Tens of thousands fighting for Russia are dying unnoticed in the first line in Ukraine

More than 95,000 people fighting for the military of Russia have now died when the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year, according to data analyzed by the BBC.

This figure does not include those who were killed in the militia of the self -proclaimed republics of Donbas that we estimate between 21,000 and 23,500 combatants.

BBC Russian, the Mediazona Independent Media Group and volunteers have been telling deaths since February 2022.

The list includes names of the deceased that we verify the use of official reports, newspapers, social networks and new monuments and tombs. It is believed that the death toll from death is much higher.

Daniil Dudnikov, a 21 -year -old history student at Donetsk National University, was reading international relations and enjoyed swimming.

The first day of the large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, the authorities of the popular republic of Donetsk mobilized Daniil and sent him to the Jarkiv region.

Only a month later, on March 25, Daniil disappeared into action. Of the 18 soldiers in his unit, none returned. 13 were killed and five were made prisoners. Four months later, after an exchange of prisoners, those who had survived confirmed that Daniil had been one of the 13 dead in combat.

Daniil’s story reflects those of thousands of other residents of the popular republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, created in 2014 by separatists backed by Moscow in the predominantly roller speech parts of East of Ukraine.

With a large -scale Russian invasion in 2022, civilians were recruited in mass, often inadequately trained and poorly equipped before being assigned to almost impossible missions. This resulted in an amazing number of dead and missing soldiers, whose destination often remains unknown for months or years.

According to our analysis of published obituaries and reports of missing persons from the regions, most deaths in DonBass militias occurred during the first year of the invasion, a toll comparable to the total number of Russian military losses confirmed during the same period: 25,769 deaths.

However, despite the fact that many people in the occupied parts of East Ukraine have relatives or friends in Russia, they are much less integrated into the daily life of the country, which makes their losses less “visible” for the common Russians .

Another large part of Russian losses are the convicts recruited in prisons.

Ildus Sadykov was 59 when he was arrested for stealing a bag at a railway station in Moscow. It was the fourth time he ended in jail, after having spent a total of 16 years after bars for separate criminal convictions.

“They told me: ‘If you don’t want Ukrainian forces in the summer of 2024.

After an exchange of prisoners, he was returned to Russia, where he was sent back to the frontline lines again. This month, Ildus Sadykov was killed in combat.

Currently, the database of the Russian BBC of Low of War includes 16,171 condemned criminals that were recruited from criminal colonies to fight. These are only the cases in which we could verify the criminal record through open sources. The real number of deceased convicts is probably much greater.

By including an analysis of filtered documents of the private military company of the Wagner Group, we can estimate that prisoners can represent up to a third of Russian military deaths during the three years of the invasion. Many of these individuals lived in correctional facilities, effectively interrupted from a broader society, for years.

“Losses feel more for the segments of Russian society with less resources, whether educational, financial or political,” says Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, director of the Institute of Russia in King’s College London.

“The Kremlin seems to have designed it in this way, ensuring that the most privileged sections of society remain largely disconnected from the war. Therefore, the recruitment of foreign prisoners and mercenaries.”

“In small cities, people are much more aware of the scale of victims. War has affected social groups that lack the media not only to protest but even to express their views openly. Discussions are limited To private conversations, “he adds.

Only 30% of the Russians have had a direct exposure to war, either fighting in you or family connections with combatants, according to a public opinion survey of the Chronicle project in September 2024. 80%.

Measuring genuine support for war in Russia is difficult, since many respondents fear to speak honestly. But a study in charge of the Proppa project, supported by the University of Helsinki, found that 43% of the Russians surveyed openly supported the invasion.

“Would they be different public attitudes towards war if more people knew the fallen personally?” Ask the main Russian sociologist Vikhshthtayn. “Without a doubt.”

Russian’s real losses are almost surely substantially higher than open source data can reveal. The military analysts that we have consulted estimate that the investigation of the BBC, which is based on cemeteries, commemorative monuments of war and obituaries, probably captures only 45% to 65% of the total casualties.

Grateful to which, the bodies of many of those killed in recent months probably remain on the battlefield, since recovering them requires that living soldiers risk exposure to drone strikes.

Given the previous estimate, the true number of Russian military deaths could vary from 146,194 to 211,169. If one adds estimated losses of the DPR and LPR forces, the total number of deaths aligned in Russian can range between 167,194 and 234,669.

Russia officially reported his military losses in September 2022 and cited less than 6,000 deaths.

Ukraine last updated his victims figures in December 2024, when President Volodymyr Zelensky recognized 43,000 Ukrainian deaths between soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe that this figure is a underestimate.

The Ukraine Pastes website, which compiles data from victims of open sources, currently lists more than 70,400 surnames of Ukrainian soldiers. Our verification of a random sample of 400 of them found that the database was reliable.

The list of Ukrainian victims is probably more complete than the Russian equivalent, since Ukrainian presidential decrees in posthumous military awards remain publicly accessible. In Russia these data are classified.

As the war approaches its fourth year, global attention has changed to the impulse of the new US administration for peace negotiations. We continue to monitor the activity in Russian military cemeteries and war memorials, and analyze obituaries, which have increased considerably in number since September of last year.