Cargo 200 Thousand: For each kilometre of Ukrainian territory captured during the 2024 offensive, Russia sacrificed the lives of 30 military personnel

Calculation methods and dynamics

As of late February 2025, the BBC and Mediazona project has identified almost 96,000 named Russian soldiers killed in the war. By comparing data gathered from open sources with military cemetery surveys, the authors of the project estimate that they are aware of roughly half of the actual deaths. In their latest assessment, they have refined the estimate, suggesting that the list may cover only 45-65% of the actual number of dead.This implies that the actual number of Russian losses falls between 147,000 and 213,000. A separate calculation from a joint project by Meduza and Mediazona, which relies on Russia's public Inheritance Registry data, gives an estimate of 160,000-165,000 deaths by the end of 2024. Using monthly average losses from 2024, their projection for late February 2025 suggests a total of 180,000-185,000 Russian soldiers killed.

It should be noted that open source data is collected and updated gradually. As a result, the figures for the last few months (since approximately November) in the BBC-Mediazona name-by-name database are significantly lower than in previous months and will almost certainly increase in the future. The same issue exists with estimates based on inheritance records: according to Meduza, 90% of such cases are opened within 180 days of death due to legal regulations, meaning that more recent data remains far from complete.

The most probable range of Russian losses, based on both projects, is 170,000-190,000 deaths over three years. This equates to one death per 825 Russian citizens or 1.2 per 1,000 people. Additionally, BBC-Mediazona estimates that the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics may have lost 21,000-23,500 soldiers. Taking these figures into account, Russia’s 'special military operation' has likely resulted in 190,000-210,000 Russian deaths, excluding those who died from wounds.

The loss dynamics differ somewhat between the two estimation methods – the name-by-name list and the inheritance registry records. Their figures were similar until April 2023, when the procedure for officially declaring missing persons as dead was simplified. After that, estimates based on inheritance records rose sharply. However, both methods indicate that Russian losses followed a wave-like pattern, with peaks corresponding to major Russian offensive operations.

At the beginning of the invasion, when Russian forces expected little resistance from the Ukrainian military, Russia was losing around 500 soldiers per week. By summer 2022, losses dropped by half, as Russia’s professional contract army was reluctant to advance or fight. However, casualties surged again in the autumn of 2022, during Ukraine’s counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson. The BBC-Mediazona database recorded about 19,000 deaths for 2022, suggesting total Russian losses of around 40,000. The inheritance registry estimate (before the simplification of death declarations) put the figure at approximately 21,000 deaths.

A new peak in Russian casualties occurred during the Battle of Bakhmut (January-February 2023), with an average of approximately 150 Russian deaths per day. By this time, Yevgeny Prigozhin had established the practice of recruiting convicts for so-called ‘meat grinder assaults’. During Ukraine’s summer 2023 counteroffensive, Russian losses averaged 100-125 deaths per day, similar to early war levels but lower than during Bakhmut. In total, the BBC-Mediazona name-by-name list added 35,000 names in 2023, implying approximately 70,000 actual deaths. The inheritance registry estimate for the year was about 50,000 killed.

Despite differences in the two estimation methods, 2024 saw the highest Russian casualties of the war. The name-by-name list recorded an additional 36,500 deaths, leading to a projected estimate of 73,000 actual fatalities. Meanwhile, inheritance registry estimates indicate approximately 95,000 Russian deaths, exceeding total losses for the previous 23 months of the war (71,000 deaths). This disparity may be due to the delayed registration of deaths from the war’s early months. Many missing soldiers from the first phase of the invasion were never officially declared dead, while in the second phase – when commercial contract soldiers became the primary recruitment source – the social significance of war deaths declined. This is also indicated by sociologists' observations that, in rural Russia, news of a soldier’s death was initially seen as a public event but later lost its impact due to increasing detachment from the war (→ Re:Russia: Parallel Cheremushkin). Perhaps as a result, reports of military deaths may have become less frequently documented in open sources.

Demographics of casualties

The age profile of Russian casualties has increased throughout the war, reflecting shifts in recruitment methods. Another name-by-name register of the dead, the Kharon project from the publication ‘Important Stories’, has identified 104,000 Russian deaths from open sources (this project includes fighters from Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions, primarily Donetsk and Luhansk, leading to a different overall count than BBC-Mediazona). Among 39,600 cases with known ages, the database shows that in 2022, 41% of Russian deaths were soldiers aged 20-29. However, by 2023, the dominant age group shifted to 30-39, accounting for 38% of deaths that year and 34% in 2024. A similar trend is reflected in the BBC-Mediazona dataset: among 78,000 casualties with recorded birth years, 43%were between 30 and 41 years old.

In the first months of 2022, the invasion was carried out by regular army forces, which explains the high level of casualties among 21-23-year-olds during this period, according to Mediazona. From the autumn of 2022, mobilisation began, leading to a sharp increase in the share of soldiers over 30 years old at the front. Among the 9,800 mobilised soldiers with known ages in the BBC-Mediazona database, 52% belonged to the 30-41 age group. By early 2023, the majority of casualties were prisoners and fighters from private military companies (PMCs), primarily Wagner. The 30-41 age group was the largest both among prisoners (48%) and mobilised soldiers (52%).

