Records leaked from Rosstat, Russia’s state statistics agency, have shown that at least 450,000 Russians, most of them soldiers, died in the war in Ukraine up to August this year.
Among the dead were more than 4,000 foreign citizens who are believed to have died fighting for Russia, from countries including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Nepal, Colombia and Nigeria.
The records were obtained by two hacking groups, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and Ukraine’s Silent Crow.
Rosstat confirmed it had been hit by cyberattacks between October 29 and November 1, but said it found no evidence that its databases had been compromised or that protected data leaked.
Moscow does not officially publish its military death toll.
Deaths can take months, and sometimes years, to be registered, in Russia. Investigations for The Financial Times (FT) have concluded that once late paperwork is counted, the toll up to August will settle at about 550,000.
So what do the leaked records show, and what do they tell us about who is fighting Russia’s war? Here’s what you need to know:
What was leaked, and is it genuine?
The Cyber Partisans and Silent Crow said on November 1 that they had broken into Rosstat’s network.
The two hacking groups published their own analysis of the records and shared the files with several news organisations, though the data has not been independently verified.
However, media outlets and analysts say they believe it is real.
Janis Kluge, an expert on Russia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, wrote on X: “There is no longer any doubt that the leaked Rosstat database is authentic. You can find any famous person who has died in recent years.”
However, in a later post he added: “The trickier question is: Was the data manipulated to increase the war death toll?” before adding, “This would [be] unbelievably difficult, so this is a highly unlikely conspiracy theory”.
What do the records show?
A death toll far beyond anything Moscow has admitted so far.
The files list about 410,000 deaths directly as war-related, and 42,000 more fighting-age men whose deaths were confirmed in court because their bodies have never been recovered.
The FT identified another 12,000 likely military deaths among men who died at or near the front, bringing the total to at least 450,000.
Where have most of those Russian casualties occurred?
About 120,000 of those with a recorded location died in the area containing Avdiivka and Pokrovsk, and a further 48,000 in Bakhmut, the FT reported.
Avdiivka is a small industrial city in the Donetsk region. After Russian-backed forces seized parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, it became part of the so-called “contact line”, and Ukrainian forces spent years fortifying the city.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, it was the subject of two years of bitter fighting before Russia took it in 2024.
After the fall of Avdiivka, Russian forces moved towards the coal-mining city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, capturing it in early 2026 after more than a year of gruelling battles that had left the city in ruins.
Bakhmut, a city in the Donetsk Oblast and situated at a vital intersection connecting eastern Ukraine with the rest of the country, was the site of the longest and bloodiest infantry battle of the war before falling to Russian and paramilitary Wagner Group forces in May 2023.
Who has been killed?
Older men from poorer, often minority regions.
The average age of those killed rose from 34 in the first year of the war to 40 in 2025, and men aged 35 to 44 made up the largest group, with 158,000 dead, the FT reported.
Ethnic Russians constitute more than two-thirds of Russia’s population of 143 million. The rest are minorities – from millions of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars to smaller Indigenous groups in Siberia and the Arctic.
Zabaykalsky Krai, home to a large community of Buryats, an Indigenous Mongolic people of southern Siberia, recorded about 12,300 deaths, roughly one for every 80 people in the region, the FT reported.
Bashkortostan, another region with a large minority population including Indigenous Bashkirs and Volga Tatars, recorded 15,800 deaths.
How many foreign fighters have been killed?
More than 4,000, and possibly far more.
The FT identified 4,141 probable foreign soldiers holding foreign citizenship among the dead.
Bloomberg News, using a wider definition that includes people born outside Russia, counted 11,335, with foreign deaths rising from about 630 in 2022 to more than 5,500 in 2025.
Deaths of Nepalis were concentrated in 2023 and 2024, and those of Colombians, Kenyans and Nigerians from late 2025, Bloomberg reported.
The FT counted the highest death toll from Uzbekistan at 807, followed by Tajikistan with 598. There were also 44 Nepali dead and 98 Colombians, the highest toll from Latin America.
About 340 Africans are among the dead, most of them killed since 2025, Bloomberg reported.
Nigeria, Cameroon and Egypt had the highest tolls, with 127 deaths between them, according to the FT.
Furthermore, Ukrainian officials believe Russia deployed some 14,000 North Korean troops to hold off Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region, but they do not appear in the leaked data.
Why are foreigners fighting for Russia?
Mostly for the money, and often after being misled.
An estimated 28,000 foreigners from 136 countries are said to be fighting in the Russian army overall.
An Amnesty International report in September found that people from Brazil, Colombia, Sri Lanka and South Africa had been promised well-paid civilian jobs and then forced into the army on arrival in Russia.
The rights group spoke with foreign nationals currently serving with Russian forces and members of their families as well as lawyers, human rights activists and journalists.
It found local agents and misleading online job advertisements were being used to deceive foreign nationals in their home countries.
Nationals from 36 African countries are known to be fighting for Russia in the four-year war, Ukraine’s foreign minister said in November last year.
One South African man who applied online for a driving job in Poland was told to fly to Moscow, pick up a truck, and drive it to Poland.
His wife told Amnesty International: “Upon arrival to Moscow, everything was taken from him. He was told that he would not be going to Poland and that he is becoming a soldier.”
Many recruits were promised lucrative salaries and sign-up bonuses that were not then fulfilled, Amnesty reported.
In Kenya, where intelligence officials say more than 1,000 citizens have been recruited, agencies promised monthly wages of about $2,715 and bonuses of up to $9,309.
Moscow denies coercing anyone to fight in Ukraine.
What do these casualty figures mean for the war in Ukraine?
They indicate that Russia is struggling for manpower.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, posted an analysis of the leaked data, saying the figures likely understate Russia’s true losses because of reporting limitations.
It added that, as of July, Russia’s casualties are now outpacing its recruitment.
Kluge told The Moscow Times that the deaths also represent about half a per cent of Russia’s working-age population, which may have little economic impact, so the main significance is political.
He added, “You cannot say Russia is winning this war if it is losing population at this rate.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com
