Leaked Russian Records Point to More Than 400,000 War Deaths

More than 400,000 Russians have been killed fighting in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly five years ago, according to leaked data from Rosstat, Russia's federal statistics agency, as The Guardian reported.

The data was obtained by two hacking groups. Cyber Partisans, which is linked to the Belarusian opposition, and Silent Crow, a Ukrainian hacking collective, announced the breach on 1 November and published the material over the weekend. Rosstat has confirmed that it was hacked, but it has denied that any sensitive information was leaked.

The dataset contains more than 11 million death certificates. Each one records the deceased's age, place of residence and location of death. Of these, 412,576 explicitly link the death to the war, either through an official cause-of-death code or a written reference to combat or military operations.

Other estimates drawn from the same material differ. Novaya Gazeta Europe reported two separate analyses that put war deaths at 393,881 and at 450,100. The two hacking groups have also posted differing estimates of their own, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

The Guardian said it could not independently verify the authenticity of the entire dataset.

The records also show regional differences. In the Russian regions of Buryatia, Tuva and Zabaykalsky Krai, war-related deaths made up about a third of all deaths among men aged 18 to 49, from the start of the invasion to mid-2024. In Moscow and St Petersburg, the share was about 10 percent.

Battlefield deaths appear to have peaked in late 2024 and 2025. In several months during that period, more than 15,000 soldiers were killed, roughly 500 a day.

Those figures sit alongside other estimates. British intelligence estimated in September that about 500,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the invasion began. Mediazona, an independent Russian outlet, has identified by name nearly 286,000 Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine, and it estimates the true toll is closer to half a million.