Official figures released by Rosstat, Russia’s statistics office, show that half of the young Russian men who died last year were killed during the war that President Vladimir Putin has waged against Ukraine.

The situation was reported on the Russian Telegram channel “People of Baikal” and noted by independent analyst Chris Owen, two sources citing Rosstat data, according to which 1,905,778 people died in Russia last year.

Independent sociologists have shown that the death rate among young Russians is higher than in 2021, based on data on the number of deaths among men aged 18 to 29.

Older age groups were excluded from the analysis so it would not be skewed by excess mortality caused by COVID-19, and because the official conscription age for the Russian army is 18-27, although Russia has lifted the age limit for voluntary enlistment since the end of May last year.

Administrators of the “People of Baikal” channel note that “the share of those killed in the war in the age group of 20-24 years is half of all deaths of young people of this age group.”

In other words, every second man between the ages of 20 and 24 whose death was officially recorded in Russia last year died in the “special forces operation” announced by Putin on February 24, 2022.

Administrators of the Russian Telegram channel emphasize that these data do not contradict the figures collected from open sources by investigative journalists of Mediazona, BBC Russia or independent volunteers. But even under these conditions, it is possible that the number of young Russians who died at the front is higher, considering that thousands of Russian soldiers are still considered missing.

The Ukrainian military claims that the Russians lost more than 200,000 soldiers in the war

Estimates released Wednesday morning by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russia lost another 610 soldiers in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 200,590 soldiers lost to Putin’s forces in Ukraine.

However, we remind you that this figure also includes the number of wounded or captured Russian soldiers, and the data provided by the Ukrainian side cannot be independently confirmed. However, they generally correspond to the estimates voiced in recent months by Western intelligence services and independent observers of the war.

Casualties recorded by the regular Russian army, as well as by Wagner’s mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, have risen sharply in recent months in efforts to capture Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, an object that Putin’s forces have been trying to capture since early August last year.

In addition to huge human losses, the Russian army has also faced significant losses of military equipment and weapons, so military analysts believe that Moscow has begun to send to the front, including tanks and armored vehicles that are 70-80 years old.

In mid-February, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace estimated an incredible 97% of Russian troops involved in the war in Ukraine.

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