Since the beginning of 2024, the Ukrainian project "I Want to Find" has received more than 84,000 requests to search for missing Russian military personnel, according to data reviewed by "Verstka"*. The names of at least 58,041 of them were processed by April 2025. The reasons for the disappearance are not only heavy fighting but also the cruelty of commanders: some are deliberately thrown into "meat assaults" where evacuation is impossible, others are "zeroed out," and their bodies are buried in fields or burned.
As reported by the staff of the "I Want to Find" project, in a year and a half of work, the relatives of 2,184 Russian military personnel received confirmation that their loved ones are either in Ukrainian captivity or among the dead, whose remains were found by Ukrainian search groups.
More than half of those being searched for are privates and sergeants under the age of 39. The youngest of the missing Russian military personnel was 18 years old at the time of disappearance, and the oldest was 67.
Officers are the least likely to go missing in the war—they account for only 1.5% of all requests, while non-officer ranks account for more than 61%. It is noted that in more than a third of the cases, the ranks of the missing are not specified in the requests from their relatives.
Relatives most often report missing family members one to three months after they stop making contact. About 5% of applicants reach out in the first two weeks, and the same amount after a year or more.
The highest number of missing occurred from August 5 to 11, 2024, coinciding with the start of battles in the Kursk region and the ongoing attack on Pokrovsk. Disappearances during this period were reported in more than 1,680 requests.
The majority of missing Russian military personnel lost contact with their relatives in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk region. It is mentioned in almost 13,000 requests. The Bakhmut district of the region is in second place with more than seven thousand requests.
The most missing are from brigades where pressure and torture by commanders were reported. For example, the "I Want to Find" project reported, citing military personnel, that the command of the 15th brigade organized secret anonymous burials of those killed as a result of "zeroing out" and torture. Relatives of servicemen from this brigade published several group petitions over two years demanding that Vladimir Putin organize inspections "in connection with the unexplained disappearance" of their loved ones. In the texts of the petitions, they complained that the missing relatives are not being searched for and are illegally classified as deserters.
* Recognized as a "foreign agent" in Russia.