Hackers Say Stolen Rosstat Data Contains Over 11 Million Death Certificates, With More Than 412,000 Explicitly Linked to the War; Rosstat Denies Its Databases Were Breached
MOSCOW — Two hacker groups say they stole more than 11 million death certificate records from the internal systems of Rosstat, Russia's Federal State Statistics Service, and that the records point to a Russian death toll in the war against Ukraine far above anything Moscow has acknowledged. Rosstat has acknowledged targeted cyberattacks on its systems between October 29 and November 1 but denies that its databases were compromised or that information leaked. The data has not been independently verified.
The claimed attackers are the Belarusian opposition-linked Cyber Partisans and the Ukrainian hacker collective Silent Crow. The groups announced the breach on November 1, published their analysis on November 7, and shared the data with Bloomberg News, The Guardian and a small number of other outlets. They say they were inside Rosstat's network for about six months, accessed about 25,000 computers and extracted roughly 23 terabytes of data.
According to the groups' published analysis, of the death certificates registered between February 24, 2022 and August 28, 2026, some 412,576 explicitly link the death to the war through cause-of-death codes or wording: 356,056 carry the ICD-10 code Y36, meaning death by operations of war, and 38,229 carry combat wording or code Y89.1. Using a broader method that includes non-combat deaths of service members and records with no stated cause, Silent Crow put the total at 450,100; the Cyber Partisans, counting only deaths the records tie explicitly to military operations, put it at 393,881. War-linked deaths in the dataset rose from 18,877 in 2022 to 182,264 in 2025, and both groups acknowledge the 2026 figures are far from complete because deaths can take months to register.
Bloomberg said it could not independently and cryptographically prove the authenticity of the database, but that its review found the metadata consistent with a genuine data export and no indicators of fabrication. For comparison, the independent Russian outlet Mediazona and BBC Russian, counting named individuals from public sources, had identified 285,881 Russian military deaths as of November 6, a count both describe as incomplete. Russia has not published its own military death toll since September 2022 and calls independent estimates unreliable.
(Source: Bloomberg News)
Source: Bloomberg News
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：俄罗斯联邦国家统计局位于莫斯科伊兹迈洛沃公路44号的大楼。toiida 摄，CC0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Rosstat building at 44 Izmaylovskoye Highway in Moscow, by toiida, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Delhi Air Quality Worsens the Morning After Diwali: AQI Crosses 400 Into the Severe Range at Many Stations, City Average of 370 Rated Very Poor2026-11-09
Tokyo Police Arrest a 31-Year-Old Chinese National Suspected of Running a Car-Mounted Fake Base Station Across Ginza, Shinjuku and Shibuya, Forcing Over 10,000 Phones onto 2G and Sending Phishing Texts2026-11-09