Putin Relative Reveals Secret Figure on Missing Soldiers

A relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin accidentally revealed a confidential figure that gives a possible official insight into the extent of Russia's war dead in Ukraine.

Video published by the independent Astra Telegram channel on Tuesday showed Anna Tsivilyova, the reported daughter of Putin's cousin and a deputy defence minister, saying that the government had received tens of thousands of appeals from relatives related to the tracking and identification of missing soldiers through DNA samples.

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs takes (DNA) absolutely free of charge at their own expense, and enters into its database all the relatives who have applied to us. I've already said 48,000," Tsivilyova said at a meeting with lawmakers in the video.

Moments later, defence committee chief Andrei Kartapolov asked her not to disclose this number.

"Anna Yevgenyevna (Tsivilyova) has mentioned figures here, including missing persons. I earnestly ask you not to use these figures anywhere. This is such sensitive, closed information. And when we draw up the final documents, we should not include these figures anywhere," he said.

Tsivilyova responded: "I didn't mention the numbers of the missing, but of the appeals to us (by relatives)."

It is not clear whether the number she provided -- 48,000 -- refers to the number of cases of individual missing soldiers or the number of individual appeals to the ministry by relatives.

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Rutte also urged alliance members to give Ukraine enough weapons to change the course of the war.

AFP was not able to immediately verify the video.

Astra said the exchange took place at a parliamentary hearing in late November.

Russia's Defence Ministry posted images and video from what appeared to be the same meeting in the lower house State Duma on November 26, but the clip was not available on government sites.

Astra said the hearing had been recorded as it was live streamed on the parliament's website.

Moscow keeps the number of soldiers killed and wounded fighting in Ukraine top secret and rarely discloses information about casualties.

The BBC and independent Russian news site Mediazona said last month they had documented the deaths of around 80,000 Russian soldiers since the beginning of the Ukraine offensive in February 2022, using open source data.

But they say the actual number is likely considerably higher.

Ukraine also reveals little information about military losses, but independent estimates put the number of its dead and wounded in the tens of thousands.