A Russian soldier has killed himself while on deployment in Syria, the
first known death of a Russian serviceman in Syria since Moscow began
its airstrikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad last month.
The relatives of Vadim Kostenko, a 19-year-old contractor in the
Russian army, said that officers from a military airfield in Russia’s
Krasnodar region had visited them with news that Kostenko had died on 24
October, activists from the open source investigative
organization
Conflict Intelligence Team reported.
Kostenko’s cousin and a former colleague confirmed the report to
Russian business newspaper RBK, adding that Kostenko’s body hadn’t been
delivered home to his family. Kostenko will “soon” be buried in his home
region of Grechanaya Balka, CIT reported.
The press service at Russia’s Ministry of Defence has not commented
on Kostenko’s death so far, but Dmitry Peskov, the press spokesperson
for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said this morning that the
question over the soldier’s death had been forwarded to the foreign
ministry.
“I’d prefer to leave this subject with my colleagues at the Foreign Ministry,” Mr Peskov told journalists.
Kostenko had signed up to become a contract soldier with the 906th
Close Air Support Regiment in June this year after finishing his draft
in the army, CIT reported. However, it is not thought that Kostenko
himself was a pilot.
While relatives await confirmation on the nature of his death, a friend
of Kostenko's told activists from CIT that officers from the military
had changed their version of Kostenko's death more than once when
talking to his relatives.
Friends have been posting condolences on Kostenko’s page on Russian
social networking site VKontakte, with one friend writing, “Brother,
we’ll never forget you, we’ll remember, love and mourn for you.”
A report from Reuters on 20 October quoted a senior Syrian
pro-government source claiming that three Russians had been killed
alongside their Syrian counterparts in Latakia. However Russia’s foreign
ministry denied the claim, slamming the report as unproven and “part of
an information war”.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Russian soldier kills himself during deployment in Syria
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