Their number is a carefully guarded secret and largely understated by Moscow. Among the thousands of Russian soldiers who have died in Ukraine, many are very young, from the poorest regions of their country, and often from its ethnic minorities, experts say.
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The Kremlin has not communicated on the subject since March 25, a month and a day following the start of the war. Some 1,351 of his troops had fallen in battle by then, he admitted.
Seven weeks of destructive fighting later, kyiv estimates their number at 27,000 Russians killed. A high figure, according to multiple Western military and analysts, for whom Moscow’s assessments are nevertheless largely understated.
“Russia has probably suffered losses corresponding to a third of the ground combat force it committed in February,” observed the British Ministry of Defense on Sunday, or 50,000 Russian soldiers wounded or killed.
With a ratio of three wounded for one killed recognized by Moscow at the start of the conflict, we would then arrive at 12,500 Russian dead in less than three months. Not far from the 15,000 Soviets killed during a decade of war in Afghanistan (1979-1989), which had caused national trauma.
“We bow to our comrades in arms who died bravely in a just fight,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a tribute on May 9, Victory Day over the Nazis in 1945.
The Russian-language Mediazona site says it has confirmed the death of 2,099 Russian soldiers in combat up to May 6, from open sources alone. A large part of those whose age was mentioned were between 21 and 23 years old, 74 of them not even being 20 years old, specifies this media.
Most of those killed come from southern Russia, including the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, as well as central Siberia, the same source said.
The highest number of deaths (135) was confirmed among soldiers from the Muslim region of the North Caucasus, Dagestan, followed by the Buryats (98), a Mongolian minority from Buryatia, a province of Siberia.
Dmitro, met by AFP in April in Zaporijjia (southern Ukraine) following he had lived through the invasion and then the shelling of Mariupol, a major strategic port on the Black Sea, for more than a month, said: three waves” of occupants in his city: to the pro-Russian separatists of Donbass (eastern Ukraine) had succeeded the Buryats, who had “looted everything”, then the Chechens guilty of “manhunt”, according to this doctor testifying under a pseudonym.
“The largest number of soldiers and army officers come from small towns and villages in Russia. It is linked to socio-economic and (…) educational stratification,” explains Pavel Luzin, commentator on the online news site Riddle Russia.
Because “the requirements for military service” in this army corps are “relatively low”, he specifies, the best soldiers and future officers preferring other branches, such as “the air and space forces, the strategic ballistics and the navy”.
Local media and social media in Dagestan, one of Russia’s poorest regions ravaged for years by an Islamist insurgency, is filled with images of grieving parents receiving condolences from officials.
Kamil Iziiev, head of the Buynaksky district in Dagestan, posted a video on Telegram in May in which he presents awards to the families of five fallen soldiers.
“You must continue to live as mothers of children whose fathers heroically gave their lives,” he said.
The very first Russian soldier whose death has been officially confirmed by Moscow is Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a young Dagestani who died saving his comrades, according to state media.
He was posthumously decorated on March 4 by Vladimir Putin, who then praised the role played by ethnic minorities in Ukraine, saying he was “proud to be part of this world, of this powerful, strong and multinational people that is Russia”.