The Year of the “Meat grinder”. What we know about Russia’s war losses in 2023
As the Ukraine war approaches its third year, BBC Russian Service continues counting and profiling Russia's military losses.
By Olga Ivshina.
Russia lost one and a half times more military personnel in 2023 than in the first year of the invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis by BBC Russian. Our conclusion is drawn from open source information and based on a list of verified casualties maintained jointly by the BBC and 'Mediazona' (recognised as a 'foreign agent' in Russia) along with a team of volunteers.
At the close of December, we had managed to identify the names of more than 40,000 Russian military personnel killed in the course of the invasion of Ukraine. Among them, 15,520 died in 2022, and at least 24,100 in 2023. The actual level of losses in the Russian army is much higher, but even these statistics help prompt some conclusions about the state of the Russian army during the war.
The main trend of 2023 is a sharp increase in losses among those mobilised from the civilian population. Two-thirds of those killed in action that we identified this year were not associated with the army before the start of the invasion — they had been volunteers, conscripts, prisoners, or 'rookies' in private military companies.
"My husband signed his contract on April 8th, and by the 11th he was already in an assault unit. In other words, at war. I had been sure that there would be the three weeks of training they talk about. And that there’d be nothing to fear until at least the end of April. I was waiting for a call. But on April 21st, he was killed! There hadn’t been any such training,” says the wife of one of the Russian convicts who fought in Ukraine.
But it's not only convicts who are sent to the front without proper training. A 46-year-old resident of the Kursk region, Ilya Konontsov, volunteered on October 25th of this year.
"It’s an honour for me to defend the Motherland and crush the enemy," Konontsov told a local television channel before joining his unit as he received his uniform and new helmet. He had very little time to get used to the kit: by November 5th he was already dead.
Judging by the hundreds of published obituaries with similar stories, the process of training reinforcements before sending them to the front now only takes a few days. For comparison, conscript soldiers sent to Afghanistan in Soviet times were trained from four to six months.
The changing face of war
Taken together, thousands of obituaries illustrate how the average Russian soldier has changed over nearly two years of war in Ukraine.
Last year, the typical military death confirmed by the BBC, was around 21 years of age and usually a contracted soldier. More often than not, they were paratroopers, motorised infantry, or marines.
This year, the typical Russian soldier killed in Ukraine is a 34-year-old convict who went straight to the front from prison. Moreover, if last year the majority of convicts were recruited by the mercenary group "Wagner," recruitment since February this year has been exclusively handled by the Ministry of Defence.
Western analysts believe that the significance of units formed from convicts will gradually diminish. This year, however, convicts fighting as part of the "Wagner" group played a crucial role in capturing the town of Bakhmut, while "Storm Z" units were instrumental in Russia's offensive near the towns of Rabotino (Zaporizhia region) and Avdiivka (Donetsk region).
Paratroopers and special forces troops who survived the first year of the war are now being kept safe by the military command. They're being used to hold defensive positions or in sniper operations. Valuable specialists are now sent into the attack only when conditions are favourable, experts have noted.
The Winter Meat grinder
Russia suffered its biggest losses last winter during the attempt to advance into the Donbas region. From mid-December to March, the rate of casualties doubled when compared to the average figures for 2022.
After analysing dozens of hours of combat footage, the BBC found evidence suggesting that glaring tactical errors are among the reasons for Russia’s high losses. For instance, a series of videos illustrated how the men of the 155th Marine Brigade attempted a direct frontal assault on the city of Vugledar in the Donetsk region of Ukraine without any support and across open terrain.
The "Black Berets", as marines are known, continued to advance in a single line along a road that had been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian artillery. Moreover, the area they were advancing through was heavily mined.
On January 29th, desperate marines added emotional commentary to a social media post by the governor of Primorsky Krai, which is where the 155th Brigade is based: "As a result of the incompetent and criminal actions of the command of the 155th Brigade, almost the entire battalion, along with its armoured vehicles, has been destroyed, except for the first company of 60 people," they wrote in their appeal.
It was the second public plea by the "Black Berets" in three months. In November last year, the marines had requested an investigation into the "inexplicable offensive" into which they had been thrown by "talentless commanders."
The governor of Primorsky Krai never responded to the January appeal. And there were no reports of any investigations either.
The marines of the 155th Brigade are persisting in their attempts to take Vugledar - and continue to suffer losses. We know the names of at least 234 servicemen who have died during the invasion of Ukraine. This is four times more than the losses sustained by the unit in ten years of war in Chechnya.
Taking into account the severely wounded, killed, and those missing in action, the losses could exceed half of the brigade's personnel.
Dozens of marines are listed as missing in action. Their relatives are forced to conduct their own investigations to find out what happened to their loved ones.
A young rapper, Ramaz Gorgadze from the village of Yagodnoye in the Magadan region, was conscripted in September of last year. He was a fairly popular local artist, and had tens of thousands of followers on TikTok.
