Syria list of dead Russian soldiers. What happened in Syria (about the mass death of the Russian military). How to deal with Russia in Syria

Unlike the war in Ukraine, where the Kremlin pretends that only local separatists die in battles, although there are reports of hundreds of dead Russian soldiers, in Syria the state officially recognizes the losses and the soldiers are given posthumous honors as heroes. But the Kremlin is careful to describe the circumstances of their deaths as non-combat, since officially there are no Russian ground forces in Syria.

Officially, there are only eleven dead, but it is very likely that in fact there are many more, because the Russian authorities are silent about the mercenaries, writes Katherine Fitzpatrick in The Daily Beast

Since Russia launched its air campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015, the Ministry of Defense has confirmed the deaths of eleven Russian soldiers, but independent journalists and bloggers have found the deaths of several more people and uncovered reports of several dozen dead, which the state does not recognize.

Unlike the war in Ukraine, where the Kremlin pretends that only local separatists die in battles, although there are reports of hundreds of dead Russian soldiers, in Syria the state officially recognizes the losses and the soldiers are given posthumous honors as heroes. But the Kremlin is careful to describe the circumstances of their deaths as non-combat, since officially there are no Russian ground forces in Syria.

According to the official version, they gave their lives heroically guarding convoys with humanitarian aid, directing strikes by the Syrian Air Force or trying to establish a dialogue between different opposition factions within the framework of the Center for Reconciliation of Warring Parties created by Russia.

Here is a list of Russian soldiers whose deaths in Syria have been confirmed by the authorities. One was declared suicidal, nine were killed "during the performance of combat missions" and two - in a helicopter crash.

1. Vadim Kostenko, contract soldier of the 960th Air Force Ground Support Regiment. According to the official report, he committed suicide at the Khmeimim air base on October 24, 2015. They say that he was having a hard time breaking up with a girl. However, his family, with whom he often spoke, rejects this explanation. Kostenko's friend, who has not been named, told blogger Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team that smoke was seen at the base the night before Kostenko's death and that nine other soldiers died at the same time.

Coffin with 19-year-old soldier Vadim Kostenko. Photo: Andrey Koshik / Gazeta.Ru

2. November 2015 Fedor Zhuravlev, who, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team, served in the GRU special forces until at least the summer of 2014, died "while aiming a high-precision strategic aviation weapon," according to a "high-ranking source in the Ministry of Defense." On March 17, 2016, President Vladimir Putin met with four widows of those killed in Syria, among them Yulia Zhuravleva, Fyodor's widow.

3. November 24 Oleg Peshkov, the pilot of a Su-24M bomber shot down by a Turkish fighter, was killed after he ejected from the plane. Eight bullets were found in his body. His widow also attended a meeting with Putin in March.

The funeral of Oleg Peshkov. Photo: Alexander Ryumin / TASS

4. Same Day Marine Alexander Pozynich died during the operation to rescue the co-pilot of the downed Su-24M.

5. In February 2016, the military adviser Ivan Cheremisin was wounded during an attack on a Syrian training center and died soon after. The Free Syrian Army in those days published a video in which a US-made TOW missile hits a military group in the western province of Latakia. It is very likely that Cheremisin was among the victims of this strike.

6. March 17, 2016 Special forces lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko was killed near Palmyra. The Russian military acknowledged that the officer died during the capture of Palmyra, but initially did not name him. The Kurdish fighters said they were in talks with ISIS about handing over his body to the Russian military. The body was delivered to Russia on April 29, 2016, and was given posthumous honors personally by President Putin. Militants reportedly surrounded Prokhorenko as he directed Russian airstrikes near the town of Tadmor. The Department of Defense stated that he called fire on himself to protect his comrades. However, a video released by ISIS showing Prokhorenko's body raises doubts that he was killed by a missile attack.

7. In April Andrey Okladnikov died in a helicopter crash. This reportedly took place in rebel-controlled territory near Homs. According to official figures, the helicopter was not shot down.

