Hacking groups claim breach of Russia’s Rosstat statistics agency

Cyber Partisans and Silent Crow said they broke into Rosstat, Russia’s federal statistics agency, and accessed its records.

The groups said the seized material includes death certificates tied to the war in Ukraine. Rosstat acknowledged cyber attacks against the agency from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 and denied that protected data was removed. The agency acknowledged the hack but said no sensitive information was obtained, and it opened an investigation.

Russia has held back detailed information on military losses and classifies casualty figures, a context that explains why independent data is sought. Russian authorities ended death-toll publication in the invasion’s early months and classify military casualty information as a state secret.

The alleged dataset includes more than 11 million death certificates, with details covering age, residence and the circumstances of each death. Cyber Partisans put the count at no fewer than 393,000 death certificates through the end of August 2026, all explicitly mentioning the war or military operations. Silent Crow used broader criteria covering military deaths outside combat, in occupied territories and in conflict-related situations. The Guardian said the leaked data contains 412,576 death certificates that tie deaths to the war, based on official cause codes or written notes about combat and military operations.

The claim remains unverified in full and is not an official count of Russian military deaths. The Guardian said its own checks could not confirm the full dataset’s authenticity. Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs said the data is authentic and rich, and she described it as the largest leak of data on Russian casualties.

“The data looks authentic, and it’s very rich,” Kluge said. Kluge said official records usually reflect deaths about six months after they happen.

In Buryatia, Tuva and Zabaykalsky Krai, about one-third of deaths among men in the 18 to 49 age group from the invasion’s start through mid-2024 were war-related. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, roughly 10% of deaths among men in the 18 to 49 age group were war-related. Monthly war-related death records exceeded 15,000 during some months spanning late 2024 and 2025. Kluge said monthly soldier deaths exceeded 15,000 in several months of that period, amounting to roughly 500 per day.

A July estimate from the Center for Strategic and International Studies put total casualties including wounded and missing at potentially 1.4 million. CSIS estimated that Ukraine’s killed, wounded or missing could total 625,000.

Mediazona says it has recorded nearly 286,000 named service members killed in Ukraine. It estimates the real death toll at roughly half a million. The BBC and Mediazona jointly counted about 285,800 named Russian service members killed and described the figure as conservative since it includes only deaths confirmed through public sources. Missing personnel, unidentified remains and registration delays make a total death count difficult to establish.

The leaked dataset probably undercounts the actual death toll because missing and unidentified soldiers were never counted.

The release came while U.S.-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine were expected to resume in Abu Dhabi. Senior Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The meeting would be the first U.S.-brokered peace talks for nine months. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, described as U.S. envoys, were expected to participate in the negotiations.

Neither Putin nor Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend, and both countries will send senior delegations.

The talks were expected to cover postwar security guarantees, reduced hostilities and humanitarian issues. On X, Witkoff said the talks would cover post-war security arrangements, de-escalation and humanitarian issues. Moscow said talks required a Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbas areas still under its control. France’s foreign minister said Paris would join the talks, but the Kremlin later denied that France had representation.

European governments worry the talks could expand into wider European security issues beyond Ukraine, including Moscow’s demand for fewer NATO forces in neighboring countries.

Military confrontations between Russia and Ukraine continued. No final agreement to end the war has been reached. Estimates put Russian military deaths in Ukraine at more than eight times the combined Soviet and Russian toll from 1945 to the full-scale invasion. The estimated toll exceeds the total number of US military deaths in the second world war.