This week marks the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilisation,” introduced on September 21, 2022, and nonetheless not formally ended. Over these three years, now we have confirmed a minimum of 15,100 deaths amongst mobilised troopers. For many of these killed, we additionally know their ages: the most important group are males between 33 and 35.
To be taught extra concerning the first months of mobilisation in Russia, learn this account from a recruit. For many who flee, the longer term isn’t that bright either.
Counting Russian losses within the battle is gruelling work. We’ve got been sustaining this depend for nearly three and a half years. If you happen to discover this work essential, please think about supporting Mediazona: https://donate.zona.media/en
What we learn about losses
The map beneath exhibits the distribution of casualties throughout Russia’s areas. These are absolute figures and haven’t been adjusted for inhabitants or variety of army models.
You’ll be able to filter the map to point out complete losses, losses by department of service, or the house areas of mobilised troopers who had been killed.
Normally, official stories or visible cues like uniforms and insignia enable us to find out a soldier’s department of service, or how he got here to be within the military (mobilised, volunteer, prisoner, and many others.).
The chart beneath compares these totally different teams of servicemen.
From early summer season and into the mid-fall season of 2022, volunteers bore the brunt of the losses, which is strikingly totally different from the state of affairs within the preliminary stage of the battle: in winter and early spring, the Airborne Forces suffered the best harm, adopted by the Motorised Rifle troops.
By the tip of 2022 and the start of the following 12 months, losses amongst prisoners recruited into the Wagner PMC elevated markedly. They had been fashioned into “assault teams” to overwhelm Ukrainian positions close to Bakhmut.
By March 2023, prisoners turned the most important class of battle losses. After the seize of Bakhmut, there have been no instances of mass use of prisoners to date.
By September 2024, volunteers as soon as once more emerged as the most important class among the many KIA. This shift displays a cumulative impact: jail recruitment had considerably waned, no new mobilisation had been introduced, but the stream of volunteers continued unabated.
By September 26, the demise of 5,740 officers of the Russian military and different safety businesses had been confirmed.
The proportion of officer deaths amongst total casualties has steadily declined for the reason that battle started. Within the early phases, when skilled contract troopers fashioned the principle invasion drive, officers accounted for as much as 10% of fatalities. By November 2024, this determine had dropped to between 2–3%—a shift that displays each evolving fight ways and the intensive recruitment of volunteer infantry, who are suffering casualty charges many instances larger than their commanding officers.
Officers killed in Ukraine
So far, the deaths of 12 Russian generals have been formally confirmed: three Lieutenant Generals, seven Main Generals, and two who had retired from lively service.
Lieutenant Basic Oleg Tsokov, deputy commander of the Southern Army District, was killed in July 2023. In December 2024, Lieutenant Basic Igor Kirillov, head of the Nuclear, Organic, and Chemical (NBC) Safety Troops, was killed by a bomb in Moscow. Lieutenant Basic Yaroslav Moskalik, a senior officer within the Basic Workers’s Primary Operational Directorate, was killed by a automobile bomb in a Moscow suburb in April 2025.
Two deputy military commanders, Main Basic Andrei Sukhovetsky (forty first Military) and Main Basic Vladimir Frolov (eighth Military), had been killed within the first weeks of the battle. In June 2022, Main Basic Roman Kutuzov was killed in an assault on a troop formation.
Main Basic Sergei Goryachev, chief of workers of the thirty fifth Mixed Arms Military, was killed in June 2023 whereas commanding forces towards the Ukrainian counter-offensive within the Zaporizhzhia area. In November 2023, Main Basic Vladimir Zavadsky, deputy commander of the 14th Military Corps, was killed close to the village of Krynky.
In November 2024, Main Basic Pavel Klimenko, commander of the fifth Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (previously the “Oplot” Brigade of the so-called Donetsk Folks’s Republic), was fatally wounded by an FPV drone.
In July 2025, a strike on the headquarters of the one hundred and fifty fifth Naval Infantry Brigade killed a minimum of six officers, together with the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Mikhail Gudkov.
The 2 retired generals on the listing are Kanamat Botashev, a pilot who had been dismissed for crashing a fighter jet and was combating for Wagner PMC when his Su-25 was shot down in Might 2022, and Andrei Golovatsky, a former Inside Ministry common serving an 8.5-year jail sentence who was killed in June 2024.
The date of demise is understood in over 103,500 instances. Whereas this information doesn’t seize the total every day actuality of the battle, it does counsel which intervals noticed probably the most intense combating.
Please be aware that the info of the previous couple of weeks is probably the most incomplete and will change considerably sooner or later.
The age of the deceased is talked about in 113,750 stories. For the primary six months of the battle, when the combating was carried out by the common military, the 21-23 age group accounted for probably the most deaths.
Volunteers and mobilised males are considerably older: folks voluntarily go to battle over 30, and the mobilised are typically over 25.
