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By exploiting official press releases, information published in the media and social networks, and by observing the graves in cemeteries, the Russian service of the BBC and the Russian site Mediazona have established a count of military losses since the start of the war. ‘invasion.
The BBC Russian service and the Russian site Mediazona indicated on Wednesday that they had identified more than 50,000 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Their count, published in a joint investigation and finalized on April 7 2024, comes from the exploitation of certain information, such as official press releases, information published in the media and social networks, or collected by going to observe the graves in cemeteries.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia has published a report on their losses since the start of the war and both media outlets warn that their count does not claim to be exhaustive. At the end of February, kyiv estimated the number of soldiers killed at 31,000, while the Russian army has only communicated on its military losses on very rare occasions and these figures are considered to be largely minimized. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday invoked “the law on state secrets” And “the special regime” of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to justify the lack of official communication on Russian military losses.
Last August, The New York Times, citing American officials, estimated Russian military losses at 120,000 dead. On January 29, in a written response to a parliamentarian, British Defense Minister James Heappey estimated Russian losses at more than 350,000 dead and wounded.
Tens of thousands of detainees sent to the front
In their investigation, BBC Russian and Mediazona looked in particular at the fate of prisoners recruited to fight on the front, a contribution “crucial for the success of (the strategy of) cannon fodder” of the Russian army, they note. Tens of thousands of inmates were recruited in Russian prisons, in exchange for a promise of release, notably by the Wagner paramilitary group but also by the regular army.
According to the two media’s examination of a sample of more than 1,000 prisoners, half of those conscripted directly by the Russian army had died within two months of being sent to the front. Those recruited by Wagner (until February 2023) died within three months of their enlistment.
The two media also point out that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died in the second year of the conflict, “illustrating the enormous human cost of territorial gains” obtained by Russia, in particular in the Donetsk region from January 2023, during the battle of Bakhmut in spring 2023, or even during the large-scale offensive launched last fall and which lasted four months to capture the town of Avdiïvka.