8. Viktor Pankov died in the same crash.

9. Anton Erygin was mortally wounded when a convoy of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties came under fire from militants. He was posthumously awarded.

Anton Erygin. Photo: from personal archive

10. June 15 Andrey Timoshenkov was wounded in Homs while guarding a humanitarian convoy of the Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties and died of his wounds. It was reported that he stopped a suicide bomber who was trying to drive a car bomb into an area where humanitarian aid was being distributed to the civilian population.

11. On June 16, a 35-year-old artilleryman was killed Mikhail Shirokopoyas, a native of the village of Seryshevo. Reports of his death appeared in the local Syrian press, but were later deleted. However, then the Syrian media wrote that the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed his death.

Mikhail Shirokoplyas. Photo: GTRK Amur

In addition to this list, independent media and bloggers have established the names of several more soldiers who died in Syria.

Contractor of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the Orenburg Region Mikhail Tumakov died "under unknown circumstances". The head of the press service of the Internal Troops, Vasily Panchenkov, said that Tumakov served there as a cook and quartermaster in 2002-2004, after which he retired from the reserve, and there is no other information about his service.

But the Orenburg news portal Orenday writes that Vadim Tumakov from Sol-Iletsk died participating "in the liberation of Syria from ISIS terrorists." This is the second native of the region who died in Syria - the first was Alexander Prokhorenko.

Neither Russian nor American officials commented on the news of a NATO air strike on a military convoy in the province of Deir ez Zoer. Meanwhile, as we have already reported, at least a hundred Russians were killed during the bombing. How will this affect relations between the two world powers, which are already at their lowest point in the last quarter of a century?!

Syrian oil war

On February 7 and 8, a large number of Russian military mercenaries were killed in battles near the Syrian town of Al-Tabia (the oil-bearing province of Deir ez Zoer on the border with Iraq). This information was reported yesterday by the American business publication Bloomberg, and then picked up - with details - by several more respectable Western publications.A video from the scene was published.

At the same time, the journalists refer to the officers of the Syrian government army, which is now "cleansing" the province of Deir ez "Zoer from the last terrorists. It is here, in the Euphrates Valley, that fierce battles have been fought in recent months. The Syrian army during the strategic operation "Great Dawn" should was to regain full control over the Syrian-Iraqi border, as well as oil fields.

The last major city that remained under the control of the Islamic State militants * - Deir Ezz Zoer itself - was liberated in November 2017 by the Syrian military, who acted with massive support from Russian aircraft. After that, a humanitarian operation began here: special equipment is clearing rubble in cities and villages, demining is underway, humanitarian aid is being delivered to local residents ...

The city of Deir ez "Zoer is located directly on the Euphrates River, which divides the province of the same name in half. All the lands to the west are under the control of the government, and to the east - under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is supported by the NATO coalition led by the United States.

Who attacked first: Wagner or the Kurds?

Head of the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, Major General Igor Konashenkov At briefings, he repeatedly told reporters that the militants were moving freely from Iraqi territory to the vicinity of Deir ez Zoer and other cities.

Moreover, according to Konashenkov, foreign mercenaries are now massively coming to the aid of the militants who have remained in the vicinity of Deir Ezz Zoera from the territory of Iraq - and their “migration” also does not meet with any resistance from the NATO military.

Several times, the Islamic State militants tried to block the highway between Damascus and Deir ez Zoer, ambushed the Syrian military in the vicinity of Al-Mayadin. During one of these attacks on February 1, militants killed the chief of staff of the 67th armored brigade of the Syrian army general Khalil Mahfouz.

Such a fierce struggle for Deir ez "Zoer is simply explained. A highway passes through the city connecting Damascus with Mosul and Embil (the largest cities in northern Iraq) and further with Iranian territory. Whoever controls the city also controls the transport corridor between Damascus and Baghdad.

