MOSCOW — Two hacker groups said on Saturday, Nov. 7, that death records taken from Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, or Rosstat, indicate between about 394,000 and 450,000 people fighting on Russia’s side or otherwise linked to the war have died since February 2022, the Kyiv Independent and Euronews reported. Unverified claim, Belarusian Cyberpartisans and Silent Crow (hacker groups).
What the hackers claim
The groups said the records come from Rosstat’s internal Demography database and cover death certificates registered from February 2022 to August 2026, according to the Kyiv Independent. They said they took about 23 terabytes of data, Euronews reported.
Belarusian Cyberpartisans counted at least 393,881 deaths where military action or its consequences were listed as the cause. Silent Crow’s figure of up to 450,100 also adds non-combat deaths of military personnel, deaths marked as terrorist acts, and some deaths in occupied territories or Ukraine with no established cause, Euronews said.
What Rosstat says
Rosstat acknowledged cyberattacks on its systems between Oct. 29 and Nov. 1 but denied that its databases were compromised or that information leaked, the Kyiv Independent reported. The hackers said they had network access for about six months before striking overnight on Oct. 31–Nov. 1.
The Kyiv Independent said it could not immediately verify the records or the estimates. Euronews said Meduza and Mediazona have obtained the data and begun checking whether it is authentic and complete, including ruling out deliberate falsification.
How the numbers compare
Russia has not released official combat losses since September 2022, and Rosstat stopped publishing annual cause-of-death data from 2024, according to Euronews. Mediazona, working with BBC Russian and volunteers, had identified 285,881 Russian military personnel killed as of Nov. 6, a count it says is incomplete. A Meduza and Mediazona study of inheritance records estimated roughly 350,000 by the end of 2025.
Euronews said the hackers’ estimates are in line with those independent studies, but that this does not prove any individual figure. It also noted that people listed as missing are not captured in the records.
What happens next
The Meduza and Mediazona review will be the first outside test of the leak. More is on our Warfare and World News pages.
Sources
- Kyiv Independent: Hackers claim leaked Russian data reveals up to 450,000 war-related deaths in Ukraine
- Euronews: Rosstat hack: data obtained suggests over 390,000 Russian deaths in Ukraine war
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