Mediazona and BBC News Russian, together with a group of volunteers, have confirmed the deaths of 14,093 Russian servicemen killed in the Ukraine war before February 12. They arrived at this total using only public records and other open sources.
That figure includes 1,082 Russians drafted under Vladimir Putin’s mobilization decree. Forty percent of these draftees have been killed in the weeks between January 1 and February 12, 2023. BBC News has also established the names of 109 Russian soldiers killed in Makiivka on New Year’s night. At least 107 of those men had been drafted during mobilization. (The Russian Defense Ministry has only acknowledged 89 dead in Makiivka.)
Another 49 draftees died without ever leaving Russia, at army gathering points and military bases. Eight of them died by suicide, and at least 6 in accidents, either in training or on the road.
In the BBC’s assessment, the Russian army proved unable to absorb and train the influx of new servicemen. Judging by the obituaries published in October, the first groups of draftees were sent into combat after just 3–7 days of training.
Those arriving at the front in November and December were better prepared and equipped for battle. But they had other problems. Often, they were trained for one type of service, but had to do something else at the front: artillery men, for example, would suddenly be transferred into the infantry. As a result, these trained recruits were still without relevant training.
Journalists have pointed out that stationing the troops in small distributed groups is supposed to minimize losses from artillery strikes, but leads to problems with delivering supplies (including food and basic toiletries).
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