As Colonel told Bloomberg Thomas Veil, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense, on the night of February 7-8, the Syrian military began a massive advance deep into the territory controlled by the Kurds. The attack was supported by artillery, tanks, mortars and multiple rocket launchers. According to Vale, part of the enemy's manpower was destroyed by return fire and the advance of the Syrian troops was stopped.

Colonel Ryan Dillon said that the command of the coalition forces before, during and after the clash was in constant contact with the Russian military leadership. And there was no information about the death of the Russian military during the battle.

Bloomberg also reports that up to 200 people died (both Syrians and Russians who allegedly followed with their convoy), and at least 300 were injured.

The names of the four dead were reported by the Internet group Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which monitors military conflicts in the Donbass and Syria. According to CIT, the dead are volunteers, possibly associated with the semi-mythical private military company (PMC) Wagner.

It can hardly be considered a coincidence: on Monday, immediately after the information about the death of Russian mercenaries went into public space, a telephone conversation took place Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It is not known exactly what the heads of state were talking about. Trump reportedly offered condolences for those killed in the plane crash and offered to help with the investigation.

We discussed the rapid deterioration of the situation in Syria with our permanent expert on the Middle East, Mikhail Roschin, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"SP": - Mikhail Yuryevich, do you think the attack on the military convoy will affect bilateral relations between Russia and the United States?

- Now this is the most important thing to understand - how, in the new conditions (that is, after the attack on our PMC), to maintain some kind of working relationship with the United States. It is likely that Trump's call to Putin yesterday was connected with just this.

It seems to me that during the telephone conversations between the two presidents, a quiet but serious conversation took place, although not all topics were later made public. If we recall that the prospect of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement was officially discussed, it is quite obvious that without an appropriate settlement in Syria, it is unlikely that it will be possible to pacify the situation in the Middle East.

In this regard, I would draw attention to the restrained reaction of the military on both sides, ours and the US. One gets the impression that both sides are diligently trying to avoid aggravation, although it is obvious that the situation is heating up and has approached a dangerous line, beyond which a direct clash of the parties is possible.

"SP":“The collision has already happened…

- Not yet. Since PMCs, and not a regular military unit, fell under the distribution. Now, if this happened, then it would be possible to further develop the conflict with completely unpredictable consequences.

"SP":- It can be assumed that, despite the constant exchange of attacks in terms of information, the exchange of intelligence data between Russia and the United States still continues. And they try to avoid direct military contact of regular forces.

- I think that with the attack in Deir Ezz Zoer, the Americans tried hard to show that they have their own zone of military control in Syria, and they will keep it, including in the interests of their Syrian allies. It seems to me that there is a certain interaction at the level of the military But we see that in addition to the military, there are other structures, such as the Wagner PMC, which are sometimes ready to take the initiative, with sad consequences.

"SP":“The attack on our military convoy is also an image strike against Russia. And who, in your opinion, Mikhail Yuryevich, will be the main beneficiary of our image losses in the Syrian war?

- You are right that Russia has already suffered image losses as a result of the attack on our convoy. The winner, at first glance, was the Americans and their allies. Although, to a certain extent, we managed to rehabilitate ourselves in the course of successful air defense operations against Israeli aircraft. The Israelis were clearly shown that they would no longer be allowed to fly and bomb in the Syrian sky freely, as before. I hope this discourages the Israelis from acting with the same impudence.

"SP":- In general, do you think that further "cooling" of diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States should not be expected?

- Note: in the USA today it is the Congress that is constantly trying to worsen Russian-American relations. And Donald Trump, it seems to me, called Putin for this, in order to maintain a relatively good tone in the relationship between our presidential administrations and governments.

* The Islamic State movement was recognized by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014 as a terrorist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

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Former State Duma deputy and retired military pilot Viktor Alksnis reported new unofficial data on losses during the defeat of the Wagner PMC column in Syria.

