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How Many Russians Have Died in Ukraine? Data Shows What Moscow Hides

A woman at a cemetery in Volzhsky, outside Volgograd, Russia, on May 26, 2022, looks at the graves of Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine. (AP)
A woman at a cemetery in Volzhsky, outside Volgograd, Russia, on May 26, 2022, looks at the graves of Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine. (AP)
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How Many Russians Have Died in Ukraine? Data Shows What Moscow Hides

A woman at a cemetery in Volzhsky, outside Volgograd, Russia, on May 26, 2022, looks at the graves of Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine. (AP)
A woman at a cemetery in Volzhsky, outside Volgograd, Russia, on May 26, 2022, looks at the graves of Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine. (AP)

Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets — the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say. Documenting the dead has become an act of defiance, and those who do so face harassment and potential criminal charges.

Despite such challenges, Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian Service, working with a network of volunteers, have used social media postings and photographs of cemeteries across Russia to build a database of confirmed war deaths. As of July 7, they had identified 27,423 dead Russian soldiers.

"These are only soldiers who we know by name, and their deaths in each case are verified by multiple sources," said Dmitry Treshchanin, an editor at Mediazona who helped oversee the investigation. "The estimate we did with Meduza allows us to see the ‘hidden’ deaths, deaths the Russian government is so obsessively and unsuccessfully trying to hide."

To come up with a more comprehensive tally, journalists from Mediazona and Meduza obtained records of inheritance cases filed with the Russian authorities. Their data from the National Probate Registry contained information about more than 11 million people who died between 2014 and May 2023.

According to their analysis, 25,000 more inheritance cases were opened in 2022 for males aged 15 to 49 than expected. By May 27, 2023, the number of excess cases had shot up to 47,000.

That surge is roughly in line with a May assessment by the White House that more than 20,000 Russians had been killed in Ukraine since December, though lower than US and UK intelligence assessments of overall Russian deaths.

In February, the UK Ministry of Defense said approximately 40,000 to 60,000 Russians had likely been killed in the war. A leaked assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency put the number of Russians killed in action in the first year of the war at 35,000 to 43,000.

"Their figures might be accurate, or they might not be," Treshchanin, the Mediazona editor, said in an email. "Even if they have sources in the Russian Ministry of Defense, its own data could be incomplete. It’s extremely difficult to pull together all of the casualties from the army, Rosgvardia, Akhmat battalion, various private military companies, of which Wagner is the largest, but not the only one. Casualties among inmates, first recruited by Wagner and now by the MoD, are also a very hazy subject, with a lot of potential for manipulation. Statistics could actually give better results."

Independently, Dmitry Kobak, a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University who has published work on excess COVID-19 deaths in Russia, obtained mortality data broken down by age and sex for 2022 from Rosstat, Russia’s official statistics agency.

He found that 24,000 more men under age 50 died in 2022 than expected, a figure that aligns with the analysis of inheritance data.

The COVID-19 pandemic made it harder to figure out how many men would have died in Russia since February 2022 if there hadn’t been a war. Both analyses corrected for the lingering effects of COVID on mortality by indexing male death rates against female deaths.

Sergei Scherbov, a scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, cautioned that "differences in the number of deaths between males and females can vary significantly due to randomness alone."

"I am not saying that there couldn’t be an excess number of male deaths, but rather that statistically speaking, this difference in deaths could be a mere outcome of chance," he said.

Russians who are missing but not officially recognized as dead, as well as citizens of Ukraine fighting in units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, are not included in these counts.

Kobak acknowledged that some uncertainties remain, especially for deaths of older men. Moreover, it’s hard to know how many missing Russian soldiers are actually dead. But he said neither factor is likely to have a huge impact.

"That uncertainty is in the thousands," he said. "The results are plausible overall."

