Russians have performed 48,000 DNA tests to identify the remains of military personnel who fought against Ukraine.

Anna Tsivilyova, Russian Deputy Defense Minister, announced this during a roundtable discussion in the State Duma on November 26.

A reader of the ASTRA Telegram channel, who saved the recording of the event, drew attention to these statements by the official in a broadcast on the parliament’s website.

“As I said, we take DNA samples from relatives, and they give their samples for free. The Ministry of Internal Affairs takes it from them for free, at its own expense, and also enters all the relatives who have contacted us into its database. I have already said – 48 thousand samples,” Tsivilyova said.

At the same time, Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the Russian Duma Defense Committee, asked that “these figures not be voiced anywhere else” and that this information be removed from the final documents. He stated that this is “classified sensitive information.”

“When we draw up the final documents, we also want these numbers to be left out,” Kartapolov said.

According to relatives of Russian servicemen, only relatives of soldiers who have the status of missing persons can take a DNA test for free.

However, according to the ASTRA Telegram channel, in some regions of Russia, such tests can be taken for free even without such status from the soldiers they are looking for.

It is worth noting that the figures cannot unequivocally correspond to the number of Russian soldiers who went missing in the war with Ukraine. It is impossible to estimate how many of them have died and how many are alive and, for example, in captivity.

Journalists confirm the deaths of 80,000 Russian soldiers

Previously, based on open data, BBC journalists, together with the Mediaphone publication, identified the names of 80,973 Russian soldiers who died during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The journalists, supported by a team of volunteers, have been tracking the deaths of the Russian soldiers since the beginning of the Russian invasion, systematizing reports from Russian officials and media, as well as reports from relatives and colleagues of the victims with photos of the graves.