Over 236,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine identified by media investigation

Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBC Russian service, has confirmed the identities of 236,066 Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine.

Since the media outlets' last update in mid-July, the names of 2,867 Russian soldiers have been added to the list of casualties.

The journalists note that the actual figures are likely significantly higher, as their verified information comes from public sources such as obituaries, posts by relatives, regional media reports, and statements from local authorities.

The confirmed death toll now includes over 86,600 volunteers, 26,200 recruited prisoners, and 19,600 mobilized soldiers, according to the media outlets. A total of 7,465 officers have also been confirmed to have been killed.

According to the outlets, the date of death is known in 218,400 cases, accounting for nearly 93% of confirmed casualties.

The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the reporting.

While casualty estimates have varied, independent Western assessments have consistently concluded that Russian losses significantly exceed Ukrainian casualties.

On July 31, President Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed estimates revealing that Russian forces had suffered around 1.6 million military casualties since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, including approximately 700,000 killed.

Zelensky added that around 50,000 Ukrainian service members had been killed and approximately 400,000 wounded.

The latest Ukrainian death toll cited by Zelensky is lower than the figure he gave five months earlier. In February, he said that at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been officially confirmed killed on the battlefield. The true scale of military losses is difficult to determine because neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses complete figures.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces estimates that as of Aug. 2, Russia has lost around 1,449,120 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 22, 2022. The figures do not specify killed or wounded, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing, and captured.

The number is seemingly in line with the latest study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which concluded that Russia suffered an estimated 1.4 million battlefield casualties between February 2022 and June 2026, including up to 450,000 troops killed.

At its current rate, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on July 8 that Russian forces lose about 30,000 troops per month.

According to Western intelligence, throughout 2026, Russia's Armed Forces has fallen short of reaching its recruitment target of 30,000 soldiers per month, losing more soldiers than they are recruiting on a monthly bases — leading the Kremlin to consider additional rounds of mobilization.

In his evening address on July 25, Zelensky said that Moscow enlisted 221,000 people into the Russian military thus far in 2026, while sustaining nearly 225,500 losses among Russian soldiers, including 131,000 killed and almost 93,000 wounded this year alone.