Meduza is an independent Russian media outlet that has been operating in exile for eight years, with headquarters in Riga, Latvia. In April 2021, Russian authorities designated Meduza a "foreign agent," making it harder to generate advertising income, and in January 2023, the Kremlin banned Meduza as an illegal "undesirable organization."

Moscow has also labeled independent outlet Mediazona as a "foreign agent" and blocked its website after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Why Do ‘Temporary’ Weapons Depots Keep Exploding in Northwestern Syria?

Syrian White Helmets rescuers inspect the site of an explosion at a temporary depot for weapons and explosive remnants of war in Sarmada, Idlib province (AFP)
Syrian White Helmets rescuers inspect the site of an explosion at a temporary depot for weapons and explosive remnants of war in Sarmada, Idlib province (AFP)
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Why Do ‘Temporary’ Weapons Depots Keep Exploding in Northwestern Syria?

Syrian White Helmets rescuers inspect the site of an explosion at a temporary depot for weapons and explosive remnants of war in Sarmada, Idlib province (AFP)
Syrian White Helmets rescuers inspect the site of an explosion at a temporary depot for weapons and explosive remnants of war in Sarmada, Idlib province (AFP)

The latest explosion in the city of Sarmada in northern Idlib province has renewed attention on the threat posed by weapons depots and explosive remnants of war across northwestern Syria.

Such explosions have increasingly endangered civilians and undermined stability, prompting growing calls from residents and local groups to dismantle the depots that have long caused anxiety and move them away from populated areas.

Fourteen people were killed and 11 others wounded in Wednesday’s explosion in Sarmada, near the Syrian-Turkish border north of Idlib, according to the Idlib Media Directorate.

The toll remained preliminary as civil defense teams continued searching the site and dealing with the aftermath of the blast, the directorate said.

Civil defense teams from the Emergency and Disaster Management Directorate headed to the site after the explosion, which preliminary information suggested was linked to munitions stored in the Burj al-Nimra area near Sarmada.

The teams began assessing and securing the site, searching for casualties and taking measures to address any potential repercussions, the civil defense said.

Syria’s Defense Ministry said the incident was caused by an explosion at a temporary depot used to collect weapons and explosive remnants of war before their removal.

“The explosion injured a number of ministry personnel, and our units are working in coordination with the relevant authorities to secure the site,” the ministry said.

Investigation and penalties

Sources at the Defense Ministry said the facility was a temporary depot used to collect unexploded ordnance, mines and other remnants of war recovered from areas of northern Idlib province before they were transferred to designated sites for detonation or disposal.

The ministry launched an investigation immediately to rule out external involvement or the presence of anyone implicated in the incident, the sources said.

Legal action against those responsible for the storage site, including possible disciplinary measures and penalties, would be determined by the investigation’s findings, they added.

The ministry sources nevertheless said the blast was most likely caused by a mine or munition stored inside the depot, particularly as some of the remnants had lain undisturbed for years.

The ministry’s explanations and subsequent measures do not absolve it of responsibility or criticism, military experts contacted by Asharq Al-Awsat said. They cited inadequate safety and storage standards, delays in relocating the stockpiles and a failure to move weapons and ammunition depots away from civilian areas.

Idlib province in northwestern Syria has become a frequent site of explosions involving weapons depots and the transportation of munitions.

Earlier in September, five people were killed when a vehicle loaded with ammunition exploded in the center of the city of Binnish.

That incident was preceded by an explosion at a depot containing rockets and ammunition north of the town of Kafr Takharim in rural Idlib. Five people were killed and several civilians wounded in the blast, which was also linked to work being carried out by a crew near the site.

A series of similar incidents was recorded last year. The most notable occurred near the western entrance to Idlib city on Aug. 14, 2025, when an arms depot exploded, triggering successive blasts involving rocket and shell remnants. Four people were killed and several civilians were wounded, according to the civil defense.