Alksnis spoke about this on his page in Facebook. According to him, as a result of an air strike by an international coalition led by the United States from among the Wagner PMC mercenaries, 217 people from the fifth assault squad, 10 people from the second assault squad, 94 people from the assault squad "Spring" (aka "Karpaty") were killed. , as well as 13 people from the artillery division. The total death toll was 334, Alksnis noted on social media.

In addition, a large number of the wounded have died and are dying from severe wounds in hospitals. The number of dead servicemen of the Special Operations Forces of the RF Armed Forces who took part in this raid is unknown. -

In the comments to the post, Alksnis tells how the Wagner PMC was created.

The GDP promised that the Russian military would not take part in ground operations in Syria. And without them, it was impossible to defeat the militants. The Syrian army suffered serious losses during the years of the civil war, lost its combat capability and could not solve this problem. Therefore, the leadership of the Russian Federation decided to use for this purpose the armed structures that are not officially related to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Despite the fact that the legislation of the Russian Federation prohibits mercenarism and is subject to criminal prosecution, money was allocated and private military companies (PMCs) were created, the most famous of which was the Wagner Group, -

he said.

Alksnis said that Wagner mercenaries, along with Iranian volunteers and military personnel, "were the most combat-ready units of the pro-Assad forces."

At the same time, the Wagner was subordinate to the command of our group in Syria and acted on the basis of its orders. Presumably the number of Wagnerians is one and a half - two thousand people. They acted quite effectively. For example, the capture of Palmyra in 2016 is mainly their merit. For this, two leaders of Wagner received the title of Heroes of the Russian Federation, and dozens of employees were awarded government awards.

Information about the circumstances of the military conflict that occurred on February 7 in the province of Deir ez-Zor comes from different sources. According to one version, supporters of Bashar al-Assad attacked the headquarters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which housed American military advisers. According to another, the cause of the clash in the province of Deir ez-Zor was an attempt by local big businessmen to seize oil and gas fields controlled by US allies.

Last update: 03/07/2018 at 18:13

SYRIA, news March 07, 2018. The tragic flight of the An-26 military transport aircraft in Syria interrupted the lives of people from different parts of Russia with different destinies: one planned to get married, for another, the trip to Syria was the first military trip, most left widows and small children. publishes the stories of those dead, about whom something has been learned so far.

39 Russians died in the crash of the An-26 plane in Syria. Six were crew members, all the rest were contract servicemen and officers. They were all returning from a mission. A colleague in conversation said:

- All wonderful. All professionals. All specialists. Everyone knew their job inside and out.

An An-26 aircraft at about 15:00 Moscow time near the runway at the military base in Khmeimim. Since hostilities are underway in Syria, many have suggested that the plane was shot down. However, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said: the cause of the disaster was not the intrigues of enemies. Experts believe that the An-26 could have crashed due to a technical malfunction.

53-year-old Major General Vladimir Yeremeev from Yekaterinburg was a graduate of the Sverdlovsk Suvorov Military School. It is known about him that in 2012-2014 he commanded the 27th separate guards motorized rifle Sevastopol Red Banner Brigade. The unit guarded important facilities, participated in the Victory Parade on Red Square. Eremeev also commanded the headquarters of the coastal troops of the Baltic Fleet.

Major General Vladimir Yeremeev (photo)

Alexander Byrylov was 29 years old. The junior sergeant is from the city of Polyarny in the Murmansk region, he worked in Syria on a contract basis. A friend Lyudmila told about the deceased:

- He flew there before the New Year, he is a good signalman.

At home, Alexander left his mother, now psychologists are working with her. The sergeant also had a girlfriend: the lovers planned to get married.

Captain Eldar Gaidarkhanov, 32, lived in the military town of Totskoye Vtoroy in the Orenburg region. Once he graduated from the Chelyabinsk Military Automobile Institute, and then became a professional military man in Syria. Eldar is survived by his wife and brother Rinat. Recently, Rinat is already experiencing a second loss: about a year ago, the Gaidarkhanovs' sister died.

