According to leaked documents, the Russians have lost more than 400,000 killed in action in Ukraine since the beginning of the war in 2022.
The data was supposedly leaked from Rosstat, the Russian state statistics agency.
Putin in Briefing. Image Credit: Russian Government.
Vladimir Putin in Syria. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The information was revealed by a Belarusian opposition group, Cyber Partisans, working alongside the Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow.
The hacker groups suggest that, due to delays in reporting, the real death toll from the war in Ukraine may be even higher for the Russian side.
The leaked registry was sent to multiple news outlets.
The data falls in line with multiple independent estimates, revealing the staggering toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Leaked Russian Casualty Figures
The hacker groups announced the breach on November 1 and published the data over the weekend. Rosstat confirmed the breach but denied that any sensitive data was obtained.
If real, the information offers a more detailed look at the human cost of Putin’s war ahead of the scheduled peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
Although Western outlets have not been able to confirm the authenticity of the leaked documents, the claims line up with various official and unofficial estimates.
British intelligence, for example, estimates that around 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed as of September 2026. Likewise, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claims that around 400,000 to 500,000 troops have been killed.
The leaked data has spread rapidly across Western news agencies, with some prominent experts suspecting it may be accurate. “The data looks authentic, and it’s very rich,” said Janis Kluge, the head of the Russian and Eurasia division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “This is the biggest leak of data when it comes to Russian casualties,” Kluge added, saying that the information may be underestimating Russian casualties due to delays in reporting or soldiers going missing and never being identified.
He also noted that there is typically a six-month delay between the time of death and when it enters public records. “We are probably at this time closer to 500,000 killed Russian soldiers than 400,000,” he said.
The Devil is in the Details
However, these leaked documents should not be considered official statistics, as many news outlets have unquestionably claimed.
Ukrainian and Russian hackers have “leaked” classified data on multiple occasions since 2022, most of which have been proven to be fabricated. For example, pro-Russian hackers released a similar “leak” that claimed that around 1.7 million Ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded.
The leak also included a registry, much like this most recent leak.
Unsurprisingly, the Pro-Russian report turned out to be fabricated.
Similar leaked reports have emerged throughout the war, each claiming absurd casualty figures for the other side. This recent report, however, aligns with many other casualty estimates, giving it more credibility than typical “leaks.”
While perusing the alleged Rosstat registry, several things stood out. For one, multiple entries have birth dates listed in the 1960s or earlier.
One entry, an unidentified male born in Odesa, has his birth date listed as 1938 and his death date listed as 2023, meaning that the “soldier” was around 85 years old at the time of his death.
Another entry, a woman born in 1969, has her time of death listed as occurring in March 2020, two years before Russia’s invasion began.
These discrepancies appear throughout the registry.
This suggests either that the hackers rushed to compile the data and mistakenly included multiple non-soldier deaths, or that the data has been manipulated for propaganda purposes.
Of course, the presence of a few bad entries doesn’t mean the data is wrong; it could also be an error on Rosstat’s part. A link to the registry has been provided.
Readers are encouraged to review it themselves and draw their own conclusions.
The War Continues on
Regardless of whether the leak itself is true, most casualty estimates place Russian KIA figures at around 400,000 to 500,000.
The independent outlet Mediazona has so far verified 286,000 killed Russian soldiers by name and suggests that the true death toll is likely around 500,000.
Unfortunately, because the infospace surrounding the Ukraine war is so full of propaganda, the real figures likely won’t be confirmed until many years after the war is over.
After almost five years of consecutive high-intensity conflict, the human cost for both Russia and Ukraine continues to rise.
With no end in sight, Russia’s losses will keep mounting until one side capitulates.
While news of Russian casualties spreads, senior Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi for negotiations.
This is the first U.S.-brokered peace talk between Moscow and Kyiv in nine months. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner attended the meeting on behalf of the U.S. Previous attempts by the Trump administration to end the war have so far failed.
According to Witkoff, the talks will focus on a “post-war security arrangement, de-escalation,” and humanitarian issues. One of the main hurdles is the currently occupied Ukrainian territory, which Russia refuses to leave and Kyiv refuses to cede.
There is also the issue of future security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia’s future role in Europe. Past talks have failed to address these issues, and it is unlikely that Tuesday’s talks will produce any breakthroughs.
About the Author: Isaac Seitz
Isaac Seitz, a Defense Columnist, graduated from Patrick Henry College’s Strategic Intelligence and National Security program. He has also studied Russian at Middlebury Language Schools and has worked as an intelligence Analyst in the private sector.
