Russia has significantly increased state investment in building new cemeteries since launching a large-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, according to an analysis by an independent Russian publication.
In 2022, Russian authorities have spent 225 million rubles (about 2.3 million euros) on cemetery expansion projects, double the amount spent in 2021 and almost six times more than in 2020. The Moscow Times reported on July 19 according to data from Russia’s official state procurement portal. As of June this year, 136 million rubles (approximately 1.4 million euros) have already been spent on expanding cemeteries, the publication said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, has resulted in high military casualties for both Moscow and Kiev. It is impossible to independently verify the true extent of Russian battlefield losses, and although official figures do not reflect an increase in deaths from the ongoing war, analysis of publicly available data indicates a much higher death toll than has been released to the public.
On June 27, the Independent outlet Important Stories used data from Russia’s Federal Statistical Service (Rosstat) to estimate that at least 71,000 Russian soldiers had died since the start of the war. Independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and Meduza published a joint investigation into troop deaths on July 5 using data from the country’s National Register of Wills. By the end of June, the media found that around 120,000 Russian soldiers had died since the start of the conflict, “but the true number may be as high as 140,000.”
More than 500,000 military deaths and injuries could have occurred in Moscow since the start of 2022, the UK Ministry of Defense said on May 31.
Moscow rarely shares information on the number of casualties in the war and has not addressed the issue since September 2022, when then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said fewer than 6,000 soldiers had been killed. In a rare statement on Ukraine’s war losses, Putin told a press conference that the ratio of “irreparable losses” between Russia and Ukraine was one in five in favor of Moscow, but did not elaborate on the numbers.
Kyiv also refrains from providing updated statistics on its battlefield losses. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in February that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war.
When questioned by journalists about this, the Russian Foreign Ministry has so far refused to comment.
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