The journalists noted that the data were gathered solely from public records and did not include losses incurred by the Moscow’s proxies in eastern Ukraine.
Meduza reported that among those killed, 24% volunteered to fight against Ukraine, 16% were prisoners, 11% were mobilized by the Russian regime, 29% have unverified affiliations, and the remainder were career military or security personnel. The report also noted that about 4,800 officers were among the fatalities.
“This is an incomplete list because not all deaths are reported publicly,” the report reads.
“To estimate the true number of war fatalities, we also calculated excess mortality among men using the [Russian] inheritance registry. Based on this estimate, at least 165,000 people have died in the war.”