Richard Arnold
Russian fatality estimates in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine vary widely, but analysis of open-source data suggests they exceed 175,000 between February 2022 and July 2025.
Older Russian men and ethnic minorities are disproportionately dying in the war—many deaths come from regions such as Buryatia, Bashkiria, and Tatarstan, while Moscow and St. Petersburg contribute relatively fewer fatalities.
Ahiska Turks are estimated to be overrepresented by approximately 800 percent in fatality data, while Cossack mobilization structures increase the proportion of losses in certain regions, showing how Russia’s war strains vulnerable and semi-organized groups.
Nowhere is the well-worn saying that “truth is the first casualty of war” more applicable than in casualty estimates for Russia’s war against Ukraine. U.K. intelligence estimates Russia has passed one million casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with more than 260,000 casualties in 2025 so far (The New Voice of Ukraine, August 5). Russian sources such as Defense Minister Andrei Belousov claim Ukraine has suffered over one million casualties, with 560,000 in 2024 alone (RTVI, December 16, 2024). The term “casualties” encompasses both those who have died and those who are injured so badly they cannot return to the front, so casualty counts are vague on this point alone.
Efforts to identify the number of dead using open-source intelligence continue. Projects that distinguish fatalities from casualties highlight the sorest aspect of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine for Russians. When fathers, brothers, and sons do not return home from war, relatives might be expected to hold the authorities accountable. Three primary organizations are tracking Russian deaths in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. These organizations use open-source materials to count deaths, which often results in incomplete information and may lead to undercounting of fatalities. The most prominent attempt to count Russian fatalities comes from Mediazona, which works with the BBC Russian Service and a team of volunteers (Mediazona, accessed August 5). The PoterNET site also counts deaths (Poter.NET, accessed August 5). The final source is an X account, “Mancer,” which has tracked Russian deaths since Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea rather than just since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (X/@666_mancer, accessed August 5). While all three sources represent the best available data on Russian fatalities in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, this article primarily uses the Mancer data since its spreadsheet format makes data analysis more straightforward (Google Sheets/Gruz 200, accessed August 28).
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