Since the first day of the war, the BBC Russian Service has been maintaining a list of casualties of Russian servicemen in Ukraine, together with the Mediazona publication (recognized in Russia as a “foreign media agent”) and a team of volunteers. As of December 9, we were able to confirm information about 10,002 dead soldiers and officers.
No difference from Meduza report, in essence
Now, assuming this open source search could give one a low count, as BBC suggests, and it is 60% (as they say), we could have 16,670 as the real final figure. Now, considering there is roughly a month between 9th Dec and 13 Feb, this will result in total of 18,059 Russian KIA by that cut-off date. In other words we are in the 20K ballpark.