It has been five months since Vladimir Putin sent forces into Ukraine. Five months since 19-year-old Kyrill Chistayakov crossed the border with his squad, and four months since he last had contact with his mother.
– SOLDIER: Kyrill (19) has been missing since March. The mother demands answers from the Russian authorities. Photo: Sky News.
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No one knows how many Russian soldiers have been killed or captured in Ukraine. Often the families at home do not get to know anything about the fate of their loved ones.
– The families are not told where they disappeared or the circumstances surrounding the disappearance, says Valentina Melnikova, who runs a support organization for Russian soldier mothers, to Sky News and Moskva.
The Russian authorities do not want to draw attention to casualty figures and grieving families. It can influence public opinion about what they in Russia call “the military special operation” in Ukraine.
– Nobody hears us
Kyrill’s mother, Irina Chistayakova (44), has been warned against going public with her story. It is not without risk, and she is careful not to criticize official policy. But she is so desperate that she doesn’t feel she has anything more to lose.
– No one hears us and no one will listen to us, she tells Sky News.
– I can not stand more. I am 44 years old and already like an old woman, she cries.
The son disappeared four months ago. She shows a picture of the smiling 19-year-old. She is furious with the authorities who sent her son to a war he knew nothing about.
– Why was my son there? He had conscription and had spent three months in the military, she says.
– Wanted to defend Russia
The mother does not know if her son signed a contract with the military before he left. Many young boys from poor parts of the country sign because it is the only way to earn money.
– He wanted to become a soldier because he wanted to defend his homeland. Now it looks like they were sent to make Donetsk and Luhansk independent states.
– My son was missing in the Kharkiv region, so tell me, why was he there? hiccups Irina.
An anonymous woman Sky News spoke to says these contracts should be illegal as the young lads have no idea what they’re getting into. She herself is convinced that her 20-year-old son has been killed.
Requires response
Irina has traveled to Moscow with several women who have not heard from their sons or husbands since they left for Ukraine. They must deliver a list of names to the authorities and demand an answer.
So far, they have not been able to confirm whether the sons have been killed in battle, or whether they have been captured. The name does not appear on any public lists.
The hope is that their loved ones are still alive, but are in captivity in Ukraine. If so, they can be entered on lists of soldiers to be exchanged in prisoner exchanges.
– Ask me to come to Ukraine. Let me go through the prison camps to look for my son. Then I will calm down, says Irina.
– Sent straight to the front
According to the newspaper Moscow Times young Russians are sent to the front in Ukraine after only one to two weeks of training.
The organization Citizen Army Law informs the newspaper that they regularly receive messages from parents who say their children have ended up at the front in Ukraine just one week after they were drafted.
A 31-year-old Russian, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he received only five days of training before being transferred to Ukraine and deployed to fight against Ukrainian government soldiers.
– There was a soldier in our company who did not know how a machine gun works. So I taught him to take it apart and put it back together. I would not be by his side in battle. How can you fight like that? he says to the Moscow Times.
Over 15,000 killed
The intelligence services in the United States and Great Britain estimate that over 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, and claim this is a conservative estimate. In addition, three times as many may be wounded, and many are taken as prisoners of war.
Russian authorities have not released death tolls since March. Then they acknowledged that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed.
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