More than 120,500 deaths are registered in the Ukrainian towns of Avdiivka and Pokrovsk, according to data from Rosstat, Russia’s federal state statistics service.
Financial Times reported that casualties in these two urban battles alone doubled total U.S. losses during the eight-year Vietnam War and multiplied Soviet losses in Afghanistan eight times over. The first city fell in February 2024, while Pokrovsk was captured in February 2026. Joint cyber operations by the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian group Silent Crow retrieved the data in August.
Near Bakhmut, where Russian forces and the Wagner Private Military Company led by Yevgeny Prigozhin first tested relentless human-wave assaults, approximately 48,000 fighters died. By comparison, the Soviet Union lost roughly 15,000 military personnel, KGB, and MVD staff during the decade-long Afghanistan war, while the Vietnam conflict claimed about 58,000 American lives. Combined casualties in Avdiivka, Pokrovsk, and Bakhmut account for roughly 37 percent of all deaths in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Financial Times estimated total fatalities between 450,000 and 464,000 based on Rosstat records. Because identification and death certificate issuance lag—with some 2022 casualties logged as late as 2026—the publication calculated true fatalities at 550,000 by August. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the monthly figure reached 54,000 in October.
Foreign Nationals Face High Mortality Through Recruitment
The Russian statistical service recorded 11,335 deaths among foreign nationals recruited through coercion, deception, or financial incentives, Bloomberg reported. These individuals were born outside Russia or lacked citizenship, appearing in records through specialized codes and casualty descriptions referencing the special military operation. Significant numbers came from Central Asian states like Kazakhstan, alongside 3700 individuals holding Ukrainian citizenship born after independence, mostly registered in currently occupied eastern and southern regions.
BBC investigations using satellite imagery and memorial data established that approximately 2,300 North Korean soldiers died in the Kursk region alone. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian project I Want to Live recorded 283 Indonesian citizens entering the Russian army during the first nine months of 2026.
Financial Times identified 4,141 foreign military personnel among the dead, peaking in autumn 2025. This total included 807 citizens of Uzbekistan, 598 from Tajikistan, 98 from Colombia, and 127 combined from Nigeria, Cameroon, and Egypt. If we look at the months with the most intense attacks in 2025, we are talking about tens of thousands killed monthly, Kluge said, adding that recruitment targets of 35,000 monthly are consistently missed.
Soldiers Die in Large Numbers for Small Villages
The Telegram channel We Can Explain used Rosstat data to reveal extreme casualty counts in tiny settlements. Thousands of Russian soldiers died fighting for hamlets that held mere dozens of residents before the war.
In Sporne, captured according to the Russian Defense Ministry in June 2024 while Ukrainian general staff reported ongoing combat, 1,210 Russian soldiers died defending a village of just 80 pre-war residents. Another 456 troops perished in Viyimka, a 0.5-square-kilometer Donetsk region village with a pre-war population of 21.
Fighting for Robotyne—occupied in March 2022, liberated in 2023, and re-occupied in 2024—claimed 6,493 Russian soldiers from a village of 480 people. In Krynky on the left bank of the Dnipro River, 3,035 Russians died as a Ukrainian bridgehead held out until the summer of 2024, leaving the settlement completely destroyed.
The workforce deployed by Moscow is aging rapidly. While soldiers aged 18 to 24 made up about 10 percent of fatalities, their share dropped over time.
Average soldier age rose from 34 years in the invasion’s first year to 40 years by 2025, with men aged 35 to 44 forming the largest demographic group at roughly 158,000 deaths. Budget analysis cited by Kluge showed no reduction in casualty compensation payouts through October, confirming that the monthly loss rate remains unabated.
Cyber Operations Reveal Death Projections and Recruit Origins
- The data was obtained in August through a joint cyber operation conducted by the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian group Silent Crow, who accessed approximately 23 terabytes of records.
- Financial Times and Focus estimated that total deaths could reach 650,000 by the end of 2026 based on ongoing monthly attrition rates and delayed death certificate registrations.
- Records show thousands of recruits from Central Asian former Soviet republics, alongside 3,700 individuals with Ukrainian citizenship, thousands of North Korean troops in Kursk, and hundreds of volunteers from nations including Nepal, Colombia, and various African states.
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