Hackers Claim Access to Russian Statistics Database Indicating High Casualty Figures

The hacker groups Kiberpartizany BY and Silent Crow claim to have breached the database of Russia's Federal State Statistics Service, obtaining internal records that indicate hundreds of thousands of war-related fatalities. According to the groups, the compromised dataset comprises roughly 23 terabytes of demographic and economic statistics, including information on Russian losses since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Analysis of the agency's records up to 27 August 2026 led Kiberpartizany BY to report at least 393,881 deaths linked directly to military action or its consequences. Silent Crow calculated a higher total of 450,100 dead by including non-combat military fatalities, deaths classified under terrorist acts, and unverified fatalities in Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories.

Official updates on combat casualties have not been published by Russian authorities since September 2022, and Moscow has not issued a statement regarding the reported breach. In 2024, the state agency also suspended public releases of detailed annual cause-of-death statistics. Existing public counts include a joint database by the BBC News Russian Service and Mediazona listing 286,000 identified dead by name as of 8 November, alongside a separate study by Meduza and Mediazona estimating roughly 350,000 military deaths by late 2025 using inheritance registry records.

Media outlets Meduza and Mediazona stated that they have secured access to the materials and are evaluating their authenticity and completeness to rule out potential falsification. They noted that official state mortality databases omit servicemen listed as missing in action, who are added only after formal legal declarations of death. The verification process remains underway to establish whether medical cause-of-death entries correspond accurately to military combat casualties.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com