"There is a lot of literature on this problem, and perhaps someone has the impression that it has been sufficiently researched. Yes, indeed, there is a lot of literature, but many questions and doubts remain. There is too much here that is unclear, controversial and clearly unreliable. Even the reliability of the current official data on the human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (about 27 million people) raises serious doubts. This article shows the evolution of official statistics on these losses (from 1946 to the present, they have changed several times), and an attempt was made to establish the actual number of losses of military personnel and civilians in 1941–1945. In solving this problem, we relied only on truly reliable information contained in historical sources and literature. The article provides a system of evidence that in fact there were direct casualties. were about 16 million people, of which 11.5 million were military and 4.5 million were civilians." Article from the magazine Political Education 2012 05