“There was no work, I wanted to earn money.” What do the relatives of Russians killed in Syria say?

In Syria, on the night of February 7, as a result of a strike by US and Allied forces, according to various sources, from 15 to two hundred Russian contract soldiers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation confirmed the death of five Russians. According to the media and investigative group Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), the dead Russians worked for the “private military company Wagner.” Based on social networks and stories from relatives, Current Time was able to identify seven Russian citizens and one native of Ukraine who were allegedly killed in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. Here's what we know about them.

Stanislav Matveev

Call sign "Matvey". 39 years. Lived in the city of Asbest, Sverdlovsk region. Cossack. He worked as a freight forwarder and did renovations in apartments. Married, two children 6 and 8 years old. He fought in Donbass in the first half of 2016. Awarded the badge “200 years of the Cross of St. George”. Before leaving for Syria, he allegedly trained at a base in Rostov.

Photos sent by Matveyev from Syria
Photo: Znak.com

Kirill Ananyev

Call sign "Moscow". 33 years. Until 2009, he was a member of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP), banned in Russia, and later - the “Other Russia” of Eduard Limonov. Ananyev participated in political actions throughout Russia. Fought in Donbass. He rose to the rank of commander of an artillery battalion in the so-called “DPR”.

The leader of The Other Russia, Eduard Limonov, wrote that another activist of the organization, who was also in Syria at the time of the airstrike, stopped communicating.

Vladimir Loginov

Cossack from Kaliningrad, 51 years old. Worked in the police and security companies. In 2014, Loginov joined the Baltic Separate Cossack Corps and went to Donbass. According to the ataman of the Baltic Separate Cossack District, Loginov left for Syria in the fall of 2017, where he served “in the ranks of volunteers.” He is survived by his wife and two minor daughters.

Igor Kosoturov

Call sign "Kosotur", 45 years old. Lived in Asbest, Sverdlovsk region. He is married to the cousin of another deceased contract soldier, Stanislav Matveev. The Cossack ataman said that Kosoturov fought in the so-called “LPR”.

Photo: znak.com

“It seems like 2015. Kosoturov stayed in the “LPR” for about six months and was a scout. Then he got wounded. In the leg, a fragment. I came here and received treatment. After being wounded, he left for another six months. Then I didn’t go to Lugansk again. There were already other plans for Syria. Help. The feeling of patriotism again! Many of his fellow soldiers from Ukraine went there,” said Oleg Surnin, ataman of the village of Svyato-Nikolskaya, in an interview with Znak.com.

The last entries in Odnoklassniki were made last September. Among them is a repost of the article “This is how a Soviet soldier met death.”

Alexey Shikhov

Call sign "Cadet". 26 years. He grew up in Nizhny Novgorod. In 2006, after the ninth grade, he went to cadet school. Before leaving for Syria, he fought in Donbass. The last posts on social networks were made last summer. They contain pictures of a grenade, cars, a video supposedly filmed during the Iraq War, and a GIF with a machine-gunner cat.

Vladimir, last name unknown

Call sign "Apostle", 51 years old. Citizen of Ukraine, born in the Kharkov region. Member of the Triune Rus' organization founded in Kharkov. According to his comrades, he did not want to take a Russian passport - he dreamed of the revival of the Russian Empire. Participated in the battles for Donetsk airport on the side of the separatists. He fought in Donbass since November 2014. After demobilization he lived in Crimea and Russia. According to the head of Triune Rus', he worked as a security guard in a church. In the obituary of the “Apostle” it is written: “He was a zealous Orthodox man and a good machine gunner.”

Alexey Ladygin

Call sign "Khmury", 26 years old. Lived in Ryazan. He took part in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 as part of the Airborne Forces. After that he fought in Donbass. On the Odnoklassniki page there is a photo in uniform and the status: “We are not obliged to win every battle, we are simply obliged not to lose, for this it is enough to collapse while fighting.”

Twitter screenshot

Ruslan Gavrilov

34-year-old resident of the village of Kedrovoye, Sverdlovsk region Ruslan Gavrilov left for Syria in October. He was not a military man and, according to his relatives, he just wanted to make money.

The journalists managed to meet with the mother of Ruslan Gavrilov and the wife of Stanislav Matveev.

Mother of Ruslan Gavrilov: “He wanted to earn money”

Mother Ruslana Gavrilova Faina quietly lets journalists into the house "Present tense". The woman says that she has nothing to hide, but she simply has no strength left to grieve.

“We cried for three days. I’m tired of crying already,” she notes almost without emotion.

According to the mother, Ruslan left home in mid-October, when someone at once recruited more than ten guys from the village of Kedrovoye, Sverdlovsk region. They were all about the same age: Ruslan himself was 34 of the year.

Then, according to his mother, he called his family from Krasnodar and said that he was “going to Syria to build houses.”

