Journalists identified the names of more than 90,000 Russians who died in the war

By January 24, the journalists of the Russian service of the BBC and Mediazona, together with a team of volunteers, established the names of 90,019 Russian soldiers who died during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, based on open sources. In the last two weeks, starting from January 10, journalists and volunteers identified the names of 1,964 people.

According to the BBC, 23% of all the dead are people who signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation after February 2022. 17% of all known dead are prisoners who went to war from the colonies, 12% were mobilized.

17% of the identified dead are military personnel. The list of journalists includes nine generals and 500 military personnel with the rank of lieutenant colonel and above.

As of January 24, Bashkortostan had the largest number of dead, the authors of the study note. The authorities and mass media of this region reported the death of a total of 3,932 people.

The real casualties, the BBC notes, are higher, as the journalists’ analysis may cover between 45% and 65% of the real death toll.

“Taking into account the above estimate, the real number of dead on the Russian side may be in the range of 138,500 to 200,000 people,” the journalists said.

Russia and Ukraine give almost no information about their losses in the war. Moscow officially last named the number of people killed in September 2022 – then 5,937 people died.