Mediazona raises Russian death estimate to 352,000 Independent
Mediazona, working with the ’s Russian service and volunteers, said its independent estimate puts Russian military losses in the war with Ukraine at 352,000 killed soldiers. The figure, presented on May 9, 2026, covers male Russian citizens aged 18 to 59 who died from the start of the full-scale invasion through late December 2025.
The publication paired that estimate with an updated named list of Russian military dead. Mediazona said the list is built from publicly available, verifiable material, but it is not exhaustive because not every death is publicly reported.
Mediazona and Meduza
Mediazona said it developed the statistical estimate with Meduza, using excess male mortality and data from the national Probate Registry. The publication said it has two parts: a bi-weekly summary and interactive infographics.
The last update to both the named list and the Probate Registry estimate came on May 9, 2026. Mediazona’s previous overall estimate was published at the end of August 2025.
Russian losses since 2022
Mediazona’s chronology shows how the composition of losses changed over time. From winter and early spring 2022, the Airborne Forces suffered the greatest damage, followed by the Motorised Rifle troops. From early summer into mid-fall 2022, volunteers bore the brunt of the losses.
By the end of 2022 and the beginning of the next year, losses among prisoners recruited into the Wagner PMC increased markedly. By March 2023, prisoners became the largest category of war losses. After the capture of Bakhmut, Mediazona said there have been no cases of mass use of prisoners so far.
May 9, 2026 estimate
By September 2024, volunteers once again emerged as the largest category among the killed in action. That shift matters for anyone tracking the war’s documented human cost, because Mediazona’s new total does not rest only on named deaths; it folds in a statistical estimate meant to capture deaths that never reached public reporting.
The new 352,000 figure now gives a higher, later snapshot of Russian military dead than the one Mediazona published at the end of August 2025. For readers following the war’s toll, the practical takeaway is simple: the count has moved again, and Mediazona is still combining public records with a mortality model to measure losses through late December 2025.
