Parents of the first Russian confirmed dead in Syria say they do not believe. – Reuters.
The parents of a 19-year-old Russian soldier serving in Syria said on Tuesday they had been informed that their son had hanged himself there, the country’s first confirmed fatality since the Kremlin launched a campaign of air strikes in Syria on September 30.
In an interview with Reuters on October 27, 2015 at their home in southern Russia, Alexander and Svetlana Kostenko said they did not believe the Russian military’s account that their 19-year-old son Vadim would have taken his own life by hanging himself.
“I will never believe this version (suicide),” said Svetlana, who was wearing a black head scarf. She said she had spoken to Vadim as recently as Saturday, the day he died.
“We spoke every day by phone for half an hour. (On Saturday) he was cheerful, happy, and he laughed,” she said.
Alexander, Vadim’s father, speaking in a low voice, agreed: “We were told he had hanged himself because of a girl. He would never have done it. I know my son well.”
Kostenko was one of the Russian air force’s support staff. He signed a contract on June 20 and was dispatched to Syria by plane on September 14, two weeks before the Kremlin’s air campaign began, his father said. He said they had only discovered Vadim was in Syria when he was there.
His death is the first confirmed Russian fatality in Syria.
Kostenko’s death was first flagged by Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of bloggers led by Ruslan Leviev who have previously worked to uncover information about Russian military deaths in Ukraine, where Russia denies its soldiers are fighting despite what Western countries say is overwhelming evidence.
CIT published its report on the incident on Tuesday, explaining how it had spotted news of Vadim’s death via social media.
Kostenko’s social network account, which contains an image of him in air force uniform, was filled with condolences, as well as with disrespectful abuse from some users.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday told reporters he had no information about “the alleged death of a Russian serviceman in Syria,” local news agencies reported.
A Reuters reporter was told she could not enter the base of the air force unit, in Primorsko-Akhtarsk, where Kostenko served, and where CIT says Sukhoi-25 jets operational in Syria are usually based.
When asked if it was true that a serviceman from the base had died in Syria, an officer leaving the base on Tuesday morning, said: “Yes, I heard about that.” He refused to provide any more details.
Standing in front of their house in the village of Grechanaya Balka in southern Russia as hens clucked around them, the Kostenkos said their son’s battalion commander had broken the bad news personally, telling them that Vadim had hanged himself on Saturday, October 24.
The commander had told them that Vadim had been the only one to die, they said, saying their son’s funeral would take place on Wednesday, after they received his body.
Vadim’s younger sister, Katya, and his aunt, Anna Musienko, said they also did not believe he had killed himself. They said Vadim was planning to marry his girlfriend, that the two got along well, and that he introduced her to his family over the summer.
President Vladimir Putin ordered in May that deaths of Russian soldiers during special operations in peacetime should be classified as a state secret.
Before Tuesday, reports of Russian deaths in Syria had been unconfirmed.
On October 20, a senior pro-Syrian government military source told Reuters at least three Russian citizens fighting with Syrian government forces had been killed by a shell. Russian authorities strongly denied at the time that any of their military personnel had been killed.
An unnamed Russian defence ministry source also told the Wall Street Journal on Octover 23 that a Russian soldier had been killed in an incident related to careless weapons handling. – Reuters, October 27, 2015.