Russian Troop Obituaries 'Rising So Fast' Counters Struggle to Keep Up

Russian casualties in the war with Ukraine are rising faster than official tallies can count, according to observers in Europe.

According to an analysis by both Russian independent outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service, more than 60,000 Russian soldiers have been confirmed dead in the conflict as of early August.

Journalists from Mediazona said that "the number of obituaries is rising so fast that [they] can't keep up with them", and that the increase in losses of Russian troops in recent months is "much more significant" than expected.

The war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022, has been marked by heavy losses on both sides. However, recent months have seen a surge in the number of Russian soldiers killed, with casualty rates now exceeding initial estimates. The war, which Putin reportedly hoped would reach the Ukrainian capital in a few months, has now lasted more than two years.

Mediazona and the BBC's joint investigation confirmed the deaths of 61,831 Russian troops, with more than 2,000 new fatalities reported in just the last two weeks of July.

Considering the difficulty in accessing the region, actual numbers could be even higher, as the processing of death notices is lagging behind the rapid increase in fatalities.

On August 5, Ukraine's military reported that Russia had lost 1,180 soldiers in a single day, bringing the total number of Russian casualties, including those injured, to an estimated 582,910 since the war began.

The Oryx tracker, which monitors equipment losses through verified visual evidence, indicates that Russia has also suffered substantial material damage, losing nearly 800 pieces of self-propelled artillery and over 16,000 artillery systems overall.

Newsweek contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment on the findings.

According to The British Ministry of Defence, Russian casualties have decreased from a maximum of 1,262 in May to 1,140 in July, likely because Russian forces are consolidating positions on the Kharkiv axis, in east Ukraine.

Russia has not updated its official casualty numbers for the war since September 2022, when it said it was just under 6,000.

On June 5, Vladimir Putin gave a rare statement on the conflict, and described Russian losses in the war as "irretrievable", though he also said that the ration of Ukrainian losses was one to five in favor of Moscow. In February this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war.

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