here at the bbc s headquarters in central london for unspun world. this week how many casualties has russia suffered in its war against ukraine, and how do we find out? we know names of 25,560 russian fighters who died fighting in ukraine, and we get information from more than 65 cemeteries all over russia. xijinping, china s leader, at 70. is he turning into an emperor? the status he s got now, he is either a king or emperor. he s the supreme leader. and how bad is the world s climate crisis, really? enough to keep the people in the know awake at night? the world is changing rapidly. we are changing it. but we re fighting back as well, and we re taking some of those steps. and a lot of the days, i m optimistic. vladimir putin, we re told, was promised that his invasion of ukraine would be over and done with by lastjuly a year ago, that is. who would have thought that ukraine would put up such a fight? and who would have thought that nato would have held together in the w
we are changing it. but we re fighting back as well, and we re taking some of those steps. and a lot of the days, i m optimistic. vladimir putin, we re told, was promised that his invasion of ukraine would be over and done with by lastjuly a year ago, that is. who would have thought that ukraine would put up such a fight? and who would have thought that nato would have held together in the way it has? not mr putin, clearly. so what about the battlefield casualties which russia s sustained? the bbc s russian service has been carrying out a thorough investigation into this, putting names to as many of the dead as they can. olga ivshina, senior correspondent for the bbc russia service, has headed the investigation. so currently, we know names of 25,560 russian fighters who died fighting in ukraine. i say fighters, because it s important. not all of them are russian soldiers. some of them were recruited by notorious wagner private military company. others were prisoners assigne
enough to keep the people in the know awake at night? the world is changing rapidly. we are changing it. but we re fighting back as well, and we re taking some of those steps. and a lot of the days, i m optimistic. vladimir putin, we re told, was promised that his invasion of ukraine would be over and done with by lastjuly a year ago, that is. who would have thought that ukraine would put up such a fight? and who would have thought that nato would have held together in the way it has? not mr putin, clearly. so what about the battlefield casualties which russia s sustained? the bbc s russian service has been carrying out a thorough investigation into this, putting names to as many of the dead as they can. olga ivshina, senior correspondent for the bbc russia service, has headed the investigation. so currently, we know names of 25,560 russian fighters who died fighting in ukraine. i say fighters, because it s important. not all of them are russian soldiers. some of them were
of 25,560 russian fighters who died fighting in ukraine. i say fighters, because it s important. not all of them are russian soldiers. some of them were recruited by notorious wagner private military company. others were prisoners assigned to military units of so called self proclaimed donetsk and luhansk people s republic. but they re all fighting on the russian side. and how accurate is that? it sort of sets the bare minimum for the assessment of the russian losses during that invasion. and also, it differs it from all the other assessments, right? there are figures supplied by the us intelligence, british intelligence, but these are assessments. 0ur 25,000 count is a fact. but of course, it s only those numbers which we can get from open sources. so official statements, media reports, names we see on the military memorials and on the cemeteries, and we get information from more than 65 cemeteries all over russia, from kaliningrad in the west to vladivostok in the east, and from arkh
so official statements, media reports, names we see on the military memorials and on the cemeteries, and we get information from more than 65 cemeteries all over russia, from kaliningrad in the west to vladivostok in the east, and from arkhangelsk in the north to krasnodar in the south. so each time volunteers go to these cemeteries, they see all the names which were mentioned in the official reports or social media posts, and on top of that, the same amount of names, clearly men who died in ukraine, because they have military photographs in military fatigues, and the death date matches, you know, the current events, and also they have a ref from ministry of defence or from wagner, so definitely they were killed in ukraine. so these names, which were not mentioned anywhere else, it s usually the same amount, it s usually equal to the amount, the number of names which were mentioned publicly. that s why we think that the real scale of deaths