Other explosions in the town of Maarat Misrin killed 11 civilians and wounded dozens, as well as causing extensive property damage. The town of al-Foua also witnessed a series of blasts that deepened civilians’ fears over the continued presence of depots established near residential areas during the war against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Military expert Diaa Qaddour attributed the recurring explosions to the large quantities of weapons, ammunition and explosive remnants left scattered across the country after 14 years of war and the fall of Assad’s government in late 2024.

Some came from depots belonging to the former government, while others were left by former armed factions and foreign groups or seized as spoils of war, he said.

Qaddour said the Syrian government and the Defense Ministry had sought to address the issue and secure the weapons, but the process remained slow and complex because of the vast size of the stockpiles, the need for a comprehensive survey and the presence of temporary storage sites near residential areas.

He attributed delays in removing the stockpiles from civilian areas to a shortage of specialized personnel and equipment.

“The lack of adequate safety measures plays a major role in the recurrence of these explosions,” Qaddour said.

Weapons and ammunition were often stored in unsecured facilities or near populated areas without sufficient protection from heat or ignition sources, he said. Other contributing factors included inadequate equipment, the handling of munitions by unqualified personnel and high summer temperatures.

Qaddour also pointed to locally manufactured weapons and munitions that were not designed for long-term storage and could not withstand changing conditions, transportation or poor storage.

“They are less stable, their quality varies, and heat and humidity accelerate their deterioration, making them increasingly prone to problems over time,” he said.

Possible Israeli role

Brigadier General Imad Shehoud, a military expert, did not rule out possible Israeli involvement in the latest explosion in Sarmada, despite the lack of evidence and the absence of any Israeli claim of responsibility.

“Although there is no evidence, the possibility remains that an Israeli aircraft squadron entered Syrian airspace in stealth mode and carried out the operation,” Shehoud said.

“The Israeli government has not issued any statement so far, but the reported presence of Israeli aircraft over southern Syria means the possibility cannot be excluded.”

Shehoud said the explosion coincided with an “intelligence report” indicating extensive reconnaissance activity by Israel’s 122nd Squadron, involving Nachshon Shavit, Nachshon Oron and Gulfstream G550 aircraft over Syrian and Lebanese territory in the hours before the blast.

Features

Sept. 11’s Legacy Endures a Quarter-Century Later

A Palestinian man holds up a poster of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (L) and wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a demonstration by some 1,000 people in the West Bank town of Hebron 10 April 2004, in support of the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition. (AFP via Getty Images)
A Palestinian man holds up a poster of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (L) and wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a demonstration by some 1,000 people in the West Bank town of Hebron 10 April 2004, in support of the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition. (AFP via Getty Images)
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Sept. 11’s Legacy Endures a Quarter-Century Later

A Palestinian man holds up a poster of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (L) and wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a demonstration by some 1,000 people in the West Bank town of Hebron 10 April 2004, in support of the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition. (AFP via Getty Images)
A Palestinian man holds up a poster of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (L) and wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a demonstration by some 1,000 people in the West Bank town of Hebron 10 April 2004, in support of the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition. (AFP via Getty Images)

Rarely does a day deserve to be called “the day that shook the world.” September 11, 2001, claimed that distinction the moment it happened. At first, many could scarcely believe what they were seeing on their screens. The sight of civilian aircraft exploding into symbols of American power and success in New York and Washington was shocking and deadly. A quarter-century later, there is no denying the mark that day left on the US, the Middle East and the world.

The day set in motion by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden brought down two governments: the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. Afghanistan may have returned to life under a diluted form of Taliban rule, but the Middle East is still paying the price for the regional imbalances created when the US military uprooted Iraq’s Baathist government.

The fall of both governments was an enormous, unintended gift to Iran, now engaged in a military conflict with the United States.

The world was not accustomed to seeing the US attacked at home. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Washington declared war on Japan the next day, and the rest is history.

On September 11, bin Laden brought the war onto American soil itself, prompting George W. Bush to launch a war against what he regarded as strongholds of terrorism.

It was no surprise that a wounded America, led by Bush, decided to topple the government of Mullah Mohammed Omar, who insisted on sheltering bin Laden and ignored calls to distance himself from the al-Qaeda leader or hand him over.

But the greater response came in the Middle East. In 2003, the region watched a US armored vehicle pull Saddam Hussein’s statue from its pedestal in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. It would later watch the hangman’s noose tighten around Saddam’s neck, alarming two men: Libya’s Moammar al-Gaddafi and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Bin Laden deliberately chose mostly Saudis for the team that attacked New York and Washington, hoping to provoke a crisis and rupture relations between Washington and Riyadh. He did not get what he wanted, but the attacks posed a test across the Muslim world.

Many voices in the US called for terrorism to be uprooted at its source. The attacks unsettled the US and the West’s relations with many countries. They also strained relations between Western governments and Arab and Muslim communities, particularly as waves of migration increased. Today, the far-right is on the rise in several parts of Europe.

Yasser Arafat was living in Gaza that day. He was troubled by the attention focused on a few Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who handed out sweets to celebrate the attacks and express their anger at American bias toward Israel.

Despite his advanced age, Arafat insisted on donating blood for those wounded in New York and Washington and went to a Gaza hospital. Some say that, in the first hours, he feared Palestinians might have been involved in carrying out the attacks.

Al-Gaddafi was also alarmed, although both he and Saddam initially imagined that the attacks would weaken the US. Al-Gaddafi asked Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Shalgham to arrange for Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to tell Bush that Libya was ready to normalize relations and open a new chapter with the US.

Bouteflika conveyed the Libyan position, but the US president told his visitor: “Tell al-Gaddafi that he must immediately surrender his nuclear program’s arsenal, or we will go and destroy it ourselves.”

Shalgham, having gauged the tense mood in America, told a meeting in Tripoli that the United States would occupy Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The Libyan leader did not hesitate to bow to Bush’s demands.

The US used Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for attacking the country. It also claimed that the Iraqi government had ties to al-Qaeda. Many did not believe the claim, particularly given the stark differences between Saddam and bin Laden and the vastly different ideologies that guided them.

The prevailing impression was that the allegation had been fabricated. In fact, no relationship existed. But Saddam made a serious error in the 1990s, while bin Laden was in Sudan, when he sent a member of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood to meet him there. The al-Qaeda leader showed no interest in cooperating with what he called the “infidel Baathist regime.”

The Iraqi government tried again, sending an intelligence official named Farouk Hijazi. A meeting with bin Laden was arranged through Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi. After the meeting, which lasted more than three hours, Hijazi returned to Iraq and advised Saddam to abandon the idea of working with bin Laden, who reportedly demanded permission to establish independent camps on Iraqi soil.

The Iraqi government dropped the idea of cooperating with bin Laden. But US intelligence agencies exploited murky threads of contact between the two sides and used them to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The US toppled the Taliban and Saddam’s government and launched a prolonged hunt for al-Qaeda leaders.

On May 2, 2011, bin Laden, hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was taken by surprise when US troops stormed his compound. America exacted revenge on the architect of the attacks on New York and Washington and disposed of his body at sea.

Osama bin Laden was gone, but al-Qaeda’s imprint exacted an enormous price from the countries of the Middle East.

Features

What Options Does Hezbollah Have in Dealing with Israeli Escalation?

Portraits of current and former Iranian and Hezbollah leaders displayed at a rally, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, September 2, 2026. (Reuters)
Portraits of current and former Iranian and Hezbollah leaders displayed at a rally, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, September 2, 2026. (Reuters)
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What Options Does Hezbollah Have in Dealing with Israeli Escalation?

