The press service of the government of Khakassia has stopped publishing obituaries of servicemen who died in the war in Ukraine. Sources close to the authorities of the region told Sibir.Realii that this was requested from the Russian Ministry of Defense. The ban also applies to the dead mercenaries from Wagner PMC.
The last time the authorities of Khakassia published information about the dead in Ukraine was on April 26: then it was reported about the death near Bakhmut of the deputy of the Supreme Council of the republic Dmitry Ivanov, who fought as part of the Wagner PMC.
According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, obituaries, which were previously published by the press service, were used to calculate Russian losses – data collected from open sources is regularly published by Mediazona and the BBC. The estimates of journalists differ markedly from the data of the Ministry of Defense.
The last time the agency announced the total number of casualties was in September, when it was stated that 5937 Russian servicemen were killed in the war in Ukraine. After that, losses were officially reported twice: in January, the army leadership acknowledged the death of 89 people during a missile attack on Makiivka, Donetsk region, on June 6, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Russia had lost 71 people in battles in three days. As of June 2, Mediazona and the BBC confirmed the deaths of 24,470 people, including 135 residents of Khakassia.
On January 9, the military commissar of the Samara region, Alexei Vdovin, announced that the lists of the dead in Makeevka would not be published, since they "could be used by foreign intelligence."