Mediazona has, in collaboration with BBC's Russian news department, calculated that 66,471 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war. Over the past four weeks, the figure has increased by 4,600 killed soldiers.
To help calculate the number of dead, they have used official reports, news coverage, and social media – and names from newly dug graves.
Journalist Anastasia Aleksejva at Mediazona says that the death toll does not appear to be linked to Ukraine's offensive in the Kursk region – or to Russia's advancement in the eastern parts.
The region with the highest number of killed Russian soldiers overall is instead Bashkiria in the southern end of the Ural Mountains, where 2,578 have fallen.
More than 12,000 of the soldiers who have died are Russian prisoners, recruited on the condition that they would be released after completing military service. However, the number of former prisoners at the front appears to have decreased recently, according to Mediazona, which may mean that the "recruitment campaign is not as active", says Aleksejva.
Mediazona and BBC have been counting Russian deaths in Ukraine since February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in June this year that they then had 700,000 soldiers fighting at the front. However, the Moscow regime rarely speaks about its own losses in what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.
