Unfounded claims, first made by Russian ‘hacktivist’ groups, that 1.7 million Ukrainian soldiers have died or gone missing since the start of Russia’s invasion have gone viral online.
But the allegations are not backed by any credible, independent evidence, and experts warn the campaign bears the signs of coordinated pro-Kremlin disinformation.
The unfounded rumours first surfaced on pro-Russian Telegram channel Mash, and were then amplified by Kremlin-aligned social media users as well as state-sponsored Russian media including Russia Today, Pravda and RIA Novosti.
The original Telegram post claims Russian hackers from groups such as Killnet gained access to the database of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Killnet is most commonly known for targeted denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on Western institutions.
The Telegram post includes screenshots of what appear to be military records and soldiers’ IDs, which purportedly prove that as many as 1.7 million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or have disappeared since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
Analysts say that the group probably did gain access to sensitive documents, but that there is no truth to the 1.7 million figure.
Petro Andryushchenko, head of the Mariupol-based Center for the Study of the Occupation, explained on Telegram that while the claim is “blatantly false”, the hacker group has probably accessed sensitive documents which it is using to “legitimise the lie”.
Andryushchenko also believes the campaign is linked to previous disinformation, alleging that the Ukrainian government was refusing to accept 1,000 captured Ukrainian soldiers as part of a prisoner release deal.
“All this fits into one targeted attack on morale,” he said.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation described the claims as “an absolutely absurd fake”, adding that Ukraine has never had a regular army of 1.7 million people, and that the size of the military is around 880,000 people.
What do we know about estimated Ukrainian and Russian casualties?
There is no credible, independent evidence to suggest Ukraine’s armed forces have suffered as many as 1.7 million losses since the start of the invasion, now well into its fourth year.
All credible estimates, in fact, are much lower.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia logs the number of battlefield losses, although Ukraine has recently released its estimated figures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimated in February this year that 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and more than 390,000 wounded since the start of the war.
Zelenskyy has previously disputed media reports that the death toll of Ukrainian soldiers could be as high as 80,000.
He has also indicated that it’s difficult to know how many have lost their lives on the battlefield and how many have been captured as prisoners of war.
In June, the Center for Strategic and International Studies provided even higher estimates of between 60,000 and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and a total of 400,000 casualties.
The same centre report puts the estimated number of Russian soldiers killed at 250,000.
Open-source data analysed by Mediazona and the BBC Russian service puts the number of Russian soldiers killed significantly lower, at between 121,000 and 165,000.
These estimates clearly disprove the 1.7 million claim peddled by propagandists.