Russian losses in the war with Ukraine.
Mediazona count, updated

This is the final Mediazona casualty report for 2024. Though the year isn’t over yet, we can offer some preliminary conclusions.

Most significantly, 2024 appears set to become the war’s deadliest year. While this can’t yet be proven conclusively, as casualty data emerges with considerable delay and our data for 2022–23 is more complete, the current death toll stands at:

• 2022: 18,983 men;
• 2023: 33,550 men;
• 2024: 20,364 men;
• Date of death unknown: 11,860 men.

It’s worth noting that due to an unprecedented flood of obituaries, volunteers are struggling to process incoming information. Currently, 7,335 records await review, with 36% potentially being duplicates.

A second key trend is that volunteer casualties are now topping the list. While in 2022 the VDV, or Airborne forces, bore the heaviest combat losses, they now rank fifth (this involves servicemen who signed military contracts before the invasion started). In 2023, inmates—most of whom were killed in action during the Battle of Bakhmut—suffered the highest casualties. Though the proportion of prisoner casualties has since declined, authorities now permit recruitment at any stage of criminal proceedings, making it significantly harder to verify whether someone was recruited from prison.

The geography of losses has also shifted dramatically. Bashkortostan and Tatarstan have emerged as the regions bearing the heaviest toll, each losing nearly 2,000 residents in 2024. The Ural regions—Perm krai, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions—have also suffered substantial losses.

Throughout 2024, authorities have maintained their silence on casualty figures. During his annual “Direct Line” public phone-in, Vladimir Putin even failed to respond to a question about those missing in action. The scale of the tragedy was only revealed accidentally, when Putin’s niece, Deputy Defence Minister Anna Tsivileva, said that 48,000 families had submitted DNA samples to help identify missing relatives.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu last addressed casualties on September 21, 2022, over two years ago, claiming 5,937 deaths. This was demonstrably false even back then—Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian Service had already confirmed over 6,000 named deaths. We now know about at least 9,177 deaths by September 2022.

What we know about losses

Here’s how the losses are distributed across Russian regions. These are absolute numbers, not adjusted for population or number of military units.

On the map, you can choose between total losses and losses by military branch, as well as see where the deceased mobilised soldiers were from.

In most cases, from death reports or indirect signs (uniform or sleeve patches in photos), it’s possible to determine which branch of the military the deceased served in, or how they joined the army (mobilised, volunteer, prisoner, etc.)

We compared these groups of servicemen on a separate graph.

From early summer and into the mid-fall season of 2022, volunteers bore the brunt of the losses, which is strikingly different from the situation in the initial stage of the war: in winter and early spring, the Airborne Forces suffered the greatest damage, followed by the Motorised Rifle troops.

By the end of 2022 and the beginning of the next year, losses among prisoners recruited into the Wagner PMC increased markedly. They were formed into “assault groups” to overwhelm Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut.

By March 2023, prisoners became the largest category of war losses. After the capture of Bakhmut, there have been no cases of mass use of prisoners so far.

By September 2024, volunteers once again emerged as the largest category among the KIA. This shift reflects a cumulative effect: prison recruitment had significantly waned, no new mobilisation had been announced, yet the stream of volunteers continued unabated.

By December 20, the death of over 4,500 officers of the Russian army and other security agencies had been confirmed.

The proportion of officer deaths among overall casualties has steadily declined since the conflict began. In the early stages, when professional contract soldiers formed the main invasion force, officers accounted for up to 10% of fatalities. By November 2024, this figure had dropped to between 2–3%—a shift that reflects both evolving combat tactics and the intensive recruitment of volunteer infantry, who suffer casualty rates many times higher than their commanding officers.

Officers killed in Ukraine

To date, reports of the deaths of two deputy army commanders have been officially confirmed—Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky of the 41st Army and Major General Vladimir Frolov of the 8th Army.

On May 22, 2022, fighter pilot, 63-year-old retired Major General Kanamat Botashev died; most likely, he went to war as a volunteer. The deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Captain 1st Rank Andrei Paliy, was also killed. On June 5, 2022, the death of Major General Roman Kutuzov was reported.

In June 2023, Major General Sergei Goryachev was killed. He was the chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army and commanded the repulsion of the Ukrainian counterattack in the Zaporizhzhia region.

In July 2023, the death of the first Lieutenant General was confirmed—Oleg Tsokov, deputy commander of the Southern Military District.

In November 2023, Major General Vladimir Zavadsky was killed. He was the deputy commander of the 14th Army Corps.

In November 2024, Major General Pavlo Klimenko, commander of the 5th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (former DPR ‘Oplot’ Brigade), died. According to the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel Spy’s Dossier, he was fatally wounded on November 6: Klimenko was attacked by an FPV drone while riding a motorbike between command posts.

The date of death of servicemen is specified in 64,400 reports. The number of losses per day according to this data hardly reflects the real picture, but it allows us to assume on which days the battles were the most intense.

It should always be taken into account that the data of the last few weeks is the most incomplete and may change significantly in the future.

Age is mentioned in 71,100 reports. In the first six months of the war, when the regular army participated in the invasion without volunteers, mobilised soldiers, and prisoners, most deaths were in the 21–23 age group.

Volunteers and mobilised soldiers are significantly older: people voluntarily go to war at 30–35 years or older, and the mobilised are generally over 25.