Introdution. One of the priorities of the policy of our state is to improve the demographic situation and, first of all, to reduce the mortality of the population from controllable causes. The analysis shows that in the Russian Federation, as in other countries of the world, diseases of the circulatory system are the leading cause of death, but their rates and proportion are significantly higher than in other countries. It is important for the analysis to obtain reliable information about the causes of death, as inaccurate information does not allow to make the right management decisions, which does not make it possible to change the demographic situation in the direction of reducing mortality and increasing life expectancy. Purpose. To study the dynamics of indicators and structure of mortality from diseases of the circulatory system with international comparison and to analyze the reliability of the received information on death. Material and methods. Statistical reference books of the Ministry of health of Russia "Medical and demographic indicators" for 2015-2017, tables c52 of Rosstat for 2015-2017, the European database and the WHO mortality database were used. Results and discussion. In the structure of mortality from all causes, there was a decrease in the overall mortality rate from diseases of the circulatory system from 635.3 in 2015 to 587.6 per 100 thousand population in 2017, the rate of decline was 7.5%, which is 1.6 times higher than the rate of decline in mortality from all causes. In the structure of mortality from ischaemic heart disease there was an increase in the share of mortality from chronic forms from 77.9% in 2015 to 79.0% in 2017. The analysis showed that in 2015 in the Russian Federation the standardized death rates from circulatory system diseases were 2.5-6.3 times, from ischaemic heart diseases – 3.6-8.9 times, and from cerebrovascular diseases – 3.9-8.1 times higher than the rates in other countries, due to incorrect coding and selection of the original cause of death. Summary. A large share of mortality rates from circulatory diseases in the structure of all-cause mortality is associated with the choice of unspecified and ill-defined conditions as the underlying cause of death, as well as non-compliance with the rules of ICD-10 on coding and selection of the underlying cause of death. The organization of mortality statistics in the Russian Federation does not comply with international rules, there are numerous coding errors and the choice of the underlying cause of death, distorting mortality statistics