title: War fatalities in Russia in 2022-2023 estimated via excess male mortality
abstract: In this research note, we used excess deaths among young males to estimate the number of Russian fatalities in the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022--23. We based our calculations on the official mortality statistics, split by age and gender. To separate excess deaths due to war from those due to Covid-19, we relied on the ratio of male to female deaths, and extrapolated the 2015--19 trend to get the baseline value for 2022--23. We found noticeable excess male mortality in all age groups between 15 an