At least 42,284 Russian military personnel have been killed since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to research by journalists from Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service who have established the deceased soldiers’ identities.
The number includes 5,089 mobilized soldiers and 7,810 inmates recruited from Russian prisons, the two media organizations said.
The journalists from Mediazona and BBC Russian Service also established that out of the total, at least 3,053 were officers and 349 of them had ranks of lieutenant colonel or higher.
The journalists based their research on data from open sources such as obituaries in the media and messages on social networks by relatives of the victims.
The 42k are just the ones who have been identified by name. The actual number of casualties is naturally going to be much higher.