While Russia’s president Vladimir Putin continues to insist that his, “special military operation” in Ukraine is succeeding, the estimated number of Russian soldiers killed and wounded in this war tells another story; 1.4 million casualties since February 2022. For that loss, Russia has gained just 2% of Ukraine’s land.
This is the story Vladimir Putin is not telling Russians. Amid parliamentary elections this past weekend, the Kremlin has claimed that most Russians back the president and the war, and it has promoted the political careers of thousands of soldiers back from Ukraine.
But what of their fallen comrades? The BBC’s Olga Ivshina has dedicated the last four years of her career to not just counting Russia’s true death toll, but building a picture of who these lost men were. She joins The Global Story’s Tristan Redman to discuss what she has learnt.
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00:00 Introduction
01:14 Searching for missing dead soldiers
2:59 Tracking deaths in Ukraine
07:01 How to find missing Russian soldiers
11:39 Why some Russians sign up to fight in Ukraine
14:01 Russia’s true death toll
19:19 The problem for Ukraine
21:15 Is Putin lied to about the Ukraine war?
