A military-themed billboard in Moscow. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV

The details of a Russian Defence Ministry database containing information on 166,000 Russian soldiers wounded during the war in Ukraine were revealed by US-funded news outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Friday.

The verified document, leaked to RFE/RL by former Russian military evacuation unit commander Alexey Zhilyaev, who deserted the army in August and fled to France, includes the names of patients treated in Russian military hospitals from January 2022 to mid-June 2024.

This figure is unlikely to represent all soldiers wounded during the war, as some receive treatment on the frontline and are not included in the database, RFE/RL noted.

Only 3,205 soldiers were deemed to have been “severely wounded”, while the rest of the soldiers in the database were said to have suffered moderate or mild injuries. However, Zhilyaev pointed out that the Defence Ministry may deliberately underplay the severity of the injuries in order to send soldiers back to the front faster, adding that the only type of injury that would disqualify soldiers being sent back to the frontline was an amputated limb.

RFE/RL reported spikes in injured soldier numbers during major Russian offensives, including the failed advance on Kyiv in spring 2022 and the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in 2022–2023.

Most of the soldiers in the database — nearly 70,000 — suffered shrapnel wounds, while less than a third of this number were hospitalised with gunshot wounds. Several hundred soldiers were hospitalised with severe alcohol or drug intoxication, while 58 were hospitalised after attempting suicide.