Author, Olga Ivshina
Place of work, BBC Russian Service
Published 6 hours ago
Reading time: 5 min
The BBC, together with Mediazona and a team of volunteers, has identified the names of 241,088 Russian soldiers who have died since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 56% of all the dead were volunteers, mobilized and convicted, who left penal colonies to fight, that is, people who were in no way connected with the army at the start of the war.
The actual death toll is higher: the death toll is based only on publicly available data.
The average age of those killed on our list is now 38 years. This is 13 years more than in the first months of the invasion. At that time, the main operations were carried out by elite units, in which young people who had undergone intensive training served.
Now the main source of army replenishment is people who join the army from civilian life and go to the front after short training.
Volunteers are now the oldest category of victims. Among those who recently signed a contract, men aged 42-45 years most often die. Moreover, 2,776 dead volunteers were over 60 years of age.
Also, 6,435 men under the age of 24 died in the war.
This age distribution reflects the evolution of the recruitment mechanism of the Russian army.
After the politically painful mobilization of 2022, the authorities relied on cash payments and decentralized recruitment of contract workers through the regions. For a long time, this system allowed the Russian authorities to compensate for army losses without announcing a new wave of mobilization.
Main trends
Volunteers now account for 36% of all confirmed casualties.
The share of prisoners continues to decline: they now make up 11% of all deaths, although in 2023, every fifth person killed on our list was recruited for war from the colonies.
But the reduction in the proportion of prisoners does not mean that the Russian army has become less likely to recruit people through the correctional system. Since 2024, it has been possible to sign a contract before trial: for the accused, this becomes a way to avoid a possible prison sentence. However, there are cases where the decision to go to the front was made by defendants under pressure, including out of fear of receiving a harsh sentence or not being able to withstand the pressure of the system in prison.
In our statistics, such military personnel are counted as volunteers, since at the time of signing the contract they had not yet been convicted or served a sentence.
Those mobilized on our list today account for approximately 8% of all deaths. This group is noticeably younger than the others: the average age of those killed here is 32 years. Almost half of them (42%) died in the first year after the announcement of partial mobilization in the fall of 2022, which was never formally completed.
An analysis of our data shows that most often the contract is signed by residents of small towns and villages, where stable and well-paid jobs are in short supply, and the campaigning of local authorities can be more assertive than in large cities.
According to the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), recruitment into the Russian army now occurs primarily on a commercial basis, and ideological factors have faded into the background. Regional and municipal authorities pay not only the contract workers themselves, but also the intermediaries. At the same time, recruiters, as the researchers note, purposefully reach out to people in vulnerable financial situations, offering them payments and debt forgiveness.
Bashkortostan and Tatarstan remain at the top of the list of regions in terms of the number of identified deaths. This is partly due to the fact that volunteers are actively working in these republics, systematically collecting data on losses.
During the years of the invasion, Russia lost more than 7,642 officers killed, 77% of them were junior commanders. It is junior officers (ranking from junior lieutenant to captain) who play a key role in combat conditions, building a connection between the bulk of the soldiers and the commanders responsible for planning operations.
A report by the US Congressional Research Service notes that dead career military and junior officers in the Russian army are often replaced by people with a significantly weaker level of training. This gradually reduces the effectiveness of individual Russian units.
The authors also point to the preservation of a strictly centralized decision-making system. This limits the independence of commanders on the ground and makes it difficult to make quick decisions, which often leads to additional losses.
The Russian army is increasingly using complex maneuvers, which require competent and well-trained officers. Increasingly, the army is relying on heavy artillery bombardments and endless attacks by stormtroopers in small groups.
What are the real loss figures?
The real losses of the Russian side are greater than the number of dead, whose names can be confirmed from open sources.
Military experts estimate that the results of our analysis of Russian cemeteries, war memorials and obituaries may cover from 45% to 55% of the real death toll.
Not all deaths are reported publicly. In addition, the bodies of a significant number of military personnel killed in recent months still remain on the battlefield. Attempts to evacuate them involve serious danger to the living, primarily due to the threat of drone strikes.
Based on expert estimates, the real death toll on the Russian side could range from 438,342 to 535,751 people.
The overall figure becomes noticeably higher if we take into account those who fought against Ukraine as part of units of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR, as well as the losses of North Korean units who fought in the Kursk region of Russia.
An analysis of obituaries and publications in 2022 about missing soldiers from the LPR and DPR suggests that by the end of 2022, 21,000 - 23,500 people had died.
By examining satellite imagery and official photographs of the new war memorial built in the DPRK, BBC Korea identified the names of 2,304 Korean soldiers who fought alongside Russian forces and died in 2024-2025.
Thus, according to the collected data, the total losses of pro-Russian forces could range from 461,646 to 561,555 troops.
Ukraine last reported its losses in February 2026. Then President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged the death of 55 thousand Ukrainian soldiers and officers. Western experts believe that the number of losses cited by Zelensky is most likely underestimated.
A list of losses by name on the Ukrainian side based on open sources is maintained by the anonymous website Ukraine losses - it currently contains 103,418 names of dead military personnel. Ukraine losses also indicates that, taking into account publications about missing persons, the total number of military deaths on the Ukrainian side could reach 212,974 people.
We continue to collect information about fallen servicemen. If you would like to share data on this topic please email us at [email protected]
What do we think?
In Russia, the names of the dead and photographs from funerals are published every day. Most often, the names are given by the heads of Russian regions or representatives of district administrations, local media and educational institutions where the deceased previously studied, as well as relatives.
The main calculation does not take into account the losses of the self-proclaimed “republics” of Donbass until 2023. Since January 2023, since units of the “DPR people’s militia” became part of the Russian army, we count those killed from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as foreigners who fought as part of Russian units.
