BBC News Russian, Mediazona and volunteers had identified 285,023 Russian military personnel killed in the war against Ukraine through open-source records as of October 30, 2026. This is a count of deaths documented by name, not an estimate of the total death toll: some deaths never enter publicly available records that can be verified.
Motorized rifle formations account for the highest losses among units to which identified casualties can be attributed. According to the joint investigation, the five motorized rifle brigades with the highest numbers of documented deaths lost a combined 15,312 personnel. That figure applies to those five brigades, not to Russia's motorized rifle forces as a whole.
The researchers compile records from obituaries, relatives' announcements, regional reporting and other publicly available Russian sources. Actual losses may be higher than the number of deaths established by name.