13MAY

Mediazona: 352,000 Russian soldiers killed by end-2025

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Mediazona and Meduza published a statistical estimate on 9 May using excess male mortality from Russia's Probate Registry: 352,000 Russian soldiers killed by end-2025, running alongside but separate from Mediazona's existing named-verification list.

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Key takeaway

Mediazona's 352,000 Probate Registry estimate captures deaths invisible to named-verification methods, alongside the 209,000 verified count.

Mediazona and Meduza, Russian exile outlets operating outside state censorship, published a statistical estimate on 9 May 2026 placing 352,000 Russian soldiers killed in action by end-2025⁠¹. The methodology is excess male mortality derived from Russia's national Probate Registry, which records deaths and inheritance filings. This is a new method running alongside, and not replacing, Mediazona's existing named-verified list⁠².

The two figures measure different things. Mediazona's verified count had reached approximately 209,000 by mid-April at the named-attribution methodology: each death confirmed via open-source records with a name attached. The Probate Registry figure of 352,000 derives from comparing actual male mortality rates in military-age cohorts against the statistical baseline for that population, isolating the excess that cannot be explained by peacetime causes. The gap between 209,000 and 352,000 represents deaths that left no open-source trace: soldiers whose deaths were registered in civilian paperwork but never reported in named records, local news, or social media. Russia's military secrecy apparatus explains roughly 40% of the gap; the Probate Registry captures what the attribution method cannot reach.

The statistical methodology is not new to conflict analysis: Ukraine and independent researchers have used similar excess-mortality approaches for civilian death estimates across multiple conflicts. Applying it to Russian military casualties via the Probate Registry data is specific to this publication, the collaboration between Mediazona and Meduza, and the 9 May release date.

Russia classifies military casualty data as a state secret. The 352,000 figure covers the period through end-2025 only and does not include 2026 losses. The named-verification methodology continues to run in parallel as the attribution record.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Russia classifies soldier deaths as state secrets under a 2022 decree, which means outside groups cannot rely on official figures. Mediazona and Meduza use two independent approaches to estimate the real total. Mediazona's first approach verifies deaths one by one, using obituaries, social media posts, and official records. By mid-April 2026, that work had confirmed around 209,000 deaths. Mediazona and Meduza's second approach looks at Russia's Probate Registry, the official record of estates and inheritances, for an unusual spike in death filings among men of military age. That statistical method points to 352,000 deaths by end-2025. Neither count contradicts the other. Mediazona's named-verification work has reached approximately 60% of the statistical estimate because suppressed deaths leave no public obituary or social media trace. The statistical method captures that suppressed portion but cannot attach names to it. Together the two counts bracket the likely real number.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Russia's opacity about military casualties stems from an information-control architecture built around state media, the military prosecutor's office, and the registry systems. Death certificates for soldiers are classified under a 2022 decree; official notifications to families are delayed or suppressed.

Those conditions mean independent statistical methods, including Probate Registry analysis, cemetery geo-location, and mobile operator churn analysis, function as the only viable casualty estimation tools outside official channels.

What could happen next?

Meaning
If accepted as broadly accurate, the 352,000 figure implies Russian military deaths approach the total US combat deaths across all of World War Two (405,000), contextualising the scale of the conflict for Western public opinion.
Consequence
As the gap between Russia's official casualty count and independent estimates widens, the credibility of any Russian claim about the war's cost, including in future peace negotiations, is further undermined for Western audiences.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Soviet Afghan war casualties from 1979 to 1989 were officially reported as 13,833 killed. Post-Soviet excess-mortality analysis using similar registry methods produced estimates of 26,000-50,000, depending on the demographic baseline used.

Soviet official figures ran at roughly half the central statistical estimate. If the same ratio applies to Russia's Ukraine war, Mediazona's 352,000 statistical estimate and the approximately 209,000 verified-names count are mutually consistent rather than contradictory.

Counter-parallel: Vietnam War US casualty accounting demonstrates the opposite end of the transparency spectrum: the United States published named casualty lists in real time, enabling independent cross-checking that kept official and independent counts within 2% of each other. Russia's 2022 decree classifying soldier deaths as state secrets structurally prevents this level of verification.

Consensus view: Demographers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science assess the Probate Registry excess-mortality methodology as the most robust independent estimate of Russian military deaths available.

The method compares observed male mortality in military-age cohorts against pre-war baselines: the same statistical technique used to estimate Soviet casualties in Afghanistan and Chechen war deaths. Its advantage is independence from official reporting; its limitation is that it captures all excess male deaths, potentially including deaths from disease, training accidents, and non-combat violence.

Counter-view: Russian state media and Kremlin-aligned demographers contest the Probate Registry methodology, arguing that excess male mortality includes significant non-military components, notably the emigration of military-age men who then die abroad and are recorded in Russian registry data with delays. Russia's Ministry of Defence's official figure remains below 30,000 dead, a figure no independent analyst accepts as credible.

Key tension: Whether the 143,000 gap between Mediazona's verified-names count and the statistical estimate represents genuinely unverified military deaths or a statistical artefact from demographic disruption caused by the partial mobilisation and emigration wave of 2022-2023.

Sources:Mediazona

Mentions:Mediazona →Probate Registry →Russia →Vietnam →United States →Kremlin →Afghanistan →Ukraine →Meduza →

First Reported In

Update #16 · 800 drones, three ceasefires, one cliff

Mediazona· 13 May 2026

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