“I never thought, we still hoped that it wouldn’t be war,” says Faina.

“He called sometimes, but rarely. And then I came home from work at night, from February 7 to 8. The guys told me they already knew,” the mother recalls about how she learned about her son’s death.

Faina Gavrilova says that her son never served in the army and did not hold a machine gun in his hands. But this did not prevent recruiters from finding it suitable for shipment to Syria.

“They didn’t even pass the commission. He called me from Krasnodar and asked: “Mom, what is my blood type?” And I tell him: “Don’t you know? But you’re constantly lying around in hospitals!” she recalls.

Mother believes that the son recruited to Syria because of the money.

“He didn’t have a normal job. It was temporary, hanging doors and ceilings: when there is work, when there is not. And he wanted to earn money,” says Faina.

Faina Gavrilova. Photo: Present

In the village, no one hides that their countrymen are in Syria, but the number of those who left is called different: from 6 to 12 people. The test of one of the people who left had said that he had last received news from his son-in-law, who had served with Gavrilov, 7 in February: the relative was alive. But then - silence.

Another resident Cedar son called from Syria a few days ago. He also left suddenly, ostensibly to build the Crimean bridge. The father says that if he knew that his son was going to Syria, he would never let him go.

“He didn’t say anything specific, just that he was alive and well. All. Five days already, the sixth has begun. Silence,” says the man.

In Kedrovoye we also managed to find a person who managed to return home from Syria. He forbade giving his name and showing his face, but said that everyone who left the village was “contractors from Wagner from the Vesna office.”

The man daily corresponds with those who survived the February 7 operation. According to him, except for Ruslan Gavrilov, none of the Kedrovskies died. But, he says, that night, in addition to Gavrilov, three more residents of the Sverdlovsk region were killed. According to him, their families are promised compensation of three million rubles. It is more difficult with the remains: will they be brought to Russia, - until the military have confirmed it.

“There is no information about the coffins yet,” he says.

Faina Gavrilova says she wants only to get the body of her son and bury him. According to her, she sincerely does not understand why the Russian federal channels are silent about her child and the other dead Russians.

“But they’re not that kind of people, are they? - says the woman. “They obviously went to fight, to help.” Even if it's for money. Because poverty, because unemployment.”

Widow of Stanislav Matveev: “I would like everyone to know about my husband”

Two alleged Wagner PMC contract workers were from the city of Asbest, CIT found out. These are 38-year-old Stanislav Matveev and 45-year-old Igor Kosoturov. Matveev's widow told reporters what she knew about her husband.

Elena Matveeva showed the journalists the St. George Cross - this award, as written in the order, Stanislav Matveev received “for courage and heroism in protecting the Russian population in Novorossiya.” The award was given by the Union of Cossack Warriors.

The woman remembers how her husband returned from the Donbass and started renovating apartments, but last September he gathered in Syria. According to Elena Matveyeva, at least thirty people from the Sverdlovsk region fought with him, nine of them from Asbest.

Elena Matveyeva. Photo: znak.com

About the death of her husband and his colleague, Elena learned from the Cossack chieftain Oleg Surnin, who lives in the suburb of Asbest.

“My husband was due to arrive in six weeks. He called me and said, “Hello, I’m so-and-so, what have you heard about the boys?” I say - they haven’t contacted me for three days. Literally a minute passes, he calls me back and says that Stas and Igor are no more,” she recalls.

Helen continues to hope that her husband is alive, and he still doesn’t know where his body is. She is waiting for an official call and keeps in touch with Matveyev's former colleagues. Some of them say that his body is under genetic examination in St. Petersburg. But no one turned to relatives for genetic material. They do not know anything about where exactly Stanislav fought - they only show the latest photos from Syria.

“He always took such care of me, he never told me about any problems, or if someone died - he was involved in the funeral of boys from Donbass - I was the last to know,” explains Elena.

Elena shows journalists a video that was sent to her by another widow, the wife of Stanislav’s colleague. She is sure that this is a recording of the shooting of the very column where her husband was. In her opinion, it was the Americans who fired. This video is actually from the computer game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron. This promotional video periodically appears on YouTube with a variety of titles, and even the Russian Ministry of Defense published it as “proof of cooperation between the US and IS.”

Elena and her family do not think about compensation. She has two children whom she does not yet speak about the death of her father. He hopes that he will return alive, and if not, that they will be given his body. And they admit that he died fighting in Syria.

“I would like, firstly, for everyone to know about my husband. Not only about my husband, but about the boys in general who died there so stupidly. It’s all crazy: where they were sent, they didn’t even have any protection, they were just sent to fight like pigs. So that the government will somehow take revenge, so that the boys will have some kind of memory, so that the wives will not be offended by their husbands, so that the children will be proud,” she says.

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