#Russia Meduza and Mediazona have found a loophole in Russian government statistics, which have been largely classified since 2022 specifically with the purpose of hiding the scale of their losses in the war in #Ukraine - the National Probate Registry.

Using quite smart statistical analysis, they have calculated that Russia lost around 94'000 soldiers only in 2024, which is almost 2x more when compared against the preceding 2023 when the recorded losses were 50'000.

In total this makes 220'000 Russian registered KIA since 2022 until end of summer 2025.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/08/29/the-deadliest-year-yet

I will add that this number is consistent with obituary registers such as "Goryshko", which just recently marked 130'000 KIA identified by name. This is consistent with the National Probate Registry, because obviously not every KIA get a published obituary.

But then, there's the darker side of Russian losses - the MIA (missing in action). The system of financial incentives created by Russian MOD makes it economically profitable to classify losses as MIA rather than KIA. A killed soldier needs a family that is additionally persistent in demanding information about his fate.

Many former prisoners, foreigners or contract soldiers without family are simply left in the field or buried in mass graves because it's in nobody's interest to count their deaths.

That "foreigners" category has one more, even darker side - because many soldiers forcibly mobilised from the so called DPR/LPR "republics" were never officially included in the official Russian army statistics, and they are also not included in Russian Federation registers, such as the National Probate Registry.