How many Russians have died in Ukraine? Data sheds light on closely held secret

Social media postings and photographs of cemeteries across Russia used to help build a database of confirmed war deaths

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers

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Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. File photo: AP

Published: 2:44pm, 10 Jul 2023Updated: 2:46pm, 10 Jul 2023

Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets - the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularised during the Covid-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers.

A plaque with the name of Russian soldier Alexander Dolzhanov, who died in Ukraine. Photo: AP

Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say. Documenting the dead has become an act of defiance, and those who do so face harassment and potential criminal charges.