Did not return without a fight

In Syria, a 19-year-old contractor from the Krasnodar Territory Vadim Kostenko died. Information about his death was found on social networks by activists of the Conflict Intelligence Team group . "Checking the information, his profile, the profiles of his friends and relatives, we found a lot of evidence that he was the current contract for the contract. He finished the military service in June 2015 and immediately signed the contract," the CIT report said.

Relatives of the deceased confirmed that officers from the military airfield of Primorsko-Akhtarsk came to them-there, according to the publication, the 960th assault aircraft regiment of the 1st Guards Mixed Air District Air Force and Air Defense is now based. The authors of the investigation suggest that Kostenko was not a pilot, but was engaged in the maintenance of equipment at the airfield.

One of the close relatives of the contractor confirmed RBC that Kostenko was sent to Syria on September 14, and on October 25, the family was informed about his death. According to the interlocutor of the publication, initially the family at the military registration and enlistment office said that Kostenko hanged himself. Later from the unit they reported that the soldier was found dead, not specifying the details of the incident.

The Kremlin did not comment on the situation, Interfax reports . Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised reporters to address the Ministry of Defense. “I don’t know anything about it,” Peskov said.

Later, the Ministry of Defense confirmed the fact of the death of a soldier, clarifying that it was suicide. “The Khmeimim military serviceman who served the Khmeimim air base as a technical specialist committed suicide during the rest after duty,” Interfax told the press service and information department, noting that all the circumstances of the tragedy are currently being investigated.

"According to preliminary information, including on the basis of an analysis of SMS messages in his phone, the cause of the death of a contract of a contract was a discord in personal relations with a girl," the report said.

However, the parents of the deceased, Alexander and Svetlana Kostenko, refuse to believe in the version of the Ministry of Defense. Svetlana Kostenko told Reuters that on the day of his death, October 24, her son called her and "was fun, joyful and laughed." She clarified that every day she talked for half an hour with Vadim Kostenko on the phone. Alexander Kostenko, for his part, noticed that his son would never have committed suicide because of his relationship with a girl.

In the same spirit, in an interview with the radio station "Says Moscow", the colleague of the deceased Grigory Donskoy spoke . “A man who, because of this (conflict with a girl. - Ed.) Could put his hands on himself,“ is not him, ”Donsky said.“ It is difficult to believe in it. ”

The funeral of Kostenko, according to CIT, should take place on the Khutor Barka Balka of the Kalinin district of the Krasnodar Territory. The body of the deceased has been delivered to Mozdok, but not yet transmitted to relatives.

Meanwhile, a member of the Presidential Council of Human Rights, the director of the group "Citizen. Army. Law" Sergei Krivenko announced the need to institute a criminal case on the fact of the death of Kostenko.

The fact that at least three Russians were killed when a shell entered their position in the Syrian coastal province of Latakia, Reuters previously reported, referring to a senior pro -government military source. According to the source, the incident occurred on the night of October 19. Rami Abdurakhman, the head of the Syrian observation group on human rights based in the UK, said that his sources in the combat area confirmed the death of Russians. However, he does not know whether we are talking about current military personnel or volunteers fighting on the side of government forces.

The Russian Embassy in Damascus denied the message of the agency. “No information about the deaths of three Russians” or “three Russian troops” in Syria, which was reported by Reuters, is not disposed. All this is very similar to the next informational stuffing, ”the diplomatic mission said.