Upon receiving his draft papers, Ramaz went to the conscription office with his mother, Svetlana, and hugged her goodbye. Before leaving for Ukraine, he wrote a song with the lyrics: "Free Donbass. Russia is behind you. The Russian World has come. A Russian soldier is fighting now."
But for Ramaz, things were never quite so simple. He told his mother that he had friends in Ukraine and the scariest part for him wouldn't be death but having to shoot at people just like him. Nevertheless, he didn't try to avoid being sent to the front.
By late October, after several weeks of training, he arrived at the front, was almost immediately sent into assault action, and ceased all communication. For several months, Svetlana tried to find out what happened to her son.
Eventually, she travelled 7,000 kilometres from her home to the village of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, which is where the 155th Brigade had its field base. She finally found the answer there: her son had been killed.
During an attack, the marine unit entered one of the houses. Ramaz was standing on the porch. Ten minutes into the fight, the house was targeted by a Ukrainian drone and the 26-year-old rapper had his legs blown off. He died of blood loss.
The battle for Bakhmut
By the end of summer 2023, "Wagner" fighters comprised a third of all confirmed losses on the Russian side in Ukraine. One of the reasons for this was the bloody battle for Bakhmut.
The late founder of "Wagner," Yevgeny Prigozhin, estimated his group's losses in the battles for Bakhmut at 20,000 killed. We have confirmed names of 9,332 killed "Wagner" members. Two thirds of them — 6,590 individuals — were convicts.
From January to early March, the confirmed weekly losses of "Wagner" never dropped below 300 individuals. The largest single-day losses for the "Wagner" group occurred between March 24th and 25th: 182 deaths, including 141 convicts.
This is only the data that we have been able to establish through open sources. Real losses are certainly far higher.
The efficiency of the "Wagner" assault groups was maintained through iron discipline, enforced by brutal methods.
"Assault groups do not retreat without orders... Unauthorised leave from the unit or withdrawal without being wounded is punishable by on the spot execution,” according to a report by Ukrainian intelligence. Such measures led to additional losses among the mercenaries.
As "Wagner" advanced through the Donetsk region of Ukraine, large burial grounds specifically allocated for convicts began appearing in different parts of Russia.
Currently, there are seven such graveyards in Russia, with another located in the part of the Luhansk region occupied by Russia. The cemeteries contain graves ranging from several dozen to around seven hundred.
According to Prigozhin, the only men buried in such graveyards were those who didn't provide contact details for relatives or request a different burial place. In reality, hundreds of "Wagner"-recruited convicts were buried without notifying their families, even when they were in touch.
More than a hundred people only found their relatives when they saw photos of their graves on social media.
Among the deceased were individuals ranging from those serving sentences for serious crimes (such as the murder of their own mother or young children) to those who had only a few months left before release. Four of the convicts recruited by "Wagner" were serving time for murdering World War II veterans.
Ukrainian counteroffensive
During the summer and autumn of this year, all attention was fixed on Ukraine's counteroffensive. Ukraine managed to advance 17 kilometres into territory previously occupied by Russian forces, according to an assessment by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyy,.
In other words, in most areas, Moscow was able to hold onto the positions it controlled in January.
One of the significant reasons given for Russia's successful defensive actions is its advantage in the air. However, maintaining this superiority came at a cost. This year, Russia lost at least 59 military pilots. They include Colonel Vitaliy Tabachnyk, who piloted a Ka-52 helicopter, and Major Grigory Azanov, a helicopter squadron commander.
Another 13 military pilots died this year within Russian territory during the mutiny by Prigozhin and his “Wagner” forces. Russian aviation suffered more losses in 24 hours only during the very first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has lost more than 200 military pilots. Each of these individuals is a specialist, requiring a training period of at least six years and worth more than three million dollars.
In general, to counter Ukraine's offensive effectively, senior officers found themselves more frequently at the frontlines or in closer proximity to them. From June to the end of October, the Russian side lost at least 413 officers, including two generals and 44 servicemen with the rank of lieutenant-colonel or higher. Such significant losses among senior officers last occurred only in the initial months of the invasion of Ukraine.
It's worth noting that the Kremlin managed to find the time necessary for training new junior officers both among recent graduates from military academies and mobilised specialists. Such individuals helped to ensure the required level of cohesion and coordination among various units.
The war dead: differences between the regions
Russia’s war against Ukraine has taken its toll on life in Russia’s regions as well.
In terms of an absolute numbers of casualties, the leading regions are Krasnodar Krai, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Bashkortostan, and Chelyabinsk Oblast. However, if we adjust the data based on the density of the male population in each region, the list changes: for residents of Tuva and Buryatia, the likelihood of being killed in the war in Ukraine this year was 30-40 times higher than for those living in Moscow.
That said, the majority of servicemen who died in Ukraine are Slavs, primarily Russians. This year the proportion of Slavic names among the dead increased. In spring 2022, it was 75%, while a year later it had risen to 85%.
Researchers link this trend to conscription and the recruitment of convicts to the front.
