In Buryatia, Tuva and Zabaykalsky Krai, about one-third of deaths among men aged 18 to 49 were linked to the war against Ukraine. This is evidenced by stolen Russian state statistics data analyzed by Bloomberg, UNN reports.
Details
The study covers the period from the beginning of the full-scale invasion to mid-2024. By comparison, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the share of war-related deaths among men in this age group was about 10%.
The economically disadvantaged regions suffered the most. In Tuva, more than 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, compared with nearly 16% in Buryatia and about 13% in Zabaykalsky Krai.
Nearly 393,000 war-related deaths
The Belarusian hackers Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian group Silent Crow gained access to more than 11 million death records in Russia covering the period from 2021 to August 2026.
According to Bloomberg's estimate, nearly 392,700 deaths are directly linked to the war. This is indicated by special codes and wording in the documents, including "military operation," "shelling" and "drones."
The data also indicate rising losses among older men. In the first half of 2022, 146 war-related deaths were recorded among Russians aged 50–59, whereas during the same period in 2025 there were more than 12,600.
Among men aged 18–29, the war accounted for approximately two-thirds of all deaths in the first half of 2025.
Bloomberg journalists found no signs that the stolen database had been falsified. A comparison with official statistics showed discrepancies ranging from 0.1% to approximately 1%, depending on the year.