Leaked Russian records indicate at least 450,000 Russians died in the Ukraine war by August
Records leaked from Rosstat, Russia's state statistics agency, indicate that at least 450,000 Russians, most of them soldiers, died in the war in Ukraine up to August. Moscow does not publish an official military death toll. About 410,000 deaths are listed directly as war-related, and a further 42,000 are fighting-age men whose deaths were confirmed in court because their bodies were never recovered. The Financial Times identified another 12,000 likely military deaths among men who died at or near the front. The dead include more than 4,000 foreign citizens, from countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Nepal, Colombia and Nigeria. The FT counted 4,141 probable foreign soldiers. Bloomberg, using a wider definition that includes people born abroad, counted 11,335.
The records were obtained by two hacking groups, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and Ukraine's Silent Crow, who said on November 1 that they had broken into Rosstat's network. Rosstat confirmed cyberattacks between October 29 and November 1 but said it found no evidence that its databases were compromised. The data has not been independently verified, though analysts consider it real. Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs called the database's authenticity beyond doubt, and he considers manipulation to inflate the toll highly unlikely.
Deaths in Russia can take months or years to register, so the FT concluded that once late paperwork is counted, the toll up to August will reach about 550,000. The average age of the dead rose from 34 in the war's first year to 40 in 2025, and men aged 35 to 44 are the largest group, with 158,000 deaths. Poorer, minority-populated regions were hit hard. Zabaykalsky Krai recorded about 12,300 deaths, roughly one per 80 residents, and Bashkortostan 15,800. About 120,000 deaths with a recorded location were in the area around Avdiivka and Pokrovsk, and 48,000 in Bakhmut.
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