Leaked Data Shows Nearly 392,700 Russian War-Linked Deaths

Nearly 392,700 war-linked death certificates recorded between February 2022 and August 2026 reveal the hidden human toll of Russia’s invasion, according to data obtained by hacker groups and reported by Bloomberg.

The total comes from a massive cache of over 11 million demographic records acquired by the Belarusian opposition group Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian hacker collective Silent Crow, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg received the data, which includes specific death certificates citing military operations, shelling, and drones. These records contain detailed information such as age, place of residence, and location of death.

Vladimir Putin has worked extensively to conceal the true scale of Russian fatalities in Ukraine. In 2015, Putin classified military losses incurred during peacetime special operations or wartime activities as a state secret. Since September 2022, Russian authorities have not presented an official casualty figure.

The published figures may undercount the actual toll: the data exclude soldiers missing in action and foreign recruits, and the actual balance may be higher. The dataset also includes civilian deaths from aerial attacks and the 2024 Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.

Silent Crow calculates the actual death toll closer to 450,000 when including non-combat fatalities and unclassified deaths, according to Bloomberg. The leaked dataset places the war as the fourth most common cause of death inside Russia. If these figures are correct, the war in Ukraine is the deadliest armed conflict for Russia since the end of World War II; for comparison, approximately 13,000 Soviet soldiers died during the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War.

Hacker groups estimate that if current casualty trends continue, many Russians could die in 2026 alone.

The cyberattack struck servers belonging to the Federal State Statistics Service, known as Rosstat, between October 29 and November 1. Silent Crow claims to have stolen 23 terabytes of data, including information on Russia’s economy and demographic situation, while gaining control over 25,000 computers and network devices linked to Rosstat.

While Rosstat officially denied any breach of legally protected databases, hackers displayed a Belarusian-language warning on the agency’s sites stating that nobody will escape responsibility.

British intelligence estimated in September that Russian fatalities had reached 500,000. Sir Rich Knighton, head of the British Armed Forces, stated that total Russian casualties including the wounded approach 1.5 million since February 2022.

Official data from Rosstat has largely vanished from public view since the 2022 invasion as the state restricts statistical publications.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in February that at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the conflict.

The campaign against Russian state entities has extended beyond statistical bureaus. On Monday morning, the Russian Ministry for Civil Defence reported a massive cyberattack on its mobile application, which warns citizens of drone strikes and other threats. The ministry noted that the breach allowed attackers to disseminate false information to the public.