More than 70,000 people fighting in the Russian army have died in Ukraine, according to data analyzed by the BBC.
And for the first time, volunteers – civilians who joined the armed forces after the start of the war – now make up the highest number of people killed on the battlefield since the large-scale invasion of Russia started in 2022.
Every day, the names of those killed in Ukraine, their obituaries and photos of their funerals are published in Russia in the media and social networks.
BBC Russian and the independent website Mediazona have collected these names, along with names from other open sources, including official reports.
We verified that the information was shared by the authorities or relatives of the deceased – and that they were identified as dying in the war.
New graves in the cemeteries also helped provide the names of soldiers killed in Ukraine – they are usually marked by flags and wreaths sent by the defense ministry.
We have identified the names of 70,112 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher. Some families do not share details of their relatives’ deaths publicly – and our analysis does not include names we could not verify, or militia deaths in Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Among them, 13,781 were volunteers – about 20% – and deaths among volunteers now exceed other categories. Former prisoners, who joined in exchange for pardons for their crimes, were previously the highest, but now account for 19% of all confirmed deaths. Mobilized soldiers – citizens called to fight – account for 13%.
Since October of last year, weekly volunteer deaths have not dropped below 100 – and in some weeks, we have recorded over 310 volunteer deaths.
As for Ukraine – he rarely comments on the scale of his deaths on the battlefield. In February, its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, but estimates based on US intelligence suggested higher losses.
The story of Rinat Khusniyarov is typical of many volunteer soldiers who died. He was from Ufa in Bashkortostan and had worked two jobs to make ends meet – at a tram depot and a plywood factory. He was 62 years old when he signed his contract with the Russian army in November last year.
He survived less than three months of combat and was killed on February 27. His obituary, on a local online memorial website, called him only “a hard-working, decent man.”
According to the data we analyzed, most of the men who signed up come from small towns in parts of Russia where stable, well-paid work is hard to find.
Most appear to have joined voluntarily, although some in the republic of Chechnya have told human rights activists and lawyers of coercion and threats.
Some of the volunteers said they did not understand the contracts they were signing had no end date, and have since approached pro-Kremlin journalists to, unsuccessfully, ask them for help to end their service.
Salaries in the military can be five to seven times higher than the average salary in less affluent parts of the country, plus soldiers receive social benefits, including free childcare and tax. One-time payments for people who sign up have also repeatedly increased in value in many parts of Russia.
Most of the volunteers who die at the front are aged between 42 and 50. They number 4,100 men in our list of more than 13,000 volunteers. The oldest volunteer killed was 71 years old – a total of 250 volunteers over the age of 60 died in the war.
Soldiers told the BBC that the increase in casualties among the volunteers is, in part, from their deployment in the most operationally difficult frontline areas, particularly in the Donetsk region in the east, where they train the backbone of reinforcements for depleted units. Russian soldiers told the BBC.
Russia’s “meat grinder” strategy continues unabated, according to Russian soldiers we spoke to. The term was used to describe the way Moscow is sending forth waves of soldiers relentlessly in trying to wear down Ukrainian forces and expose their positions to Russian artillery. Drone footage shared online shows Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions with little or no equipment or support from artillery or military vehicles.
Sometimes, hundreds of men were killed in a single day. In recent weeks, the Russian military has made desperate but unsuccessful attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian towns of Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk using such tactics.
An official study by the Primary Military Medical Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense says that 39% of the deaths of soldiers are the result of injuries to the limbs and that mortality rates would be significantly improved if first aid and l ‘subsequent medical care were better.
The actions of the Russian government suggest that it is keen to avoid forcing people to fight through a new official wave of mobilization – instead, it is increasing calls for volunteers to serve, with incentives to do so.
Remarks by regional officials in local parliaments suggest that they have been tasked by the top to try to recruit people from their local districts. They advertise on job vacancy websites, contact men with debt and bailiff problems, and conduct recruitment campaigns at higher education institutions.
Since 2022, convicted prisoners have also been encouraged to join in exchange for their release, but now a new policy means people facing criminal prosecution can accept a plea deal to go to war instead of facing a court trial. In return, their cases are frozen and potentially abandoned altogether.
A small number of volunteers killed were from other countries. We identified the names of 272 such men, many of whom were from Central Asia – 47 from Uzbekistan, 51 from Tajikistan, and 26 from Kyrgyzstan.
Last year saw reports of Russia recruiting people in Cuba, Iraq, Yemen and Serbia. Foreigners already living in Russia without valid work permits or visas, who agree to “work for the state,” are promised they will not be deported and are offered a simplified path to citizenship if they survive the war. Many later complained that they did not understand the documents – as with Russian citizens, they turned to the media for help.
The governments of India and Nepal have asked Moscow to stop sending their citizens to Ukraine and to repatriate the bodies of the dead. So far, the calls have not been implemented.
Many new recruits who joined the military criticized the training they received. A man who signed a contract with the Russian army in November last year told the BBC that he had been promised two weeks of training in a shooting range before deploying to the front.
“In reality, people were just thrown out on the parade ground, and they broke some gear,” he said, adding that the equipment was poorly made.
“We were loaded on trains, then trucks, and sent to the front. About half of us were thrown into battle directly from the road. As a result, some people went from the recruiting office to the front line in just a week,” he said.
Samuel Cranny-Evans, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in the United Kingdom, says: “Basic knowledge of things like camouflage and concealment or how to move quietly at night, how to move without creating a profile for yourself same during the day,” he should. be taught as basic infantry skills.
Another soldier also told the BBC that equipment is a problem, saying that it “varies, but most often it’s a random set of uniforms, standard boots that are worn in a day, and a lot of kit with a label showing it was made in the mid. -20th century.”
“A casual bulletproof vest and a cheap helmet. It’s impossible to fight in that. If you want to survive, you have to buy your own gear.”