Volunteers dying as Russia’s war dead tops 70,000

BBC:

More than 70,000 people fighting in Russia’s military have now died in Ukraine, according to data analysed by the BBC.

And for the first time, volunteers – civilians who joined the armed forces after the start of the war – now make up the highest number of people killed on the battlefield since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Every day, the names of those killed in Ukraine, their obituaries and photographs from their funerals are published across Russia in the media and on social networks.

BBC Russian and the independent website Mediazona have collated these names, along with names from other open sources, including official reports.

We checked that the information had been shared by authorities or relatives of the deceased – and that they had been identified as dying in the war.

New graves in cemeteries have also helped provide the names of soldiers killed in Ukraine – these are usually marked by flags and wreaths sent by the defence ministry.

We have identified the names of 70,112 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, but the actual number is believed to be considerably higher. Some families do not share details of their relatives’ deaths publicly – and our analysis does not include names we were unable to check, or the deaths of militia in Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.