At least 16 former and serving senior officials in Russia’s regional and municipal executive branches have been killed after going to war against Ukraine, The Insider has calculated based on data from open sources. The tally includes officials ranging from deputy heads of municipal districts or urban districts to deputy governors. Ten of the 16 had been convicted or were facing criminal cases before going to war, mostly on bribery and abuse-of-office charges.
The latest known case is that of former Belgorod mayor and Belgorod Region deputy governor Konstantin Polezhayev. The Kremlin-aligned media outlet Kommersant reported his death on Sept. 22, citing two people close to the former official. One said Polezhayev had served in an assault unit and was killed in a missile strike in the Kharkiv Region.
Polezhayev served as mayor of Belgorod from 2015 to 2019 before becoming a deputy governor. He was detained in 2023 on charges of bribery, with state investigators alleging that a construction company gave him two luxury SUVs, a Porsche Panamera, and a Range Rover worth a combined 18 million rubles ($214,000) in exchange for favorable treatment connected to government contracts. In August 2024, a court sentenced Polezhayev to five years in prison, after which he signed a contract with Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
In April 2025, the independent Belgorod-based outlet Pepel reported that Polezhayev was allegedly only formally listed with a BARS reserve unit and was in fact still living at home. It is not clear when he was actually first sent to the front.
The other casualties
Of the 16 cases of officials’ deaths identified by The Insider, three involved figures who had held positions at the deputy governor level. Sergei Efremov, who was then serving as deputy governor of Primorsky Krai, was killed in early 2025 in Russia’s Kursk Region. He had overseen domestic policy in the region while also commanding the Tiger volunteer unit. Former Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug deputy governor Alexei Zolotukhin, who had been responsible for security in the regional government, volunteered for the war after leaving office and was killed in 2026. The third was Polezhayev.
The Insider found three more cases involving senior city officials. Former first deputy head of Yugorsk Dmitry Krylov signed a contract with the military and commanded an assault platoon before being killed in battles for Avdiivka in February 2024. Former Chelyabinsk Deputy Mayor Sergei Reprintsev went to war after being arrested in a 10 million-ruble ($119,000) bribery case and was killed in May 2025. Former Magnitogorsk Deputy Mayor Dmitry Gavrilov, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for bribery, also signed a contract with Russia’s MoD and was subsequently killed in Ukraine. His death became public only in September 2026.
Another 10 cases involved the heads and deputy heads of districts and urban districts. Igor Ustyuzhanin, the former head of Manturovo, was killed after going to war after receiving an 8.5-year prison sentence for corruption. The former head of the Ketovsky District in the Kurgan Region, Alexander Noskov, also joined the Russian army from prison, where he was serving a six-year sentence for abuse of office; he was killed in Ukraine in February 2024. The former head of the Tsimlyansky District in the Rostov Region, Vladimir Svetlichny, had been convicted of abuse and exceeding his authority; he was also killed after being deployed to the front.
Former first deputy head and acting head of the Kortkerossky District in the Komi Republic Alexander Arteyev, who had received an 11-year prison sentence for bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of office, was killed in June 2024. The former head of the Perm Region’s Gornozavodsky District, Alexander Afanasyev, who was sentenced to three years for abuse of authority, signed a contract in December 2024 and was later killed. The former head of the Tselinny District in the Kurgan region, Alexander Sytov, was declared dead in summer 2026. Before the war, he had been sentenced to seven years in prison for bribery, fraud, and embezzlement, including the theft of 100,000 rubles ($1,200) collected for mobilized soldiers.
Fyodor Ivashchuk, head of the Ulchsky District in the Khabarovsk Region, resigned in March 2025, voluntarily signed a contract with the Russian army, and joined the BARS-8 Khabarovsk unit. He was killed that August while carrying out a combat mission. Aidar Zagirov, deputy head of the Uchalinsky District in Bashkortostan, was also serving under contract and was killed during a combat mission. The former deputy head of Novorossiysk’s intracity district, Oleg Skornyakov, signed a contract with Russia’s Ministry of Defense in spring 2025, went missing several months later, and was officially confirmed dead in March 2026.
Former deputy head of the Tugulymsky Urban District in the Sverdlovsk Region Sergei Utkin, who had been sentenced to eight years in prison for taking an especially large bribe, signed a contract with the Russian army while incarcerated and was also killed at the front.
Ten of the 16 were involved in criminal cases
Ten of the 16 officials The Insider identified had faced criminal prosecution before going to war. Nine — Polezhayev, Gavrilov, Ustyuzhanin, Noskov, Svetlichny, Arteyev, Afanasyev, Sytov and Utkin — had been convicted. Reprintsev was under investigation on charges of bribery when he signed his contract.
The Insider reported in 2024 that the war had allowed some former officials to leave prison or put criminal cases on hold, former Vladivostok Mayor Oleg Gumenyuk and former Khakassia Deputy Governor Sergei Novikov prominent among them. Some later returned to Russia after serving their allotted time in the military.
The tally does not, however, include former Krasnodar Region Deputy Governor Sergei Vlasov. Reports of his death surfaced in spring 2026, but Kommersant found that Vlasov was officially listed as missing and that his body had not been found.
The Insider also excluded judges, security officials, election commission members, heads of individual administrative departments, members of parliaments at all levels, and officials killed by shelling or mines while performing their civilian duties. The count includes only serving or former executive officials at the level of deputy district head or higher who entered military service or joined volunteer formations.
A broader count now includes at least 51 dead
If the count is expanded beyond senior executive officials, the number is significantly higher. In February 2025, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty counted at least 32 Russian government officials who had been killed in Ukraine. That category included election commission officials, members of parliament at various levels, and a federal judge in addition to government officials.
In June 2026, the independent outlet Meduza found open-source reports of at least 16 additional deaths that were published after RFE/RL had completed its project, bringing the minimum estimate to 48. Since the Meduza study was published, at least three more deaths have become publicly known: those of Alexander Sytov in July, Dmitry Gavrilov in September, and Konstantin Polezhayev on Sept. 22. Using the broader definition of “government representatives,” the minimum toll now stands at at least 51, according to The Insider’s calculations.
