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Mediazona confirms identities of over 43,400 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine

2 min read
Mediazona confirms identities of over 43,400 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine
A man digs a grave near tombs of Russian soldiers at a cemetery in the town of Yefremov in the Tula region on March 23, 2023. (For illustrative purposes) (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)

Through open source research, Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet, together with BBC Russia, confirmed the names of 43,460 Russian soldiers who had been killed since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Since Mediazona's last update in late January, the names of 1,176 Russian soldiers have been added to the list of casualties.

The journalists specify that the actual figures are likely considerably higher since the information they have verified so far comes from public sources, including obituaries, posts by relatives, news in regional media, and reports by local authorities.

In the past two weeks, at least 15 military personnel with ranks from Lieutenant Colonel and higher have been added to the list.

Since Russia began its all-out war against Ukraine, over 3,100 officers, with 364 holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or higher have been killed in combat in Ukraine. In contrast, there have been nearly 5,216 casualties among newly recruited Russian soldiers.

A majority of those killed in action come from Rostov, Sverdlovsk, Bashkiria, Chelyabinsk, as well as the Buryatia republic.

Total estimates of Russia's casualties since the full-scale invasion vary widely. CIA Director William Burns wrote in a Foreign Affairs column on Jan. 30 that at least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, and two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed.

As of Feb. 2, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces says that Russia lost 387,060 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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