Russians Filed Over 10,000 Applications for Missing Servicemen in March

March 2025 saw a record number of applications regarding the Russian servicemen disappearance submitted to the Ukrainian “I Want to Find” initiative.

According to a project update on social media, more than 320 new applications concerning missing Russian soldiers were filed daily, bringing the total to 10,027 for the month.

I Want to Find is a project launched in January 2024 by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

The initiative aims to facilitate prisoner exchanges and collect information about missing soldiers of the aggressor country. Since its inception, the project has received nearly 80,000 applications.

These figures do not include those confirmed dead and, according to estimates, may be 2–3 times lower than the actual number of missing soldiers, as many relatives have yet to contact Ukrainian specialists.

In March, the largest number of applications came from soldiers of the 74th and 15th separate motorized rifle brigades.

Notably, the number of missing soldiers from the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade sharply increased, doubling compared to February.

This brigade, along with others, is reported to be suffering the highest casualties due to successful operations by Ukrainian forces.

The highest number of disappearances was recorded in the Donetsk region, with 2,144 applications from the Pokrovsky district and 933 from the Bakhmut district. Additionally, 141 soldiers from the 801st Marine Brigade, who went missing in the Kursk region, are being sought through the I Want to Find project.

On February 24, 2025, the Goryushko project reported the confirmed death toll of 100,000 Russian servicemen.

Volunteers arrived at this number by analyzing social media posts from relatives, obituaries in the media, and other open sources.

These figures exclude mobilized Ukrainians from the temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, soldiers from the so-called 1st Donetsk and 2nd Luhansk army corps, rear personnel, those who died from injuries, and foreign mercenaries.

The 100,000th obituary, marking this grim milestone, was that of Alexei Burkov from the village of Sosnovskoye in Russia’s Kirov region, who died in mid-December 2024.