The BBC and Mediazona have identified the names of 266,032 dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine

Author, Olga Ivshina*

Place of work, BBC Russian Service

Published a minute ago

Reading time: 7 min

The BBC, together with Mediazona* and a team of volunteers, used open data to identify the names of 266,032 Russian soldiers who died during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. An analysis of this list shows that in 2025-2026, the discovery of the bodies of dead military personnel occurs with a long delay and, on average, occurs only 150 days after death on the battlefields. And the death was documented even later - on average after 236 days.

Over the past month, the names of 22,358 dead Russian military personnel have been added to our database. Such a large increase is not directly related to the situation at the front.

Most of the newly added names, 18,657 people, are those who had been missing for a long time and whose bodies were found by evacuation teams in 2025-2026. Some of these soldiers died in the 2022 battles, but most were killed in 2025.

Now we have been able to confirm the fact of the death of these military men based on open data from Russian state registers: in particular, the register of inheritance cases and published court decisions declaring a person killed in war.

For most of the victims in this sample, we know not only the date of death, but also the date the body was found, as well as the date when the death of the military man was documented. This is very important because it shows how much of a delay now occurs from the time a soldier is killed to the time his body is discovered, and then until his death is identified and legally recorded.

375 days waiting

Before the start of a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, a resident of Veliky Novgorod, Yevgeny Kutliev, led an ordinary life. In 2016, he was sentenced to eight years for attempting to sell drugs. While behind bars, he graduated from a vocational school and became an electrician.

In 2022, he was released and went to work at the Velikoluksky Electrical Equipment Plant. Then he worked as a carpenter, bought a car on credit and sometimes made online bets at bookmakers.

In 2025, Evgeniy signed a contract with the Russian army. In early July, he disappeared during a combat mission. Relatives searched for him for more than a year. And only on July 17, 2026, that is, 375 days after the day of his death in the war, Eugene’s death was documented and registered.