Faced with mounting losses in Ukraine, the Russian authorities moved quickly to decide how the deaths of soldiers would be reported. In the first weeks after the invasion, regional governors issued press releases. Soon after, the job of publishing obituaries was passed down to municipal officials. By summer 2022, a new approach had taken shape: those killed in the “special military operation” were to be portrayed as heroes, and their memory embedded in public life.
Over time, this effort has taken on an increasingly ritualised and performative quality. One of the most visible parts of this effort is the “Hero’s Desk” campaign. It began before the full-scale war and was originally meant to honour veterans of the Second World War and soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Since 2022, it has been adapted to commemorate those who have died in Ukraine.
The desks are placed at the front of classrooms, usually in the first row, with the name of the dead soldier. Some include QR-codes meant to link to biographical information. The desks are reserved for the school’s top pupils: strong students or competition winners. Sitting at one is presented as a privilege. At a school in Ramenskoye, outside Moscow, a desk dedicated to Andrei Timakov, a mobilised soldier from the Taman tank division, includes a QR-code that leads to an unrelated website. Cases like this are common and show how little effort goes into checking the details given to children.
Ceremonies marking the installation of desks or unveiling of plaques are often attended by officials, including MPs from Putin’s “United Russia” party. Children are made into active participants: they recite poems, read out short biographies and stand guard under portraits or plaques. Sometimes they hold imitation weapons. Most often these roles fall to members of “Yunarmiya” (“Youth Army”), an official cadet organisation founded by then-Defence minister Sergei Shoigu in 2016. The organisation is a clear attempt to revive Soviet-style youth groups like the Komsomol, complete with uniforms and military routines.
“Yunarmiya” members take part in military funerals, school events and memorial ceremonies across Russia. They appear in full dress, standing in formation as the backdrop for speeches. Officials speak of honour and sacrifice. The children are there to complete the visual scene. As expected, these events are less about grief or remembering the dead, and more about sending a message. They are not really about who died, but about what those deaths are supposed to teach the living: that they should be ready to do the same.
The campaign has also spread to kindergartens.
In Tavda, in the Sverdlovsk region, portraits of two fallen fighters were installed at nursery school No 3. One of them, Alexei Pershin, had been serving a sentence in a penal colony before being recruited by the Wagner Group.
A similar plaque was unveiled at a preschool in the Kaluga region in October 2024. The children are too young to understand what the plaques mean, but they walk past them all the same.
Here’s how the losses are distributed across Russian regions. These are absolute numbers, not adjusted for population or number of military units.
On the map, you can choose between total losses and losses by military branch, as well as see where the deceased mobilised soldiers were from.
In most cases, from death reports or indirect signs (uniform or sleeve patches in photos), it’s possible to determine which branch of the military the deceased served in, or how they joined the army (mobilised, volunteer, prisoner, etc.)
We compared these groups of servicemen on a separate graph.
From early summer and into the mid-fall season of 2022, volunteers bore the brunt of the losses, which is strikingly different from the situation in the initial stage of the war: in winter and early spring, the Airborne Forces suffered the greatest damage, followed by the Motorised Rifle troops.
By the end of 2022 and the beginning of the next year, losses among prisoners recruited into the Wagner PMC increased markedly. They were formed into “assault groups” to overwhelm Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut.
By March 2023, prisoners became the largest category of war losses. After the capture of Bakhmut, there have been no cases of mass use of prisoners so far.
By September 2024, volunteers once again emerged as the largest category among the KIA. This shift reflects a cumulative effect: prison recruitment had significantly waned, no new mobilisation had been announced, yet the stream of volunteers continued unabated.
By August 1, the death of 5,432 officers of the Russian army and other security agencies had been confirmed.
The proportion of officer deaths among overall casualties has steadily declined since the conflict began. In the early stages, when professional contract soldiers formed the main invasion force, officers accounted for up to 10% of fatalities. By November 2024, this figure had dropped to between 2-3% — a shift that reflects both evolving combat tactics and the intensive recruitment of volunteer infantry, who suffer casualty rates many times higher than their commanding officers.
Officers killed in Ukraine
To date, reports of the deaths of two deputy army commanders have been officially confirmed — Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky of the 41st Army and Major General Vladimir Frolov of the 8th Army.
On May 22, 2022, fighter pilot, 63-year-old retired Major General Kanamat Botashev died; most likely, he went to war as a volunteer. The deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Captain 1st Rank Andrei Paliy, was also killed. On June 5, 2022, the death of Major General Roman Kutuzov was reported.
In June 2023, Major General Sergei Goryachev was killed. He was the chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army and commanded the repulsion of the Ukrainian counterattack in the Zaporizhzhia region.
In July 2023, the death of the first Lieutenant General was confirmed — Oleg Tsokov, deputy commander of the Southern Military District.
In November 2023, Major General Vladimir Zavadsky was killed. He was the deputy commander of the 14th Army Corps.
In November 2024, Major General Pavlo Klimenko, commander of the 5th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (former DPR ‘Oplot’ Brigade), died. According to the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel Spy’s Dossier, he was fatally wounded on November 6: Klimenko was attacked by an FPV drone while riding a motorbike between command posts.
The date of death of servicemen is specified in 95,500 reports. The number of losses per day according to this data hardly reflects the real picture, but it allows us to assume on which days the battles were the most intense.
It should always be taken into account that the data of the last few weeks is the most incomplete and may change significantly in the future.
Age is mentioned in 104,050 reports. In the first six months of the war, when the regular army participated in the invasion without volunteers, mobilised soldiers, and prisoners, most deaths were in the 21-23 age group.
Volunteers and mobilised soldiers are significantly older: people voluntarily go to war at 30-35 years or older, and the mobilised are generally over 25.
