They were never there: Russia’s silence for families of troops killed in Ukraine | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/russia-official-silence-for-families-troops-killed-in-ukraine
Yelena Tumanova, a hospital orderly from Russia’s Mari El republic, said her son Anton Tumanov told her by phone on 10 August that his army unit was being sent to Donetsk. On 20 August, a coffin came back to Mari El with a small window through which she could see his face. His legs had been torn off by an artillery strike, his comrades told her. He was 20 years old.
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Tumanov’s death certificate from a Rostov morgue said only that he died at “the place of temporary deployment of military unit 27777 … of massive blood loss [from] multiple shrapnel wounds”, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported.
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The “volunteer” service Putin referred to is often anything but, according to several rights advocates. They say soldiers have told them that they were pressured to sign documents to go on a “business trip” to eastern Ukraine or “volunteer” in other ways. Tumanov told his mother that his commanders offered a 400,000-rouble bonus to sign up to fight in Ukraine, then simply ordered them forward when volunteers weren’t forthcoming. Some captured Russian paratroopers recounted that they had gone on a supposed training mission in armoured carriers and only later realised they were in Ukraine.
It is unclear how many Russian servicemen have been killed in eastern Ukraine, but soldiers’ rights advocates say the number is likely to be in the hundreds. Besides Open Russia’s 260-name working list, the independent television channel Dozhd has confirmed the deaths of 34 soldiers named in a list on its website.