In 2024, the largest category among Russian casualties became commercial ‘volunteers’, a result of sharp increases in the size of contractual cash payments and a lump-sum payment upon contract conclusion (→ Re:Russia: Features of Hybrid Mobilisation). This recruitment trend further aged the Russian forces in Ukraine: among fallen ‘volunteers’, the largest age group (34%) was 42-50 years old. Overall, commercial volunteers have now become the largest category of casualties (23%), surpassing prisoners (17%) and mobilised soldiers (11%). For 29% of recorded casualties, the BBC-Mediazona dataset does not contain category information.

The ageing of the Russian army in Ukraine during the war is also confirmed by data from the database of patients of the Main Military Medical Directorate (GVMU) of the Ministry of Defence, which was obtained by Radio Liberty from Aleksei Zhilyaev, a former evacuation unit commander of the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division. This database includes 166,000 patients treated in Russian and occupied Crimean military hospitals from January 2022 to June 2024. The average age of wounded and sick soldiers increased from 28 to 36 years between February 2022 and mid-June 2024. Before October 2022, the largest percentage of wounded belonged to the 20-29 age group, but by late 2022, this group had been overtaken by 30-39-year-olds. Since December 2022, the 40-49 age group has become the second largest, surpassing the 20-29-year-olds. From the summer of 2023 onward, the proportion of wounded soldiers aged 50+ has been increasing. Soldiers under 20 were most frequently wounded at the start of the invasion and from spring to winter 2023. The aging trend in the Russian army appears to be similar to that in Ukrainian forces.

The Ukrainian wounded database contains information on 80,000 soldiers with minor injuries, 58,600 with moderate injuries, and 2,200 with severe injuries. The proportion of severe injuries has remained stable throughout the war (70-140 cases per month). This, military analyst Dara Massicot told Radio Liberty, indicates that the Russian army has failed to improve its evacuation system, leading to low survival rates for soldiers with severe shrapnel wounds or limb amputations on the battlefield.

Prior to January 2024, the number of minor injuries was significantly higher than moderate injuries. However, Aleksei Zhilyaev, who provided the database, warns that this data may be inaccurate since military hospital doctors often underreport injury severity. One possible reason is to expedite the return of wounded soldiers to the front: according to Radio Liberty’s analysis, hospitalisation for minor injuries lasts an average of 18.5 days, while moderate injuries require over 37 days. The distortion of statistics may have been influenced by the current legislation on insurance payments for servicemen, which provide 85,000 rubles in compensation for a minor injury and approximately 180,000 rubles for a moderate one. The GVMU database even includes cases where soldiers with amputated limbs were classified as having ‘minor injuries’.

The BBC-Mediazona project reports that over 4,700 Russian officers have been confirmed killed in Ukraine. At the start of the war, officers made up an unusually large share of casualties – up to 10%, though this may be due to more meticulous record-keeping for officers compared to rank-and-file soldiers. By November 2024, this figure had normalised to 2-3% of all casualties. The GVMU database shows that at the start of the invasion, officers accounted for 17% of the wounded. However, this percentage dropped threefold by August 2023, following mobilisation and the increased deployment of contract soldiers to the front lines.

According to data from BBC and Mediazona, the highest absolute losses have been recorded in Bashkortostan (4,100 killed), Tatarstan (4,000), Sverdlovsk Oblast (3,200), Krasnodar Krai (2,900), and Perm Krai (2,900). These figures come from named casualty lists, which, as a reminder, represent only about half of the actual losses. When adjusted for population size, the poorest regions have suffered the highest per capita losses. This trend has long been observed. These regions have experienced both higher rates of forced mobilisation and a greater prevalence of commercial ‘volunteering’. According to Re:Russia, the highest per capita losses (deaths per 1,000 people) have been recorded in Tuva, Buryatia, Altai, Sakhalin Oblast, and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, with confirmed casualty rates between 2 and 3 per 1,000 people and projected losses likely between 4 and 6 per 1,000. The lowest casualty burden has been observed in the North Caucasus, Tula, Tyumen, and Moscow Oblasts, as well as Saint Petersburg and Moscow: Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, Tula, and Moscow Oblasts have one confirmed casualty per 3,000-4,000 residents; Tyumen, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Saint Petersburg have one per 4,000-5,000 residents; Moscow has one casualty per 12,000 residents. However, it is important to note that casualty estimates based on open sources may be significantly distorted by social attitudes (‘culture of grief’) and the reporting tactics of regional authorities.

In general, the demography of Russian casualties reveals a pattern of ‘social backwardness’ in the methods of army recruitment and in combat strategy. The data also highlights society’s high tolerance for heavy losses.

Russian regions with the highest and lowest number of fatalities in the ‘special military operation’, number of fatalities per 1,000 people

‘Leaders’

‘Outsiders’