According to a joint investigation by the BBC Russian service, Mediazona, and a team of volunteer researchers, Russian casualties have been five times higher than usual in the past two weeks.
Throughout 2022, Russian troops' typical proven casualty rate was around 250-300 per week. However, these figures began to double in January 2023. The investigators were able to confirm 1,679 Russian troop casualties since the start of February.
According to the report, this is the largest increase in casualties since the start of the full-scale invasion in March 2022. It can likely be attributed to Russia's latest offensive in eastern Ukraine.
The investigators were able to confirm the names of a total of 14,709 Russian troops killed since the start of the full-scale invasion using open sources and added that the total number of Russian troops casualties might be twice as high as what they were able to verify.
Moreover, they confirmed the deaths of 50 mobilized troops at military units and collection points on Russian territory, the cause of which was most often health problems and delayed medical treatment. Eight deaths were caused by suicide, and six during training or traffic accidents.
One of the highest levels of casualties is recorded for soldiers from Krasnodar Krai. Forty percent of the deaths were not reported in media or on social networks. Instead, this information came from local volunteers who photographed new graves at local cemeteries.
Many troops from economically-disadvantaged regions such as Dagestan, Buryatia, and Bashkortostan had the highest casualties. Conversely, only 98 deaths of soldiers from Moscow are known, despite the city comprising nine percent of Russia's total population.
According to the report, casualties increase significantly if the losses of soldiers mobilized by Russia's proxies in occupied Donetsk (at least 5,000 soldiers) and Luhansk (more than 1,500) Oblasts are included. The BBC reports that it found more than 4,600 messages from people in the occupied territories searching for information on their loved ones' whereabouts.
