If you hope to realize your goal of opening negotiations with President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, you must be equipped with the best information available.

You have been briefed that Russia has suffered devastating losses — as many as 800,000 casualties — and that Russia's economy is weak and fragile. Data from open sources paint a diametrically opposite picture.

One of the best open sources for information about Russian casualties is Mediazona:

Mediazona (Russian: ?????????) is a Russian independent media outlet focused on Anti-Putinist opposition that was founded by Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who are also co-founders of the protest group and band Pussy Riot. The outlet's editor-in-chief is Russian political journalist Sergey Smirnov.

Mediazona is an independent organization that is ideologically opposed to Vladimir Putin. It is the antithesis of a Russian propaganda outlet. Mediazona employs a multi-faceted methodology to track Russian casualties in the Ukraine war, which includes:

Open-source intelligence gathering: They monitor publicly available information from news agencies, social media platforms, official military reports, and local residents' groups.
Collaboration: Mediazona works closely with the BBC Russian Service to track and verify casualty reports.

Comprehensive database: They maintain a regularly updated casualty list, which currently contains over 44,600 names of Russian soldiers killed in action.
Probate Registry analysis: Mediazona combines their casualty list with data from the Probate Registry database to estimate the true mortality rate among Russian men.
Statistical modeling: They use a method that accounts for all excess male mortality up to age 50, considering factors such as social composition, delays in notary consultations, and death registration delays.
Cross-referencing: The team verifies information by cross-checking multiple sources and databases.