The New York Times reports:

About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims.

The figure was released on Saturday — the day of Russia’s annual May 9 parade celebrating victory over Germany in World War II — by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona.

The number raises the prospect that about half a million soldiers in total have died on the Russian and Ukrainian sides. In the more than four years since Mr. Putin unleashed his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war has become Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

The new estimate of Russian dead extrapolates from a database of confirmed soldier deaths that Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service have been keeping, based in part on social media posts and Russian probate records. That database now includes nearly 218,000 confirmed names.

To come up with the estimate of 352,000 deaths, Mediazona and Meduza homed in on the excess male mortality rate for younger age groups that is apparent in Russian probate records. They also made inferences about Russian deaths confirmed by courts. [Continue reading…]

The Kremlin has dramatically increased the personal security around President Vladimir Putin, installing surveillance systems in the homes of close staffers as part of new measures prompted by a wave of assassinations of top Russian military figures and fears of a coup, according to a report from a European intelligence agency obtained by CNN.

Cooks, bodyguards and photographers who work with the president are also banned from traveling on public transport, the dossier says. Visitors to the Kremlin chief must be screened twice, and those working close to him can only use phones without internet access, it adds: