Russian soldiers’ deaths remain unexplained

Russian serviceman Fyodor Zhuravlyov left home in a rush. He only managed to scrawl a phone number and a few words to his wife on a sheet of paper. “I’m away on a work trip,” the note said, according to a family friend.

Zhuravlyov’s wife never saw him again. Late last week the military contacted the family to say that he was killed in combat on Thursday, Nove-mber 19. The 27-year-old now joins the growing ranks of the Russian Ar-my’s unexplained dead, victims of the Kremlin’s military engagements inside Russia and, in the past few years, beyond its borders too that are so secretive nobody will officially acknowledge where the deaths have occurred.

Some of the deaths have occurred in Ukraine, where Russian troops have backed separatist rebels, though the Kremlin denies that. Others may have happened in Syria, where Russia says it is helping government forces fight Islamist extremists but only acknowledges a limited military presence.

Zhuravlyov’s death was first noticed by Conflict Intelligence Team, a gro-up of Russian investigative bloggers, who used social media posts and other sources to uncover information about Russ-ian military deaths in Ukraine. At Zhuravlyov’s funeral on Tuesday in his home village in western Russia, the commander of his unit said he died while taking part in a counter-terrorism operation in Russia’s mainly Muslim region of the North Caucasus, in which armed forces killed 14 Islamist militants in the Kabardino-Balkaria repu-blic.

However, that operation took place on Sunday, acc-ording to an official statement, three days after the date of Zhuravlyov’s death, inscribed on the plaque attached to a polished wooden cross planted at the head of his grave. There was no public record of any security forces having been killed in that operation. Russia’s southern military district, which oversees military activities in a region that includes Kabardino-Balkaria, declined to comment.

The family friend and another person, a neighbour, who knows Zhuravlyov’s family, both said they believed he could have been killed in Syria, though they had no evidence for this. “And where else could he die ” said the friend, who had been in touch with the family since Zhuravlyov’s death.

Zhuravlyov’s elder bro-ther Alexander, himself a military serviceman, also said he had been killed in an operation inside Rus-sia. The Russian defence and foreign ministries did not respond to questions about where Zhura-vlyov was killed and whether it was in an overseas operation.