A Mediazona and BBC Russia investigation using death records says Wagner Group lost 19,547 fighters in the battle for Bakhmut. 17,175 were convicts, and the remaining 2,372 were volunteer mercenaries. Wagner had recruited 48,366 convicts from Russian prisons.
Contextually, 36% of the convicts that Wagner Group recruited died in the battle for Bakhmut alone.
Conversely, independent estimates for Ukraine's losses total only 8,900 in the battle.