“At least 450,000 Russian deaths in Ukraine war… Russian statistics office data hacked”

(London = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Ji-yeon = According to leaked data from the Russian National Statistical Office, the number of deaths on the Russian side due to the war between the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the summer of this year is estimated at at least 450,000, the British daily Financial Times (FT) reported on the 13th (local time).

The FT made this estimate based on an analysis of data from the Russian National Statistical Office last August obtained by the Belarusian anti-government hacker group Khyber Partizani and the Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish casualty figures for the war.

According to data from the Russian National Statistical Office, the number of deaths directly classified as conflict-related is 410,000, with most of them being soldiers and some civilians appearing to be included.

In addition, if the body is not recovered, the family goes through the death process through the court, and according to data from the National Statistical Office, the number of deaths among men of fighting age was recorded at 42,000.

In addition, the FT reported that by analyzing the profile, location, and status of the dead and considering men of combat age who died in the front line area such as Pokrovsk, an additional 12,000 military deaths were identified.

Considering that there are many delays in the documentation process, such as deaths related to the siege of Mariupol in 2022 being registered only this year, the actual number of deaths may be higher than the statistics office data.

The FT estimated that the actual number of deaths could have reached approximately 550,000 by early August of this year, and that a simple calculation based on the previous number of deaths could reach 650,000 by the end of the year.

The dead were concentrated in the fortified area in northwest Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. It was found that about 120,000 people died in this area alone, where Audiuka and Pokrovsk are located. In nearby Bahmut, 48,000 people were counted as dead.

The number of casualties in this region alone far exceeds the official death toll of 15,000 from the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan (1979-1989). 58,000 American soldiers lost their lives in the Vietnam War.

The aging of the deceased was also observed. The average age of those killed during last year's war was 40 years old, significantly higher than in 2022 (34 years old).

Yanis Kruge, a Russia expert at the German think tank International Security Research Institute (SWP), pointed out, "Last year, when the fighting was fierce, there were tens of thousands of deaths per month."

This leaked data also reveals health problems in Russia.

The FT reported that in 2021, after the vaccine was released, the number of deaths in Russia due to COVID-19 was 457,000, and the death rate relative to the population was found to be 2.5 to 3 times that of the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) due to lax and late quarantine measures.

Since 2021, deaths due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) have totaled 85,000, compared to 14,000 last year. According to UN estimates, there are less than 10,000 people in North America, Western Europe, and Central Europe.