A Boom Of Funeral Agencies Has Begun In Russia

After record losses in Ukraine.

In Russia, the number of registered funeral agencies has increased significantly since the beginning of the year amid a sharp increase in losses in Ukraine. This is reported by "Kommersant" with reference to data from the service "Contur.Focus".

For six months of 2025, 805 new funeral companies, including sole proprietorships, were created, which is 16% more compared to the same period last year, analysts calculated. The most registrations of funeral homes - in the Moscow region, there opened 57 companies (a third more in annual terms). In the Krasnodar region was registered 42 such companies (an increase of 22% year-on-year). From January to April of this year, according to Rosstat, the market of funeral services in the country increased by 12.7% year-on-year, to 39.5 billion rubles.

Among other reasons for the increase in the number of new funeral companies, named by market representatives, noted "increasing margins" in the funeral business. This is due to "the rising cost of basic services and the willingness of some customers to pay for service," - explained the president of the Association of crematoriums Alexei Suloev. We are talking, in particular, about "comprehensive turnkey offers" in large cities, cremation, sales of memorial goods, as well as transportation of the bodies of the dead to long distances.

According to the director of the Union of Funeral Organizations and Crematoriums Elena Andreeva, many Russians ask to conduct funerals using a guaranteed list of services, on which specialized services provide a minimum basic set of services with reimbursement of costs from the state.

Despite US President Donald Trump's demand that the Kremlin end the war in Ukraine, the Russian army has stepped up its offensive in recent months, leading to a significant increase in casualties. According to The Economist's calculations, from May 1 to July 9 alone, the Russian Federation could have lost about 31,000 people killed on the battlefield.

And the losses of dead in the Russian Armed Forces have risen sharply already since the beginning of 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized in early July. According to him, since January, the Russian army "has lost 100,000 soldiers - killed, not wounded." At the same time, for the entire duration of the war, Russia's total losses range from 900,000 to 1.3 million people, of which 190,000 to 350,000 are irrecoverable, The Economist noted.

At the same time, according to estimates by Mediazona and BBC, which analyze open sources, including profile groups on losses in Russian regions, the number of named Russians confirmed dead at the front has been declining since the beginning of the year. From January 1 to July 16, 2025, data on the deaths of at least 11,310 Russian military personnel have appeared (in reality, there are more, as reports on deaths during this period may appear late).

This may be due to the fact that since the beginning of the year, the authorities of a number of regions have stopped publishing data on those killed at the front in Ukraine. For example, the publication of such information was stopped by all heads of regions in Siberia and the Far East, wrote Sibir Realii. The publication Chesnok reported in July that the authorities of the Vladimir region had stopped publishing information on casualties.

A total of 119,154 Russians have been confirmed dead at the front since the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Between July 4 and July 18, at least 2,436 people died.

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