Russian army in 2025. Record bloodshed, “meat grinder” continues, old men assaults. Mediazona’s year end summary

The deadliest year yet

Our data confirms that every year of this war has been bloodier than the last. The death toll in 2023 exceeded that of 2022, and 2024 was significantly worse than 2023. Now, the dynamics of incoming obituaries and casualty reports confirm that 2025 has surpassed 2024 to become the deadliest year of the war to date.

While we have confirmed the names of over 156,000 killed since the invasion began, this figure lags behind reality due to delays in processing reports. Excess mortality analysis from the Russian probate registry suggests that in 2024 alone, at least 100,000 Russian soldiers died. We project the final toll for 2025 will be even higher.

Saving vehicles, spending men

The unprecedented casualty rate is the direct result of a shift in Russian military tactics observed throughout 2025. 

In the earlier phases of the war, assaults were typically led by armored columns. This year saw a sharp decline in the loss of tanks and armored personnel carriers—not because the intensity of combat faded, but because the Russian command is now strictly conserving heavy equipment. Metal has become more valuable than human life.

To compensate, Russian forces have adopted infiltration tactics. Small groups of one to three infantrymen are sent to seep past Ukrainian positions. These groups suffer massive attrition from drones and artillery on the approach, but the few who survive accumulate in forward positions until a critical mass is reached to launch an assault.

This meat grinder tactics preserve tanks but is exceptionally costly in personnel. It has also led to the reduction in mechanical transport use near the front line. We have seen a surge in the use of civilian vehicles (buggies, dirt bikes) hastily adapted for combat. By the end of the year, we even saw horses being used on the front lines. While this does not indicate a total depletion of combat-ready vehicles, there is an evident shift towards saving remaining armor.

Army for old men

Contrary to Defence Minister Andrei Belousov’s recent claim that “two-thirds” of new contract soldiers are under 40, our data shows the Russian army is rapidly aging.

The volunteer fighters represent the largest category of casualties in the Russian army, based on our data. The average age of the volunteers killed in 2025 is trending towards 50. The most frequent age of death recorded this year is between 46 and 52.

While recruitment drives continue, they are not attracting the youth. The ranks are being filled by older men, often from economically fading regions, who are physically less suited to the rigors of the infiltration warfare they are thrown into.

The recruitment rate, estimated at roughly 30,000 per month, is now barely sufficient to replace the losses from deaths, severe injuries, and desertion. The army needs to feed tens of thousands of men into the front merely to maintain its current strength.

MIA-to-court

This year saw a massive spike in court-ordered death declarations. Since mid-2024, approximately 90,000 lawsuits have been filed to declare missing soldiers legally dead, a procedure that allows the Ministry of Defence to categorize them as “found” without ever recovering their bodies. The true scale of the unrecovered dead we estimate now exceeds 180,000.

Just today, we discovered that the digital trail of Russia’s missing soldiers is being erased. Case files regarding the recognition of soldiers as missing or dead—our primary tool for tracking the “bureaucratic” death toll—have begun to disappear en masse from court websites in 50 regions.

The most glaring is the Oktyabrsky District Court in the Rostov region, which had been the busiest court in the country for such claims due to its proximity to the southern front. Of the 4,025 claims filed there since early 2024—a volume the court’s own press service previously admitted was driven by missing soldiers—only 102 remain visible today. Across the country, the total count of visible cases for the last three years has collapsed from over 111,000 to roughly 41,000 overnight.

We were alerted to this by a reader who reported a new directive from the Judicial Department instructing courts to cease publishing these specific records following a “technical update” on December 26. Until now, such blatant concealment was unique to Moscow’s court system, which routinely hides the digital records of high-profile treason cases like those of Ivan Safronov or Vladimir Kara-Murza.