A newly leaked database contains details about 166,000 wounded Russian soldiers. Here’s what it reveals.
RFE/RL's Russian service, Radio Svoboda, has obtained a database from the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Military Medical Directorate (GVMU) containing records on 166,000 military personnel treated in military hospitals from early 2022 to mid-2024. The database was provided by former military medic Alexey Zhilyaev. Journalists verified its authenticity and, together with Zhilyaev and military experts, analyzed the data. Meduza highlights the key findings from their investigation.
Most of the soldiers hospitalized were rank-and-file troops. The database includes nearly 90,000 privates, 40,000 sergeants, 15,000 corporals, 7,000 lieutenants, 2,700 warrant officers, over 3,000 captains, 2,100 majors, 1,000 lieutenant colonels, 381 colonels, more than 30 major generals, 10 lieutenant generals, and one colonel general.
In February 2022, officers accounted for 17 percent of the wounded, but by June 2024, their share had dropped to six percent. According to Radio Svoboda, these numbers reflect a problem the Russian army faced at the outset of its full-scale war against Ukraine: due to communication issues, junior officers had to remain on the front lines with their units, leading to high casualty rates. Starting in the summer of 2022, as Ukraine received its first HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems and began striking command posts near the front, officers were gradually moved farther from frontline positions. Since then, officer casualties have declined.
The ratio of severe injuries to moderate ones is approximately one to 10, and the ratio of severe to minor ones, one to 20. These are only rough estimates, as the severity of injuries is not always recorded in the database. The number of lightly and moderately wounded soldiers rose during Russia’s offensives in Ukraine, but the number of severely wounded has remained relatively stable. Meanwhile, soldiers with minor injuries are required to return to the front after being discharged from the hospital. This policy is part of Vladimir Putin’s 2022 mobilization decree, which remains officially in effect.
The database also contains over 3,200 diagnoses that include the word “amputation.” Many limb amputations are classified as “minor injuries,” despite this contradicting Russian legal standards. One example is 60-year-old Junior Sergeant Artur Yegorov, who suffered a mine blast injury in 2022 and lost his right leg — yet the database lists him as “lightly wounded.” Another case is 19-year-old Private Vladimir Golsky, who was hospitalized in 2024 with a diagnosis of “traumatic amputation of the left foot,” yet his injury is recorded as “moderate.” Golsky is one of the youngest soldiers with an amputation listed in the GVMU database.
The most common diagnoses in the database are ones containing the term “shrapnel wound,” which appears in nearly 70,000 cases. Limbs are mentioned around 100,000 times. “The nature of most of these injuries is more or less the same,” Zhilyaev confirms. “Shrapnel wounds to the arms and legs are by far the most common.” During winters, military hospitals see a rise in patients with mental disorders and burns, often sustained while trying to keep warm in dugouts. Over the past two and a half years, hundreds of soldiers have been hospitalized for alcohol or drug poisoning — or exposure to “unknown substances.”
From February 2022 to June 2024, the average age of wounded and sick soldiers increased by a third, rising from 28 to 36. The share of hospitalized patients aged 20 to 30 has nearly halved since the start of the war, dropping from 55 percent to 24 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of patients aged 40–49 and 50–59 has grown significantly. This trend reflects shifts in the composition of Russia’s forces in Ukraine: the initial invasion was carried out by professional contract soldiers, who were later joined by mobilized troops and convicts, followed by civilians who signed contracts with the Defense Ministry in exchange for lucrative payments.
The percentage of wounded soldiers in the 18–19 age group remains low, indicating that they are not fighting in Ukraine in large numbers. “If they were there, they would be serving as privates and junior sergeants — ranks that have suffered heavy losses,” noted Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The highest number of wounded soldiers come from motorized rifle units, which make up the largest part of the Russian army. Among them, the 252nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment has suffered the most casualties during the war. Ukraine’s General Staff reported that the regiment lost nearly a third of its personnel in March 2022 during battles for Kharkiv and Izyum. It was later reconstituted but took heavy losses again during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region in September 2022.
Among airborne units, the 76th Division from Pskov — which is suspected of killing civilians in Bucha — has the highest number of wounded. The GVMU database lists more than 2,400 patients from this division. Another unit suspected of involvement in the killing of civilians during the occupation of the Kyiv region, the 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade from Khabarovsk Krai, has recorded 482 wounded over the course of the war, including 20 officers, according to the database. The records also show that soldiers from the 64th Brigade were treated in Belarusian hospitals on a large scale, at least in the first month of the war.
The average hospital stay for severely wounded soldiers is nearly 60 days, while those with moderate injuries remain hospitalized for just over 37 days. Soldiers with minor injuries stay an average of 18.5 days, according to Radio Svoboda’s calculations. These figures don’t include time spent at initial evacuation points, such as field hospitals, or on further rehabilitation, such as in sanatoriums. Rehabilitation often lasts longer than the primary course of treatment.
Sign up for Meduza’s daily newsletter
A digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis. If it matters, we summarize it.