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More Than 42,000 Russian Troops Killed In Ukraine Since Launch Of Full-Scale Invasion
At least 42,284 Russian military personnel have been killed since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to research by journalists from Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service who have established the deceased soldiers' identities.
The number includes 5,089 mobilized soldiers and 7,810 inmates recruited from Russian prisons, the two media organizations said.
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The journalists from Mediazona and BBC Russian Service also established that out of the total, at least 3,053 were officers and 349 of them had ranks of lieutenant colonel or higher.
The journalists based their research on data from open sources such as obituaries in the media and messages on social networks by relatives of the victims.
A breakdown by Russian regions showed that most of the identified troops killed in action were from the Krasnodar region, 1,640, followed by the Sverdlovsk region with 1,449, Bashkortostan with 1,353, and Chelyabinsk, 1,191.
Russia's capital, Moscow, lost at least 482 identified military personnel, while 480 deceased soldiers were from St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.
The Russian Defense Ministry does not disclose data on personnel losses and does not comment on figures reported by journalists.
Earlier this month, Russian media website Important Stories found out that starting from 2022, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation prohibited employees of its regional branches from publishing information about those involved in the war in Ukraine who receive social benefits, since such data could be used to calculate the losses of the Russian Army.
In April, Important Stories wrote that the Russian Defense Ministry has stopped publishing information about military pensions for disability and for war widows and orphans for similar reasons.