Leaked Russian records show nearly 400,000 deaths in Ukraine war

Russia has recorded about 400,000 deaths in the Ukraine war since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, according to confidential data from the state statistics agency Rosstat that was leaked and analyzed by Bloomberg. The figure covers the period from February 24, 2022, to late August 2026.

The database contains more than 11 million death certificates with details such as place of residence, age, and place of death. It was obtained by Belarusian opposition group Cyber Partisans and Ukrainian hacker operation Silent Crow, who shared it with Bloomberg and a small group of media outlets.

Nearly 392,700 certificates explicitly link death to the conflict through codes or free-text terms such as "military operation," bombings, or drones. Bloomberg warns the real total is almost certainly higher because of missing persons, unidentified bodies, and deaths registered under other categories.

Silent Crow's own calculations reach about 450,000 because they include non-combat deaths and records without an explicit cause. Independent Russian outlet Mediazona and the BBC's Russian service have identified 285,881 deceased by name so far this month.

A Mediazona and Meduza estimate based on inheritance records puts the toll at about 352,000 through December 2025. People familiar with the Russian military situation, speaking anonymously, said about 400,000 dead is a realistic figure.

President Vladimir Putin has avoided showing the scale of casualties. Since 2015 he declared military losses secret in peacetime special operations or wartime, and Russia has not released figures since the early months of the invasion. Rosstat did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.