The parents of the first Russian serviceman confirmed dead in four weeks of air strikes in Syria said yesterday they did not believe the military’s account that their 19-year-old son had hanged himself.
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The defense ministry in Moscow does not identify the soldier who it says committed suicide, but says the serviceman appears to have taken his life due to problems with his girlfriend.
Prior to the Tuesday announcement, Russia denied any of its soldiers had died as a result of operations in Syria, but the Wall Street Journal last week quoted a Russian Ministry of Defense official as saying one soldier had been killed due to careless weapons handling.
In a report released on Tuesday, the group said its monitors first came across posts mourning Mr Kostenko on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, on Sunday.
Military officials say he committed suicide after falling out with his girlfriend.
Alexander, Kostenko’s father, said: “We were told he had hanged himself because of a girl”.
But online activists and Kostenko’s parents, who confirmed the death of their son, say that they do not believe that he killed himself.
The official version of events led to the Russian Orthodox Church refusing to send a representative to Kostenko’s funeral, according to his father, as suicide is considered a cardinal sin by the Russian Orthodox Church. “(On Saturday) he was cheerful, happy, and he laughed”.
Russia’s human rights ombudswoman Ella Pamfilova on Wednesday demanded an inquest into the death, saying she would not “stand on the sidelines of thе situation”, Russian media reported. “We were told he had hanged himself because of a girl”.
Russian defence chiefs said an investigation was ongoing but analysis of Kostenko’s phone messages indicated he took his own life because of a break-up with his girlfriend.
Russian Federation began an aerial intervention in Syria on September 30 to support Syrian government troops against the Islamic State and other jihadi groups fighting the regime in Damascus. The reporters had a chance to look how Russian servicemen live and work at the base.
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly ruled out using ground troops in the Syria conflict.
“It is immensely regrettable that such tragedies are not exceptional in other armies elsewhere in the world, as they are related not to the performance of service duties but to the age and personality specifics of particular young people”, he said. According to the ministry, the soldier was a technical specialist at the base. A soldier carrying the blue, white and red Russian flag walked behind the coffin before it was loaded onto the van.
The state enforced a virtual blackout on reports of Russian soldier deaths in Ukraine despite reports to the contrary including funerals of soldiers.
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Russia’s entry into the multi-front conflict in Syria is Moscow’s first major military involvement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.
