Records leaked from Rosstat, Russia's state statistics agency, show that at least 450,000 Russians died in the war in Ukraine up to August this year, Al Jazeera reported. Most of them were soldiers. The Financial Times (FT) found that the toll will settle at about 550,000 once late death registrations are counted. In Russia, deaths can take months or even years to be registered.
Two hacking groups, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and Ukraine's Silent Crow, said on November 1 that they had broken into Rosstat's network. They shared the files with several news organisations. Rosstat confirmed cyberattacks between October 29 and November 1. But it said it found no evidence that its databases were compromised or that protected data leaked. No one has independently verified the data, but media outlets and analysts believe it is real. Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, wrote on X that there was "no longer any doubt" the database was authentic. He called the idea that the toll was inflated a "highly unlikely conspiracy theory".
The files list about 410,000 deaths directly as war-related. Courts declared another 42,000 men of fighting age dead because their bodies were never recovered. The FT found a further 12,000 likely military deaths near the front. Of the dead with a recorded location, about 120,000 died in the area around Avdiivka and Pokrovsk. Another 48,000 died in Bakhmut.
The soldiers are getting older. The average age of the dead rose from 34 in the first year of the war to 40 in 2025, the FT reported. Men aged 35 to 44 made up the largest group, with 158,000 dead. Poorer regions were hit hard. Zabaykalsky Krai in southern Siberia recorded about 12,300 deaths, roughly one for every 80 residents. Bashkortostan recorded 15,800.
The FT identified 4,141 probable foreign soldiers among the dead. Uzbekistan had the highest toll at 807, followed by Tajikistan with 598. Colombia lost 98 and Nepal 44. Bloomberg News used a wider definition that includes people born outside Russia. It counted 11,335 foreign deaths, up from about 630 in 2022 to more than 5,500 in 2025.
About 340 Africans are among the dead, most of them killed since 2025, according to Bloomberg. Deaths of Colombians, Kenyans and Nigerians cluster from late 2025. Nigeria, Cameroon and Egypt had the highest African tolls, with 127 deaths between them, the FT reported. An estimated 28,000 foreigners from 136 countries are said to be fighting in the Russian army.
An Amnesty International report in September found that people from Brazil, Colombia, Sri Lanka and South Africa were promised well-paid civilian jobs. On arrival in Russia, they were forced into the army. Local agents and misleading online job adverts were used to recruit them. One South African man applied for a driving job in Poland but was told to fly to Moscow first. His wife told Amnesty that everything was taken from him when he arrived.