Hacked records show 400,000 Russians killed in war on Ukraine
Russia has recorded the deaths of about 400,000 of its people fighting in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion almost five years ago, according to confidential data held by the country’s statistics agency, Rosstat.
The information comes from more than 11 million death certificates with accompanying details such as residence, age and where people died.
uncertain
people → hack → residence
The data was obtained by the Belarusian pro-opposition group Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian hacker operation Silent Crow.
asserted
data → obtain → group
It was subsequently shared with Bloomberg News and a small group of other outlets.
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It → share → outlets
Between Feb 24, 2022, and late August 2026, almost 392,700 death certificates in the data explicitly link the fatalities to the war, either via coding or freeform text fields mentioning terms such as “military operation,” “shelling” or “drones.”
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certificates → link → operation
President Vladimir Putin has gone to great lengths to avoid acknowledging the scale of Russian fatalities in Ukraine.
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Putin → go → Ukraine
As far back as 2015, he made military losses incurred “in peacetime during special operations” or during war a state secret.
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losses → make → war
Russia hasn’t provided any figures on casualties since the early months of the invasion.
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Russia → provide → invasion
The data set almost certainly understates the total number killed because of the difficulties of recording combat fatalities.
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set → understate → fatalities
Some people will have been reported missing, some bodies will have been unidentified and others may have died months later from war-related injuries that are not explicitly set out in the records.
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that → report → records
Other deaths may be recorded under unrelated categories or not at all.
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deaths → record → categories
Silent Crow’s own calculations put the figure at about 450,000, in part because they also include non-combat related fatalities and records without an explicit cause.
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they → put → cause
Rosstat didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Rosstat → respond → comment
The material provides a rare insight into the true cost of the war for Russia, since Rosstat gradually stopped publishing many statistics following the 2022 invasion.
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Rosstat → provide → invasion
It shows how the body count grew dramatically after the early months of the war as Russian forces were held up in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv’s defensive operations became increasingly effective.
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operations → show → Ukraine
Separate reporting suggests the fighting has been even tougher for the Russians in 2026, with fewer territorial advances than in 2025 and increasing numbers of casualties.
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fighting → suggest → casualties
The Kremlin lost a record 54,000 troops in October, either killed or seriously wounded, according to Ukraine and western intelligence agencies.
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Kremlin → lose → Ukraine
On the Ukrainian side, President Volodymyr Zelensky told French media in February that at least 55,000 of his soldiers had been killed in the war and a large number of people are missing.
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number → tell → people
With no significant gains on the battlefield this year, Russia has shifted tactics to heavily bombing Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure with the aim of breaking Kyiv’s morale.
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Russia → shift → morale
At the same time, the Kremlin has been trying to persuade the US to force Ukraine to give up additional territory in order to end the war.
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Kremlin → try → war
Officials from Russia, Ukraine and the US are due to meet in Abu Dhabi this week to discuss the parameters of a potential ceasefire.
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Officials → meet → ceasefire
Silent Crow and Cyber Partisans said on Nov 1 that they’d breached Rosstat’s internal infrastructure, gaining access to about 25,000 computers and extracting some 23 terabytes of data, including information on Russian military losses.
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they → say → losses
Rosstat said days later that it had detected targeted cyberattacks on its systems between Oct 29 and Nov 1, but that it found no evidence its databases had been compromised or confidential information leaked.
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information → say → evidence
The agency said it was restoring systems after an attack knocked parts of its infrastructure offline.
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attack → say → infrastructure
An estimate of about 400,000 Russian war deaths is realistic, according to people familiar with the situation in the Russian military, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorised to speak to the media.
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they → accord → media
The figure is also in line with estimates from a tracking project run by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian service, which identified 285,881 deaths by name as of November 2026.
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which → run → November
A separate estimate by Mediazona and Meduza, based on Russia’s probate registry which excludes any combatants from occupied Ukraine, puts the death figure at about 352,000 through December 2025.
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which → base → December
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, Russia has suffered 1.6 million deaths and serious injuries since the beginning of the war.
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Russia → accord → war
Kremlin recruitment
So far in 2026, nearly 37,800 military deaths have been recorded, but that’s almost certainly an underestimate because of the sometimes months-long lag before deaths are registered.
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deaths → record → lag
More than half of those deaths occurred in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have been struggling to break through some of the country’s strongest defensive fortifications.
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forces → occur → fortifications
With monthly losses often exceeding recruitment levels and Russian troops not advancing on the ground, Moscow may soon have to mobilise more aggressively.
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Moscow → exceed → ground
The Kremlin has built the digital infrastructure to summon people to the army and has closed off potential escape routes for those who don’t want to fight.
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who → build → those
Given that the 2022 decree on partial mobilisation has never been formally revoked, the authorities could still call up additional reservists without announcing a new mobilisation.
Russia has introduced sign-up bonuses and other benefits to incentivise people to join the military, though some payments are being cut due to the growing pressure on the country’s finances.
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payments → give → finances
The statistics reviewed by Bloomberg, which run from 2021 to late August 2026, show the war’s growing toll on Russian society.
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which → review → society
They illustrate how the relatively youthful army that invaded Ukraine has come to draw on older and older sections of Russian society and how poorer, more remote and ethnically diverse regions have borne a heavier share of deaths, while those in the major cities may have been shielded to an extent.
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those → illustrate → extent
How the fatalities break down
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fatalities → break → ?
In the first half of 2022, only 146 men between the ages of 50 and 59 died of war-related causes, less than 1% of all deaths for that cohort.
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men → die → cohort
In the first six months of 2025, that number rose to more than 12,600 and constituted more than 16% of deaths for Russian men in that age bracket.
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number → rise → bracket
For men aged 18 to 29, the war was responsible for about two-thirds of all deaths in the same period.
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war → age → period
In remote Siberian regions such as the republics of Buryatia, Tuva and Zabaykalsky Krai, which all border Mongolia, about one-third of men aged 18 to 49 who died between the start of the invasion and mid-2024 were recorded as war-related.
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who → border → invasion
While it was not possible to independently and cryptographically prove the authenticity of the database, Bloomberg’s review found that the metadata was consistent with a genuine data export, and did not find indicators of fabrication.
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metadata → prove → fabrication
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
