The independent Russian publication "Mediazona" reported that in cooperation with the BBC, using public data, it has identified 95,000 Russian soldiers killed - a number that the Kremlin has never commented on or denied, Agence France-Presse reported.
A detailed infographic published yesterday on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine identifies tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, indicating their names, date of birth, date of death, military unit and place of origin.
The data of the identified soldiers, many of which include a photo, are published on the website https://200.zona.media, and form a reproduction of the painting "Apotheosis of War" - a work by the Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin, depicting a pyramid of human skulls. The famous work in Russia is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
The site allows the dead to be filtered by place of birth, military rank or to search for a specific person.
"Mediazona", founded by Pyotr Verzilov - a Russian opposition figure who fought on the Ukrainian side and is the founder of the anti-Putin punk band "Pussy Riot" - emphasized that the list was not exhaustive, estimating that about 165,000 Russian servicemen may have been killed in three years.
"Mediazona" is working on this project in conjunction with the BBC Russian Service and regularly publishes updates on the identified dead soldiers.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not respond to an AFP request for comment, saying he was not familiar with the data published by the site.
"I do not know what this publication is and whether what is published in it is true or not", Dmitry Peskov said. "Any information about losses suffered during the military operation can be provided only by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. This is the exclusive prerogative of the Ministry," he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not published information on the dead since the fall of 2022, when it acknowledged the deaths of fewer than 6,000 soldiers.
At the end of 2024 then-US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reported that 700,000 Russian servicemen had been killed or wounded during the hostilities in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, reported in mid-February that about 46,000 soldiers had been killed and 380,000 wounded during the war.
AFP Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butusov, a freelance journalist, reported in December 2024 that his sources in the military had counted 70,000 killed and 35,000 missing.