INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
painstakingly compile them.Olga Ivshina, a senior reporter at the BBC Russian Service, can instantly recall Mikhail Shuvalov, a retired
power plant worker who volunteered to fight in Ukraine at the age of 71
David Frenkel, a data reporter for the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona, remembers Alexander Zhmur, a 19-year-old paratrooper who
website Lyudi Baikala, tallying the local men killed early in the conflict swiftly became a blur
Nearly every soldier from Russia's Far Eastern regions of Irkutsk and Buryatia had the same obituary: he graduated high school, joined the
army and died in Ukraine.With the Russian government seldom disclosing the death toll from its war in Ukraine, independent journalists have
spent the past year identifying, verifying and counting the fallen themselves
The endeavor has become so mammoth that Mediazona, one of the news outlets behind the initiative, issued a call earlier this month for more
launching last spring, though Frenkel estimates the true number to be at least twice as large.Lyudi Baikala has verified nearly 750 deaths
from the area of Siberia it covers, most of them from the heavily mobilized republic of Buryatia
Western officials believe at least 200,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in Ukraine in the past year.Svetlana Avanesova, an editor at
by the regional governor and social media posts from grieving relatives.In some cases, reporters have discovered or confirmed casualties
through fundraisers for surviving family members and the renaming of local streets to honor fallen soldiers, Avanesova said.The newspaper
wooden coffin is placed into a hearse.Roman Yarovitcyn / AP / TASSThere is still no definitive count of exactly how many perished in World
Government-reported losses in the First Chechen War, for example, were less than half the figure calculated by human rights groups, she
announced by regional governors and state news agencies are now left largely to local media outlets and low-level village officials,
schools, community organizations, and even libraries, she said.Ivshina spends a lot of time sifting through information gleaned from about
70 cemeteries across the country
Grave sites typically show that for every publicly named soldier buried in Russia, another is laid to rest quietly, their name absent from
practice has stopped, Ivshina said.Documenting losses has also revealed other trends
For example, the high rate of officers killed at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion meant there were insufficient resources to
but Russians are able to search for their loved ones through a Telegram bot created by volunteers, said Frenkel.Anti-war volunteers also
work inside Russia, roaming cemeteries to take photos of fresh graves
Russian military, he said.Frenkel, the technical lead for the project, creates visualizations from their contributions and is trying to find
But rationally, I understand that at some point, probably even if the war is not ended, it might just be extremely hard for team members to
Baikala, according to editor Trifonova
