BBC confirms death of over 16,000 Russians in war: large increase in February again

Based on open sources, the BBC Russian service has identified the names of 16,071 Russian soldiers who died in the war against Ukraine. This is data without losses of the occupiers of the so-called "Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics" terrorist organisations. Source: BBC Russian service

Quote: "Generally, we were able to confirm the death of 16,071 Russian soldiers. A third of all these losses includes people who were not associated with the army before the invasion - volunteers, conscripts, prisoners and newly recruited PMC personnel. We rely only on confirmed reports of deaths, so the data collected does not reflect the actual level of losses."

Details: Only in the last week, the BBC Russian service, together with Mediazona, managed to confirm the names of 935 more victims.

Throughout 2022, Russian sources typically reported about 250-300 deaths each week, doubling in January and continuing to grow again in February. The media emphasise that we are talking only about the data that they manage to find and verify from open sources, that is, the real number of losses is much higher.

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In addition, Russia's total irretrievable losses (wounded, killed or missing people) may amount to at least 144,500 people.

Quote: "This figure is obtained on the basis of observations by the US Naval Analysis Center, according to which for every Russian soldier killed during the war in Ukraine, there are on average about three and a half wounded.

This figure does not include those who fought on the side of Russia as part of the 'People's Militia' of Donetsk and Luhansk." Details: It is already known from open sources about the deaths of 1,366 mobilised Russians: 40% of them died in the period from 1 January. It is noted that this is the most conservative estimate of the number of losses among those mobilised and the real losses may be much higher since many reports from October do not indicate the status of soldiers.

Because of this, it is sometimes impossible to understand whether a Russian was a contract soldier, a volunteer, or a conscript. Over the past five months, almost half of all the dead Russians were volunteers, conscripts and prisoners. The highest losses are suffered by detachments made up of convicts.

More than 1,600 convicts were reported as dead. It is noted that this is almost twice as much as the numbers recorded two weeks ago. They also began to record a stable increase in losses among Russian paratroopers, marines and National Guard soldiers.

It was established that since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has lost at least 1,795 officers. Most of these losses were made up of junior officers. The officer corps of the special forces and airborne detachments suffered particularly serious losses.

The final figure of losses of the Russian side increases significantly if you include those who fought against Ukraine as part of the "People's Militia" of Donetsk and Luhansk in the list.

Based on open sources, we can talk about the death of at least 5,400 soldiers from the "DPR" and more than 1,700 soldiers from the "LPR". These numbers are clearly lower than the real number of losses of the "People's Militia". In social media, journalists found more than 4,700 messages and posts of people who are looking for their male relatives who found themselves in the ranks of the "People's Militia" and have not been in touch for a long time.

Quote: "Taking into account these data, the total losses of those who are fighting on the side of Russia may exceed 46,000 people killed. And together with the wounded and missing, the total losses of pro-Russian forces may exceed 208,000 people by March."

Details: It is noted that the American Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) gives a similar assessment: "In the first year of the invasion, pro-Russian forces (including PMCs, as well as the military of the "DPR" and "LPR") lost from 200,000 to 250,000 people wounded, killed and missing." The General Staff of Ukraine estimates Moscow's losses at more than 150,000 people killed.

The Russian Defence Ministry last reported losses on 21 September, reporting the death of 5,937 people.

The media also reported that they managed to establish the death of at least 136 Russian soldiers during the shelling of occupied Makiivka on the night of 1 January 2023. Most of them were mobilised. This is 47 more people than the Russian Defence Ministry said.

The number of open-source confirmed Russian losses during the year of the invasion of Ukraine has already exceeded officially recognized Soviet losses during almost 10 years of war in Afghanistan (15,051 people).

Background:

• Earlier, the Russian BBC service reported that almost half of the Russian mobilised soldiers, whose names were established by the Russian BBC service, died in 2023.

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