War fatalities in Russia in 2022–2023 estimated via excess male mortality

Abstract

In this research note, we used excess deaths among young males to estimate the number of Russian fatalities in the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022–23. We based our calculations on the official mortality statistics, split by age and gender. To separate excess deaths due to war from those due to Covid-19, we relied on the ratio of male to female deaths, and extrapolated the 2015–19 trend to get the baseline value for 2022–23. We found noticeable excess male mortality in all age groups between 15 and 49, with 58 500 ± 2 500 excess male deaths in 2022– 23 (20 600 ± 1 400 in 2022 and 37 900 ± 1 500 in 2023). These estimates were obtained after excluding all HIV deaths that showed complex dynamics unrelated to the war. Depending on the modelling assumptions, the estimated number of deaths over the two years varied from about 46 600 to about 64 100, with 58 500 corresponding to our preferred model. Our estimate should be treated as a lower bound on the true number of deaths as the data do not include either the Russian military personnel missing in action and not officially declared dead, or the deaths registered in the Ukrainian territories annexed in 2022.