According to research from the University of Exeter, in most republics the risk of death in war is roughly the same for Russians and local ethnic groups.
The greater portion of losses falls upon predominantly poor regions that are experiencing a shortage of natural resources. Hence the significantly higher mortality among residents of Tuva and Buryatia may be associated with men from these republics having a tougher time finding stable and well-paid employment when compared to residents of more prosperous parts of the country.
Russia continues actively recruiting volunteers for the front, promising salaries six to eight times higher than the regional average.
From Nepal to Somalia
And not only Russians are being encouraged to join military units: this year, recruitment for the war has been reported among individuals from Cuba, Iraq, Somalia, and Zambia.
The Nepalese authorities even officially appealed to Russia not to recruit their citizens for the war; to return the bodies of those killed; and to repatriate all Nepalese nationals who had thereto enlisted in the armed forces.
More often casualties within Russian forces come from Central Asian countries: Uzbekistan (47), Tajikistan (50), and Kyrgyzstan (26).
Many foreigners are attracted by the prospect of simplified acquisition of Russian citizenship after participating in the so-called "special military operation."
The BBC has documented 254 foreign citizens who were killed in Ukraine as part of the Russian invasion force. But establishing an even approximate number of foreigners fighting within the Russian army remains impossible for now.
According to the Nepalese ambassador to Russia, Milan Raj Tuladhar, Moscow managed to attract between 150 to 200 Nepalese citizens into its military. Members of the African diaspora suggest that several dozen migrants from Somalia, detained in Russia for violating passport regulations, are now being cajoled to join Russian forces in Ukraine.
The recruitment scheme is painfully simple. People in uniform visit migrants in detention and propose a deal: deportation from Russia can be cancelled, but in exchange they must "do a little work for the government."
Many cannot properly read the documents they're asked to sign because they are written in Russian. The officials lay out the terms simply: a year’s work in exchange for good pay, medical provision, the right to stay in Russia after the contract ends, and even the possibility of reuniting with their families.
"We asked what kind of work it would be, and they said it would be simple and good," one migrant told the BBC after he was approached to join the war this way. After signing the paperwork, he found himself in a field camp at the border with Ukraine under military guard.
BBC is blocked in Russia. We’ve attached the story in Russian as a pdf file for readers there.
More on Russia’s losses
At the close of December 2023, we have identified the names of 40,101 Russian military personnel who died during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
By examining the situation in cemeteries in 70 locations across Russia, we observed that as a rule the graves of those publicly reported roughly equalled the number of graves for soldiers whose deaths had not been mentioned in the media or social networks. Therefore, the actual number of deaths could be at least twice as high – that is, more than 80,000 people.
This figure does not include those who fought against Ukraine as part of the armed formations of the "People's Republics" of Donetsk (DNR) and Luhansk (LNR) regions.
The separatists in Donetsk stopped publishing data on their troop losses late last year; separatists from Luhansk had never disclosed information about their losses in the first place.
We studied published obituaries, as well as reports on the search for LNR and DNR fighters who had long been out of contact, and can conclude that by the end of November around 23,000 fighters of the self-proclaimed "republics" of the Donbas may have died.
Taking this into account, the overall losses for pro-Russian forces killed could be more than 103,000 people.
It’s hard to put a number on the severely injured at the front. However, analysing information about compensation payments to families of the deceased and those who died in service in the army or Rosgvardia, we can generate an approximate figure for the category of personnel no longer fit for service due to injury. Publicly available documents on the war suggest that for each dead Russian military member there may be around two severely injured. Those out of commission due to injuries may therefore number around 200,000.
In sum, even on the basis of open sources, it's plausible to conclude that Russia's irreplaceable losses might realistically stand at around 309,000 individuals, of whom 80,000 to 100,000 are dead.
The oldest Russian military casualty in the war was aged 71: Mikhail Shuvalov, who had worked his whole life in the energy sector, signed up to the war as a volunteer.
The youngest killed in action against Ukraine was born in 2004: Vladimir Skrypin enlisted in the Airborne Forces immediately after finishing school and was killed on June 30th of this year.
How we count
Every day in Russia, new names of the killed are published as well as photographs from funerals. The names are most often announced by the heads of Russian regions or representatives of district administrations, local media, and educational institutions where the deceased were previously educated, as well as by relatives.
The BBC, "Mediazona," and a team of volunteers collect this data in a list that we have been keeping since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We consider publication in a Russian official source or media, publications by relatives, or posts in other sources if accompanied by burial photos, to constitute confirmation of death.
In the main count, we do not include the losses of the self-proclaimed republics of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics (L/DNR). However, if a Russian citizen voluntarily goes to war and joins the armies of these republics, we do count them.
We determined the branches of the military based on reports of where the deceased served or by the insignia on the uniform. Mobilised individuals, volunteers, and prisoners are not separate branches of the military, but we highlight their losses in a separate category to compare them with the losses of professional (contract) units of the regular army.
Read this story in Russian here.
English version edited by Chris Booth.
