Russia on Monday said its coronavirus death toll was more than three times higher than it had previously reported, making it the country with the third-largest number of fatalities in the world.
For months President Vladimir Putin has boasted about Russia’s low death rate from the virus, saying earlier this month that it had done a “better” job at managing the pandemic than western countries.
Experts, including medical professionals and data scientists, have questioned the official statistics for months, accusing the government of playing down the country’s outbreak.
On Monday, Russian officials admitted that was true.
The Rosstat statistics agency said that the number of deaths from all causes recorded between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared with the previous year.
“More than 81 percent of this increase in mortality over this period is due to COVID,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, meaning that some 186,000 Russians have died from COVID-19 during 2020.

Russia admits COVID death toll third-worst in the world
Excess deaths data for 2020 suggests toll three times higher than officially reported, behind only US and Brazil.