Captain Eldar Gaidarkhanov

For the serviceman Konstantin Altunin from St. Petersburg, the trip to Syria was the first and, alas, the last.

Serviceman Konstantin Gorban graduated from the Penza Artillery Engineering Institute named after Voronov in 2011, - the administrators of the group “Graduates of the PAII (PVAIU) them. Voronov "" VKontakte ". He comes from the Orenburg region, served in Chebarkul. Friends speak of him as a kind, sympathetic and cheerful person. He is survived by his wife Christina and son Demid.

25-year-old Sergei Luzhkov was an orphan from the Kemerovo region, he was left only with his grandmother. Sergey served in the 473rd district training center of the Central Military District.

- Everyone has children. The Elansky Garrison group expresses its condolences to the family and friends, the group's message on VKontakte says.

Major Dmitry Kukushkin graduated from the Yekaterinburg Higher Artillery Command School in 2005 and lived in the Yelan garrison for a long time. He was a hereditary military man: his father is a retired senior ensign.

29-year-old flight engineer senior lieutenant from St. Petersburg Mikhail Panov. Until his 30th birthday, Mikhail did not live for some one and a half months. He planned to celebrate his anniversary on April 20. In St. Petersburg, the senior lieutenant left behind a wife and a tiny daughter - she is only six months old. Mikhail and Anastasia got married two years ago. And in August 2017, their girl was born. Then it seemed to them that ahead - the whole life. But alas.

Among the dead was officer Alexei Trufanov from Kamchatka. Governor of the Kamchatka Territory Vladimir Ilyukhin announced this on the official website of the regional government:

- [Dead] officer of the squadron of the unmanned aerial vehicles detachment of the 317th separate mixed aviation regiment, which is based in the city of Yelizovo. We mourn and share the grief of loss.

Trufanov left a widow and a daughter.

According to the press service of the Krasnodar Territory, warrant officer Yuri Vasilievich Masel from Novorossiysk, senior lieutenant Alexander Andreevich Shevchenko from Krymsk and a native of Yeysk captain Sergei Vladimirovich Sheintsvit died in the crash. The Kuban authorities will provide all necessary support to the families of the military who died in the An-26 crash in Syria.

The An-26 pilots belonged to the 33rd Separate Transport Aviation Regiment, which is based at the airfield in Levashovo near St. Petersburg. The Ministry of Defense emphasizes that the weather conditions at the time of the An-26 landing approach were uncomplicated, and experienced pilots were at the helm. The crew commander - Major Smirnov - was a first-class pilot: "The flight time on this type of aircraft was more than 3,000 hours; it repeatedly landed at the Khmeimim airfield." Less is known about the passengers.

The day before, as a result of this terrible tragedy near Khmeimim, 39 people died, of which 27 were officers. Among them is one major general. Later, there were 31 dead from the surnames of military personnel flying on this board. According to our sources in the defense department, the list is real. And the lack of eight more names is explained by the specifics of the tasks that these people performed. Perhaps their data is classified.

The crashed An-26 became the ninth aircraft lost by the Russian Aerospace Forces during the operation in Syria (since September 30, 2015). In total, the losses of Russian military equipment amounted to two Su-24M bombers, a Su-25 attack aircraft, an An-26 military transport aircraft, two transport and three attack helicopters.

Since Russia began its bombing raids in Syria on September 30, 2016, the Russian Ministry of Defense has confirmed the deaths of at least 12 Russian soldiers, but independent journalists and bloggers have documented several more deaths and uncovered reports of dozens of deaths that the government does not acknowledge. .

Unlike the war in Ukraine, where the Kremlin pretends that only local separatists are killed in battle (although hundreds of Russian soldiers are reportedly killed there), in Syria, military deaths are acknowledged and they are celebrated as heroes, posthumously receiving state awards. .

