes or references to military operations, shelling and drone attacks.
Most victims are from the former Soviet Union
The recorded deaths involve people from nearly 100 countries. Around 3,700 of the deceased were Ukrainian citizens or people born in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 6,000 people were born outside Russia but held Russian citizenship when they died.
Around 80% of the remaining victims were from other former Soviet republics. They include people who lived in occupied areas of eastern and southern Ukraine. Nearly 99% of all recorded foreign victims were men. Of the 159 women in the database, 154 were from occupied Ukrainian territories.
The data likely do not cover everyone who died
Not a single North Korean death appears in the records, despite thousands of North Korean servicemen having been sent to support Russian forces. This may mean that their deaths were not registered in the Russian system because they served in separate foreign formations.
The analysis likely underestimates the actual number of foreign fighters killed. The reasons include delays in issuing certificates, unidentified bodies, missing servicemen and cases in which death occurs months after injuries are sustained. According to the data, recorded foreign deaths increased from around 630 in 2022 to more than 5,500 in 2025.
New contingents from Africa
The documents show a shift in the geography of foreign recruitment. In 2023 and 2024, many of those killed were citizens of Nepal; in 2024 and 2025, the number of cases involving people from Sri Lanka and China increased, while since the end of 2025 there have been more citizens of Colombia, Kenya and Nigeria.
Around 340 of the recorded victims were from African countries, primarily Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. Ukrainian officials have given varying estimates of the number of foreigners recruited by Russia: one puts the figure at around 46,000 people, while another gives an estimate of approximately 28,000.
Rosstat said it had identified targeted cyberattacks against its systems, but “had found no evidence” that its databases had been compromised or that confidential data had leaked. Bloomberg also notes that it cannot definitively authenticate the entire database, although no signs of falsification have been found and the data match previously published Russian statistics.
Sources: bloomberg.com, deccanchronicle.com, hromadske.ua