A leak of Russian state death records puts 450,100 war-linked deaths in the register by 28 August 2026, and more than half of those recorded deaths occurred in Donetsk, the Ukrainian region Moscow demands be handed over as a condition for a ceasefire.
The Record
Hackers obtained an export of medical death certificates from Rosstat’s database. The researchers examined certificates individually rather than treating a headline total as proof. They identified 440,982 documented war deaths and added 9,118 records with no stated cause of death separately, bringing their register-based figure to 450,100.
These are deaths processed through Russian civil registry offices and entered into state statistics. The figure counts deaths only and leaves out the wounded, the missing, and foreign mercenaries whose deaths do not enter Rosstat's register.
The Delay
A death certificate can take months to reach the database. According to the researchers, only 26% of records have arrived one month after death; 69% have arrived after six months, and 99% after a year. That makes the late-August register total a poor measure of how many had already died by late August.
Adjusting for that delay, the researchers estimate roughly 504,000 Russian war dead by the end of August. They project 563,000–597,000 by the end of 2026. Those are estimates, distinct from the 450,100 deaths counted in the register as of 28 August.
The flow of new records is accelerating. Over the preceding six months, the database received more than 18,000 a month on average, 1.26 times the pace a year earlier. The researchers project 191,000–225,000 Russian military deaths across 2026, which would make it Russia’s deadliest year of the full-scale invasion.
The Price of Donetsk
Men aged 35–44 appear most often among the dead. Bashkortostan, Krasnodar Krai, Rostov Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai stand out in the regional figures. The regional map records where people lived, not where they died.
More than half of the Russian deaths are attributed to fighting on Donetsk territory. Moscow has spent those lives trying to take a Ukrainian region it now demands Ukraine surrender for a ceasefire.
The register captures the human cost of that demand, and even its enormous count trails the deaths it is meant to measure.