Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by two representatives of the independent Russian media outlet Mediazona—English-language editor Mika Golubovsky and data team technical lead David Frenkel—to discuss their work counting Russia’s losses in spite of Moscow’s attempts to obscure that data.
Soon after the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia stopped publishing official data on its military losses. Despite that, analysts from independent media still manage to extract data from multiple sources, such as regional obituaries, payments, satellite images, and other open-source intelligence resources. How did Mediazona, a civil rights media outlet, become a leading source of data on Russia’s losses? How reliable is the data, and what does it tell us? Will the growing military casualties ever lead to a public backlash in Russia?
You can read Mediazona's analysis here: https://en.zona.media/article/2025/04/25/casualties_eng-trl
If you would like to support Mediazona’s work, you can make a donation here: https://donate.zona.media/en?utm_source=header-web&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=regular