Portraits of current and former Iranian and Hezbollah leaders displayed at a rally, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, September 2, 2026. (Reuters)
Portraits of current and former Iranian and Hezbollah leaders displayed at a rally, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, September 2, 2026. (Reuters)

Hezbollah finds itself facing an increasingly difficult equation as Israeli escalation in South Lebanon has widened in recent days. How will the party respond to mounting Israeli strikes without being drawn into a broader confrontation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be seeking either to postpone Israel’s elections or improve his prospects in them.

At the same time, Hezbollah is facing growing pressure from its support base, which is bearing the brunt of the strikes and demanding a response capable of deterring Tel Aviv. Yet the group’s options appear largely constrained by regional developments, particularly the course of US-Iran negotiations, as well as domestic political calculations in Lebanon.

A response could benefit Netanyahu

Sources familiar with Hezbollah’s position said the Iran-backed party has largely avoided signaling whether it intends to retaliate or continue exercising restraint and adhering unilaterally to the ceasefire agreement.

They told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hezbollah is currently focusing on holding the Lebanese authorities responsible for addressing the situation, noting that the group had previously called on the government to engage in dialogue over the expanding Israeli offensive and the failure of negotiations.

The sources see no indication so far that Hezbollah may make a military response. They argue that one objective of Israel’s widening offensive is to provoke Hezbollah and Iran into retaliating and trigger a broader war, which could benefit Netanyahu electorally or help him postpone the polls.

Limited ability to confront Israel

Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, took a different view, saying Hezbollah has no options left because its military power has collapsed, particularly after its decision to hand over Ali al-Taher — “a symbol of its pride” — to Israel rather than surrender it to the Lebanese army.

“Hezbollah lacks the ability not only to fight Israel, but even to provoke it,” Khashan told Asharq Al-Awsat. “It sent two drones, and we saw the results.”

The academic believes the party’s current priority is to retain its weapons domestically after its military role in confronting Israel has effectively ended, although Hezbollah “insists on living in denial.”

He expects Israeli escalation to continue ahead of the heated elections, saying it will not be confined to Lebanon but could extend to the West Bank, Gaza and southern Syria, amid continued threats of strikes against Iran.

“As for America’s ability to pressure Israel, it appears limited,” Khashan noted, saying this means an expansion of Israeli operations into Lebanon's Bekaa Valley cannot be ruled out.

Three options for Hezbollah

Retired Lebanese army Brig. Gen. Mounir Shehadeh offered a different assessment, identifying three options available to Hezbollah.

“The first is a broad, direct military response,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. “This is the option that could give Israel the pretext it is seeking to expand its target list, take the escalation deeper into Lebanon and perhaps strike Lebanese infrastructure. It is therefore a high-cost option.”

The second is to refrain entirely from responding. That also carries a price because Israel could interpret it as evidence that it can impose new realities without paying a cost, particularly following the escalation over Ali al-Taher and the continuing strikes, he explained.

The third option is a calibrated, limited response. “In my view, this is the most logical option if the group decides to respond,” Shehadeh said.

Such action would seek to establish the principle that “aggression carries a cost” without triggering an all-out confrontation, he went on to say. Hezbollah could simultaneously maintain a policy of ambiguity by declining to claim every operation, particularly if it wanted to preserve room for political maneuver.

Shehadeh said Hezbollah may be facing a more complicated calculation: whether to respond to Israel now or wait until the direction of US-Iran negotiations becomes clearer.

Waiting for the outcome of those talks would not necessarily mean surrendering or remaining passive, he noted. Instead, Hezbollah could defer a major response while keeping the option of limited retaliation open, since a broad confrontation at this stage could benefit Israel more than the party and give it an opportunity to widen the war before the regional picture becomes clearer.

Shehadeh expects Hezbollah to avoid, in the near term, initiating a major response that could trigger an all-out war. At the same time, the group cannot indefinitely tolerate continued Israeli escalation without responding.

He stressed that the most realistic scenario is to contain the escalation, monitor developments on the ground, take into account the US-Iran diplomatic track and keep open the option of a limited, carefully calibrated response if Israel crosses certain lines.