Kremlin data leak shows 450,000 Russians have been killed in Ukraine

Two hacking groups claim to have obtained records from Russia’s state statistics agency that point to hundreds of thousands of Russian deaths in the war in Ukraine. The higher estimate, from the pro-Ukrainian group Silent Crow, puts the toll at 450,100. The figures have not been independently verified, and the agency denies that any data was leaked.

Silent Crow and Belarusian Cyber Partisans said they accessed an internal database at Rosstat containing information from death certificates covering February 2022 to August 2026. Silent Crow published the data, while Belarusian Cyber Partisans put the toll at 393,881 using a narrower method that counted records identifying military operations as the cause of death.

Russia has banned both groups as “extremist organisations”. Belarusian Cyber Partisans also opposes the government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Rosstat acknowledged that its systems had been targeted between October 29 and November 1 but said no databases were compromised. Moscow last publicly disclosed a Russian military death toll in September 2022.

The Sun cited a British intelligence estimate from September that put the number of Russian troops killed at around 500,000. Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the head of the UK Armed Forces, said Russia’s total casualties, including wounded troops, were believed to have reached 1.5 million since February 2022. The hacking groups projected that Russian deaths could exceed 200,000 in 2026 alone if the reported pace continued.

“This is the most significant leak of data when it comes to Russian casualties,” Janis Kluge, head of the Russia and Eurasia division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told The Moscow Times. “I think it’s established as a fact that the war has never been more deadly than it is right now,” he added.

Both sides face pressure to replenish their forces more than four years into the full-scale invasion. Russia is reportedly recruiting between 1,000 and 1,200 people a day and has also received more than 10,000 troops from North Korea. Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia is losing more than 1,400 troops a day on the front line, a figure separate from the estimates of deaths.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of intensifying its attacks to put pressure on Kyiv ahead of US-brokered peace talks scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. Ukraine is preparing for winter as Russian drone and missile strikes continue. The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost external power again on Sunday.

Russian strikes hit a kindergarten and a major bridge in Kyiv on Saturday. At least nine people, including a 14-year-old girl, were injured during the missile attack.

Days earlier, a Russian strike hit a school that was being used as a humanitarian centre. At least 55 people were reported killed, including two rescue workers and four police officers. Officials said some of those recovered from the rubble had yet to be identified.