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

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered an assessment of the Russian army’s casualties, a figure that was met with some scepticism. According to him, Russia has lost 100,000 soldiers in the war in Ukraine since the beginning of 2025 alone.

“Since January of this year, as an example just to give you, on the Russian side, they’ve lost 100,000 soldiers—dead—not injured—dead.  And on the Ukrainian side, the numbers are less but still very significant,” he said on July 10 during a visit to Malaysia.

A little later, on July 14, this assessment was echoed by NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting with US president Donald Trump: “100,000 Russian soldiers dead since January.” While western intelligence agencies may possess sources that are not publicly available, we urge caution with such round figures, which often appear without a clear methodology.

Mediazona maintains this project as a public, name-by-name list of confirmed war dead, tracking Russian losses throughout the war in Ukraine. In addition to it, together with our colleagues from Meduza, we calculate our own estimate of the Russian army’s actual losses based on a statistical analysis of inheritance records. The most recent major update, covering the period to the end of 2024, estimated that Russia had lost 165,000 men in total since the full-scale invasion began. The rate of losses accelerated significantly, with about 95,000 men killed in 2024 alone: 45,000 in the first half of the year and 50,000 in the second.

A new estimate is still being prepared. Preliminary extrapolation suggests that if the trend held, Russia would have lost at least another 50,000 men, or 278 every day. This figure, while horrifying, is half of the one cited by Rubio and Rutte. However, we will take another look at our methodology to prevent undercounting, as it was formulated when the demographic of fighters was younger and may not fully capture the recent influx of soldiers over 40.

Another, much larger estimate was offered this week by the pro-government blogger Pavel Gubarev, one of the leaders of the Donbas separatist uprising in 2014 and the self-proclaimed “People’s Governor of Novorossiya”. He claims that one million Russian soldiers have been killed over the entire course of the war. This is a wild exaggeration based on a flawed method of extrapolating the catastrophic losses from a few specific hotspots across the entire 1,000km frontline and over the full duration of the war. This shows, however, that Gubarev has adopted an increasingly radical tone similar to that of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin of Wagner PMC, criticising the war’s current, bloody execution.

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 July 18, the death of 5,381 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 93,600 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 101,700 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.