They survived a little

Over the past week, about 300 people were killed and wounded in Syria working for a Russian private military company related to the Kremlin. It is reported by Reuters with reference to three sources familiar with the circumstances of what happened.

According to the Russian military doctor, about 100 people were killed and about 200 were injured. The time of loss coincides with the battle in Muhafaz Deir ez-Zor, when the coalition troops struck the advancing columns in which there were EMC employees.

According to Rain, the ex-deputy of the State Duma Victor Alksnis said that 334 Russians were killed under the American blow on February 7: 217 people from the fifth assault squad of the Vagner PMC, 10 people from the second assault detachment, 94 from the Vesna assault detachment and 13 people from the artillery division. “This is the data collected from a survey of family members, those people who fought in Syria, who have information about the latest events there. In my opinion, this figure is inappropriate,” added Alksnis. According to him, the military personnel of the special operations of the Russian army also participated in the battle near Deir Ez-Zor-there is no data on losses among them.

Radio Liberty published an audio recording from the WhatsApp messenger, on which the surviving Russian mercenary talks about the battle of Deir Ez-Zor. He also agreed to answer the questions of journalists. According to the militant, three companies of mercenaries who were traveling to capture the oil plant fell under an American blow: 200 people were killed in the first, about 20 in the second, in the third - 75. He describes the fight like this: Russians were fired from the receiver when they approached 400-500 meters to the plant; After the mercenaries repeatedly tried to take the plant storm with the onset of darkness, they were shot by American helicopters. The mercenary assumes that someone "handed over" to the militants from Russia - according to him, this could be either the command of the Russian army or the forces of the dictator Bashar al -Assad. At the same time, the Assad army had portable anti-aircraft missile systems "needle", but the Syrians did not cover the Russians from the ground. The militant said that he traveled to Syria several times, and in 2014-2015 he was in the Donbass as an instructor.

According to Reuters sources, the wounded were taken from Syria to four Russian military hospitals. The military doctor who works in the Moscow hospital and directly took part in the treatment of the wounded, said that as of the evening of February 10, there were more than 50 such patients in his hospital, of which 30 percent had severe injuries.

According to the doctor, from February 9 to 11, at least three aircraft with the wounded arrived in Moscow. These are specially equipped military transport aircraft, in which there are 2-3 modules for seriously wounded and up to several dozen seats for lightly wounded.

Ataman of the Cossack Society of Khovrino, Evgeny Shabaev, familiar with a number of mercenaries, said that on Wednesday he visited the wounded in Syria in the Central Military Hospital of the Ministry of Defense in Khimki. Those told him that two divisions of Russian private military specialists who took part in the battle near Deir ez-Zor had 550 people. Of this number, about 200 people were not killed and were not injured.

The agency’s source close to the Wagner group, who spoke with the battle participants on February 7, said from their words about more than 80 dead mercenaries from Russia. In his opinion, the total number of approximately 300 killed and wounded "generally true."

On Thursday, the official representative of the Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, at a briefing, said that, according to preliminary data, on February 7, as a result of the coalition of the Coalition in Muhafaz Deir ez-Zor , five Russian citizens, and not hundreds, were killed . This was reported on Twitter of the department. As a result of the strike of the international coalition on government forces in Syria, Zakharova called the data on the death of the "many Russian military".

"The conflict zones contain a large number of citizens from all regions of the world, including Russia and the CIS. The goals of their stay in" hot spots "are different, including participation in the hostilities. These people do not turn to the state bodies for their departure," Zakharova noted. "To track them all and check who is doing what is in, in which state is very difficult. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with other state organs, is reflected by each state The case, since the protection of Russian citizens abroad is one of our main tasks. "

Meanwhile, Conflict Intelligence Team called eight Russians who died at a airstrike in Deir ez-Zor.

On Thursday, the Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Center (SOHR) said that Russian mercenaries in Syria suffered new losses. During the explosion of the ammunition warehouse on the east bank of the Euphrates River in Muhafaz Deir ez-Zor, 15 PMC employees were killed. We received weapons for the offensive planned in the area at oil and gas fields. At that moment, a min-trap exploded. When exactly this happened, is not reported. Among the dead there are no Russian military personnel, they note in SOHR.