More Than 11,000 Foreigners Killed in Russia's Army, Leaked Rosstat Records Show, Bloomberg Reports

Russian authorities have registered the deaths of 11,335 foreigners from nearly 100 countries in the war against Ukraine, according to confidential data from Russia's statistics agency Rosstat, Bloomberg reported on November 11. The deaths were recorded between February 24, 2022 and late August 2026 and linked to the war, either by coding or by text mentioning terms such as military operation, shelling or drones.

The data is a cache of more than 11 million death certificates obtained by the Belarusian opposition group Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow, which shared it with Bloomberg and a few other outlets. Bloomberg counted as foreigners people born outside Russia or holding foreign citizenship. Rosstat did not reply to Bloomberg's request for comment.

Deaths Up Eightfold

Foreign war-related deaths rose from about 630 in 2022 to more than 5,500 in 2025, roughly in step with Russia's overall toll, Bloomberg reported. Moscow does not release figures on foreigners it has recruited. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in October that 45,959 foreigners from 151 countries had signed contracts with the Russian army as of October 1.

Ukrainians From Occupied Territories

According to Bloomberg, about 3,700 of the dead were Ukrainian citizens or were born in Ukraine after it gained independence in 1991. Among the records that included an address, most lived in occupied areas of eastern and southern Ukraine. Of the 159 women in the data, 154 were from occupied areas of Ukraine.

Under Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power may not compel residents of occupied territory to serve in its armed forces, and no pressure or propaganda aimed at securing voluntary enlistment is permitted. Mobilizing Ukrainians from occupied territories into the Russian army violates the Geneva Conventions and is a war crime.

Former Soviet States, Africa and Other Waves

About 80 percent of the remaining dead came from other former Soviet countries, Bloomberg reported. Earlier "I Want to Live" reported that Central Asians make up about 44 percent of the foreign recruits identified by the project. 

Bloomberg said deaths came in waves: Nepal in 2023 and 2024, Sri Lanka and China in 2024 and 2025, and Colombia, Kenya and Nigeria from late 2025. About 340 of the dead were from Africa, mostly from 2025 onward, with the largest groups from Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. However there is a higher count: in June we published the names of 485 Africans from 29 countries killed in Russia's army, based on data by "I Want to Live".

No North Korean deaths appear as war-related in the data, even though North Korea has deployed thousands of troops, Bloomberg said, possibly because Russia did not issue death certificates for them.

A Count That Is Almost Certainly Too Low

Bloomberg said the data is incomplete, especially for 2026, because registering combat deaths can take months or years. Missing soldiers, unidentified bodies and later deaths from wounds may not be counted, so the data almost certainly understates the number of foreigners killed.

Rosstat said days after Silent Crow and Cyber Partisans claimed on November 1 to have breached its systems that it had detected targeted cyberattacks between October 29 and November 1, but found no evidence that its databases were compromised or confidential information leaked.

A Safe Way Out

Foreign nationals lured into Russia's armed forces have an option to safely escape the battlefield with Ukraine's "I Want to Live" project. See our FAQ for recommendations for victims of Russian military recruitment and their families.