Hackers reveal up to 450,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine

A major cyberattack on Russia's state statistics agency has revealed that up to 450,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, exposing staggering losses that Moscow has kept secret. The joint operation by pro-Ukrainian hackers Silent Crow and Belarusian Cyber Partisans extracted death certificates from Rosstat, with Silent Crow calculating 450,100 troop deaths and the Belarusian group confirming at least 393,881 combat fatalities. Rosstat acknowledged the intrusion but denied data compromise, while the figures align with Western intelligence estimates of roughly 500,000 Russian deaths. Russia suffered its worst month in October 2026, losing 54,400 troops, exceeding Soviet losses in Afghanistan, and faces projected 200,000 additional fatalities in 2026. Moscow, which last published casualty figures in September 2022, relies on recruitment drives and North Korean troops as it escalates strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure ahead of US-brokered talks.