Russia’s State Statistics Service has excluded the total number of deaths from external causes in its annual report, independent Russian media outlet Meduza reported on July 16, citing demographic expert Aleksei Raksha.
Statistics service includes deaths caused by external factors such as road accidents, homicides, and suicides, rather than diseases. Analytics and journalists have been using that data to extrapolate the number of Russian soldiers killed in the invasion of Ukraine, something the Kremlin has refused to disclose.
Meduza, in collaboration with another independent outlet Mediazona, and electoral statistics researcher Dmitry Kobak, uses Russia’s State Statistics Service data to calculate Russian military losses. According to their latest estimate, excess male mortality in 2023 is almost double that of 2022.
Additionally, studies based on data from the Registry of Hereditary Cases provide an estimate of the actual number of deaths. This estimate suggests that approximately 120,000 Russian military personnel have died in the war since 2022, with a margin of error ranging from 106,000 to 140,000.
In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that 180,000 Russian troops had been killed since the beginning of the all-out war, while over 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had lost their lives during the same period.
Western officials have provided similar estimates regarding Russian battlefield losses. In June, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that at least 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded.
Chris York
(Updated: )
