The families of 84,658 missing Russian soldiers have filed inquiries with Ukraine about their loved ones since the start of Russias full-scale invasion, the exiled news outlet Vyorstka reported Thursday.Vyorstka analyzed data from the Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of Wars hotline, I Want to Find, which was launched in January 2024 and promotes itself as more responsive to Russian military families than Russias Defense Ministry.Russia still doesnt have a single agency that deals with prisoners of war, the missing and the dead, as well as support for their families, said a project staffer identified only by the first name Alexander.As of April 2025, the hotline had processed more than 58,000 inquiries around two-thirds of the total submitted.
The families of 2,184 Russian soldiers were able to confirm that their relatives had either been captured by Ukrainian forces or killed.I Want to Find staff claim that the true number of missing Russian troops is likely two to three times higher, as not all families have submitted requests.More than half of the missing are believed to be privates and sergeants under the age of 39.
Only 1.5% were officers, according to Vyorstkas analysis.Since 2022, the I Want to Find hotline has recorded weekly spikes in inquiries following major battles.
Three military units stood out for unusually high numbers of missing person requests, with commanders accused by soldiers and relatives of abuse and sending troops into doomed assaults.More than 27,600 soldiers reportedly went missing in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, followed by over 6,600 in neighboring Luhansk.
Another 4,300 soldiers went missing in Russias Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border raid in August that Russian troops pushed back only last month.More than half the requests were submitted by the soldiers wives and sisters, while just 1% came from fathers.Russia has not updated its official casualty count since late 2022, when it reported fewer than 6,000 combat deaths.An independent count by Mediazona and BBC News Russia has identified the names of around 100,000 dead Russian soldiers using publicly available sources.On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CBS News that up to 100,000 Ukrainian troops had also been killed since February 2022.