At the same time, the Kremlin tries to describe the circumstances of their death as having nothing to do with the actual conduct of hostilities, since officially there are no Russian boots on Syrian soil. Instead, they are reported to have given their lives heroically protecting humanitarian aid convoys, targeting targets with the Syrian air force, or holding “negotiations” with various factions at the Russian-established Center for Reconciliation of Warring Parties (on Syrian soil).

Here is a list of Russian soldiers whose deaths in Syria have been confirmed: one serviceman reportedly committed suicide, nine died “in combat missions,” and two died in a helicopter crash.

1. Vadim Kostenko, contract soldier of the 960th (assault) air regiment; he reportedly committed suicide at Khmeimim Air Base on 24 October 2015. Officials claim that he was depressed after breaking up with a girl, but his family, whose members often communicated with him, including directly on the day of his death, reject this explanation. An unnamed friend of Kostenko told investigative blogger Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) that smoke was visible at the airbase the night Kostenko died and that up to nine servicemen could have been victims of the incident.

2. In November 2015, Fedor Zhuravlev, a special forces officer (Russian special forces), who, according to the CIT group, served in the Russian military intelligence (GRU) until the summer of 2014, was engaged in Syria “aiming at targets of precision weapons of the strategic air forces ", as reported by a "high-ranking source in the Ministry of Defense." On March 17, 2016, President Vladimir Putin met with four widows, and Yulia Zhuravleva, Fyodor's widow, was among them.

3. On November 24, Oleg Peshkov, the pilot of a Su-24M shot down by a Turkish fighter, was killed after ejecting. 8 bullets were found in his body. His widow also attended a meeting with Putin in March 2016.

4. On the same day, Alexander Pozynich, a naval paratrooper, died during an operation to rescue the co-pilot, who was on the plane with Peshkov.

5. In February 2016, military adviser Ivan Cheremisin was wounded during an attack on a Syrian training center and subsequently died. A video released by the Free Syrian Army at the time showed a group of people in uniform in the western province of Latakia being attacked with a US-made TOW guided missile. Probably Cheremisin was one of those who were killed during this attack.

6. March 17, 2017 (so in the text - approx. per.) Alexander Prokhorenko, a lieutenant of special forces, was killed near the city of Palmyra. The Russian military admitted that one of the officers died during the storming of Palmyra, but initially his name was not called. Kurdish militants say they were negotiating with ISIS (an organization banned in Russia - approx. per.) about the transfer of his body to the Russian military. His body was brought to Russia on April 29, 2016, and President Putin honored his memory.

According to reports, Prokhorenko was surrounded by militants at the moment when he reported the coordinates for air strikes near the city of Tadmor. According to the Ministry of Defense, he aimed the blow at himself in order to protect his comrades. However, a video circulated by ISIS, showing Prokhorenko's body and equipment, suggests that his death was somewhat different.

7. In April, Andrey Okladnikov died in a helicopter crash reportedly in rebel-controlled territory near the city of Homs; the Russian military maintains that the helicopter was not shot down.

8. Viktor Pankov died in the same helicopter crash.

9. Anton Erygin, who was escorting a transport convoy from the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties, was mortally wounded at the moment when the convoy came under fire from militants. He was awarded posthumously.

10. On June 15, Andrei Timoshenko was wounded in Homs when he was guarding a humanitarian convoy of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria. He subsequently died from his wounds. He reportedly tried to prevent a suicide bomber from driving a car bomb to a place where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid.

11. On June 16, Mikhail Shirokopoyas, a 35-year-old artilleryman from the village of Seryshevo, was killed. Reports of his death in Syria appeared in the local press, but then they were deleted. The national media later reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense had confirmed his death.

In addition to these 11 confirmed deaths, independent media and bloggers have found a number of other Russian servicemen killed in Syria.

Vadim Tumakov, a contract soldier from Orenburg, reportedly served in the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and he died "under unclear circumstances." Vasily Panchenkov, head of the press service of the internal troops, said that Tumakov served as a cook and served officers of the Vityaz special forces unit from 2002 to 2004. After serving his term, he was demobilized, and his department does not have other data on him.

