From January to June 2025, more than 26,000 lawsuits were filed in Russian district and garrison military courts to declare a person missing or deceased. This is more than for the entire 2024 — that year there were 22,600 such lawsuits. This is evidenced by Mediazona's calculations based on case cards on court websites.
Previously, the publication already reported that in 2024, commanders of military units began to massively file lawsuits to declare soldiers missing and deceased to free up spots in the personnel lists for recruiting new fighters.
Lawsuits began to be filed en masse starting from the second half of 2024, and in 2025 this process accelerated even more — with 1,500 lawsuits per week.
As the publication notes, courts often hide information on such cases — instead of the names of applicants or third parties, the court websites indicate the note «Information hidden». Since the beginning of 2024, there have already been 18,900 such applications accumulated.
For example, information is hidden in all 2,700 lawsuits that have been filed in the Oktyabrsky District Court near Rostov over a year and a half — this is the absolute record holder among all Russian courts for disappearance lawsuits.
* Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent».