Media investigation identifies 66,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine

(Patria) - Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona announced on Saturday, according to its estimates, that more than 66,000 Russian military personnel have died during the war in Ukraine, AFP reported.

Mediazona has been compiling a list of known soldier deaths in cooperation with the BBC Russian service, using open-source data. Previously, in April, they announced they had found more than 50,000 names of Russians killed.

Mediazona stated on Saturday that "as of August 30, we know the names of 66,471 Russian soldiers killed in the war." The list has grown by more than 4,600 in the last four weeks, it was stated, emphasizing that this is not a final number as the death toll for many soldiers is not publicly disclosed.

Anastasia Alekseyeva, a journalist at Mediazona, emphasized that the latest death tolls "are not
related to Ukraine's offensive in the Kursk region or Russia's advance in the east." This is because researchers are still working through a backlog of death reports, she said.

The report states that 172 conscripts who were serving their mandatory military service have been killed in the war, the highest number in the initial months. However, these figures may be inaccurate as conscripts can sign contracts for the professional army, and some may have done so without informing their relatives, said Mediazona editor Dmitry Treshchanin.

According to Mediazona's analysis, the region with the highest absolute number of casualties, 2,578, is the southern republic of Bashkortostan, which has a large Muslim population.

The most represented age group overall was 33 to 35 years old (6,877 killed). More than 12,000 of the dead were prisoners, after Russia attempted to recruit inmates by promising them freedom after a period spent on the front lines. But the number has recently decreased, Alekseyeva said: "Apparently, recruitment is not as active."

Mediazona and the BBC, along with volunteers, have been counting casualties since February 2022, using open-source information from official reports and media, as well as satellite imagery of Russian cemeteries to estimate the number of new graves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that nearly 700,000 Russian soldiers were fighting in Ukraine.

Moscow rarely speaks about its losses in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense announced in September 2022
that 5,937 soldiers had been killed in combat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in February that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the first two years of the war.