The collection offered to the reader contains materials from the scientific conference "Human Losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War", held on March 14-15, 1995 at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The interest shown by the Russian public in the problem of human losses, the complexity of the study, the inconsistency available data, the dissemination in the media of information that does not have a scientific basis, determined the need to bring the conference materials to a wide range of readers. The collection touches on only part of a huge range of issues related to human losses. Creating a broader and more complete work is a task that the team of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences is beginning to solve. The collection reflects the process of searching for new documents, their analysis and comparison. The reader will find various, sometimes contradictory, data and assessments in the collection, will have the opportunity to compare the authors’ argumentation, and evaluate its scientific validity. The editors hope that these materials will attract the attention of both specialists and people interested in the history of the past war, and will help to get closer to an adequate reflection of the events and phenomena of our country's past.