In March, the news site of St. Petersburg. This article, written by former police officer and security consultant Denis Korotkov, completed a series of publications on the Fontanka website that focused on mercenaries from the Slavic Corps, a private military company formed in 2013. Many Slavic Corps fighters later joined the private military company Wagner, whose name is the call sign of a very colorful person who shared the ideology of the Third Reich and fought in Ukraine and Syria.

Context

Daring Russian gambit in Syria

What about Russia in Syria?

How the war in Syria helped Russia

The secret behind seven seals

Chupov was killed on February 8, 2016, as evidenced by the inscription on his tombstone, however, according to some reports, he actually died in January. A source told Korotkov that a gray-haired elderly man in an officer's leather jacket, an FSB officer with the rank of at least a major general, came to Molkino to present medals, and some of them were awarded posthumously. Employees of the Fontanka website said they did not believe the story at first, but then they managed to obtain documents confirming the award - posthumous award certificates with Putin's signature.

Maksim Kolganov, 38, a Don Cossack from the village of Zhigulevskoye, was killed on February 3, 2016 "while performing a combat mission," according to a local Cossack Internet forum. As the Fontanka website found out, Kolganov was also an employee of the Wagner company, and he acted as a gunner-operator of the BMP in the Latakia region. His army friends showed him photographs taken in Latakia.

Another mercenary with the call sign "Hlang" (real name unknown), who is believed to be among the Wagner militants in a photograph taken in Ukrainian Donetsk, was killed in mid-December 2015. He and seven other militants were returning from reconnaissance when an anti-personnel mine went off.

Of the 93 people sent to Syria, only a third returned alive and well in December 2015, according to Korotkov's sources. However, the names of only three of them became known, and therefore it was difficult to document their deaths - and there were many of them in January and February during the battles for Palmyra - since even people who served in the same platoon did not always know each other's real names.

“Curiosity is not welcome here,” one source said.

Thomas Grove, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who interviewed Korotkov, noted that Korotkov is the only journalist who writes about Wagner's private military company (or OSM, as it is formally called); and none of the members of the Wagner group agreed to speak with Grove. But he was able to locate three other sources who said "eight or nine" private contractors from the Wagner group were killed in October 2015 when their base in western Syria came under mortar fire.

One of these sources, who was officially described as "close to the Russian Defense Ministry", said that the Wagner group consisted of 1,000 people and they had T-90 tanks and howitzers. Another source was Ivan Konovalov, director of a Moscow-based security think tank and consultant to lawmakers trying to legalize private military mercenaries, currently in a gray area legally.

Konovalov and the official said that the killed mercenaries were originally members of the Slavic Corps, which used to be in Syria, but was disbanded, but after some time they returned to Syria as part of the Wagner group.

In May 2015, Putin signed a decree making it a criminal offense to provide information about Russian military deaths abroad, and despite legal challenge by independent lawyers and journalists, it was upheld by the Russian Constitutional Court. But even before that, journalists, bloggers, and activists who tried to follow social media posts about the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine were threatened or beaten. Relatives of the soldiers were warned that they could lose their benefits if they spoke to members of the media. As a result of such threats, press reports of combat losses ceased to appear.

The Kremlin has been more open about the deaths of military personnel in Syria, but this is because the presence of the Russian air force is officially recognized, as well as the alleged bombing of ISIS positions, although in reality the strikes are carried out on those forces that are in opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The deaths of servicemen and posthumous award ceremonies have even become part of the Kremlin's patriotic propaganda fueling the war.

However, the opaque world of mercenaries cannot be officially recognized by the Russian military as long as the existence of such private contractors is illegal. And Russia will probably prefer nothing to change in this regard, and this will be done in order to have as many opportunities for “plausible deniability” as possible in Syria.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.