iStories: As many as 8,000 Russian volunteers and mercenaries have been killed in Ukraine

Over the course of nearly a year of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, by publication iStories’ count, almost 8,000 volunteers and mercenaries in private military companies fighting for Russia have been killed.

iStories writes that data from Russia’s Federal Pension Fund show that, as of January 1, 2023, almost a quarter of a million people in Russia had received compensation after losing a family breadwinner. Those numbers have grown significantly since the start of the war. Based on those figures, iStories concludes that, in 2022, nearly 9,000 may have started receiving benefits from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation after losing family members in Ukraine. On average, according to Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, 1.1 persons receive benefits from the death of a breadwinner.

The iStories report is specifically about volunteers and mercenaries, since the families of deceased contract soldiers receive Ministry of Defense pensions (volunteers have been considered equal to contract soldiers in this regard only since November 2022).

The publication also notes that Russia’s Federal Register of Disabled Persons has grown by 3,000 people since the start of the war. The true number of people disabled in the war is likely much higher, says iStories, because getting official disabled status is “a very long and bureaucratic process.”