Russian propaganda spreads fake claim of “500,000 unidentified fallen” Ukrainian soldiers

Russian Telegram channels and users on the social network X are spreading information claiming that Ukraine allegedly has 500,000 unidentified bodies of fallen soldiers and another 1.5 million “confirmed” military losses in the war. In their posts, the propagandists refer to what they claim is a report by the German TV company Deutsche Welle.

This is fake. Russian propagandists used a Deutsche Welle video published on February 2, 2026. However, the original report contains no mention of either “500,000 unidentified bodies” of Ukrainian soldiers or “1.5 million confirmed losses.” This text was added to the German media outlet’s video using video-editing tools. The fabricators also enlarged one of the frames to deliberately mislead viewers.

In this way, Russian propaganda is attempting to manipulate a topic that is extremely sensitive for Ukrainians and deliberately exaggerate the number of fallen defenders. The goal of this disinformation campaign is to undermine the morale of Ukrainian soldiers and society, as well as to promote a false narrative for Western audiences about the supposed inevitability of Ukraine’s defeat in the war.

It should be noted that earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky stated that confirmed Ukrainian losses since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion amount to 55,000 fallen soldiers.

As reported by Ukrinform, Russian sources had previously spread another fake claim alleging that Ukraine had “lost” more than 700,000 troops in the war.

By Andrii Olenin