A relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin inadvertently disclosed a sensitive figure that may provide an official glimpse into the scale of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
The revelation
In a video published on Tuesday by the independent Astra Telegram channel, Anna Tsivilyova, reportedly the daughter of Putin’s cousin and a deputy defense minister, discussed the government’s efforts to assist relatives of missing soldiers. She stated that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had received tens of thousands of appeals for DNA identification of missing soldiers.
“The Ministry of Internal Affairs takes [DNA] absolutely free of charge at their own expense and enters into its database all the relatives who have applied to us. I’ve already said 48,000,” Tsivilyova remarked during a meeting with lawmakers.
Missing Russian soliders
Following her comment, Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Defense Committee, quickly intervened, urging discretion regarding the information.
“Anna Yevgenyevna [Tsivilyova] has mentioned figures here, including missing persons. I earnestly ask you not to use these figures anywhere. This is such sensitive, closed information. And when we draw up the final documents, we should not include these figures anywhere,” Kartapolov stated.
In response, Tsivilyova clarified, “I didn’t mention the numbers of the missing, but of the appeals to us [by relatives].”
Missing Russian soldiers or the total number of appeals made by relatives
It remains unclear whether the figure of 48,000 refers to individual missing soldiers or the total number of appeals made by relatives. Agence France-Presse (AFP) was unable to independently verify the footage.
According to Astra, the exchange occurred during a parliamentary hearing in late November. While Russia’s defense ministry shared images and videos from what appeared to be the same meeting in the State Duma on November 26, the specific clip in question was not accessible on official government platforms. Astra reported that the session was recorded as part of a live stream hosted on the parliament’s website.
Strict secrecy over the number of Russian soldiers killed
Russia has maintained strict secrecy over the number of soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine, releasing little official information about casualties.
Independent estimates, however, paint a grim picture. In November, the BBC and the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported that they had documented around 80,000 Russian soldiers killed since the war began in February 2022. Their analysis, based on open-source data, suggests the actual number is likely much higher.
Ukraine, too, discloses limited information about its military losses. Independent estimates place the number of Ukrainian dead and wounded in the tens of thousands.
