Russian city mayor tries to console sister of dead soldier with promise to "finally repair bridge"

The mayor of Morshansk in Tambov Oblast, Alexei Bannikov, explained to the sister of a Russian soldier that her brother died in the war in Ukraine so that “our bridge would finally be repaired.” The governor of the region, Maxim Egorov, said that he was ashamed of Bannikov, and he himself said that his words were “taken out of context.”

Bannikov met with the sister of Russian soldier Viktor Shcherbakov at the end of June. He presented her with the Order of Courage that her brother was posthumously awarded and tried to explain to her why he died.

"So that our children could now relax in children's camps, so that our city could be improved, so that there would be sports grounds, so that our bridge would finally be repaired, so that we would have an embankment. It was for all of this that your brother died," Bannikov told the sobbing woman.

After the video with the “consolations” was distributed in the media and social networks, Tambov Region Governor Maxim Egorov wrote on his Telegram channel that he was ashamed of Bannikov’s words.

“Sometimes our officials, when sincere words of support and sympathy are needed, cannot find the right words and come up with something completely opposite to common sense and compassion,” the governor’s message said.

In turn, Bannikov first wrote on his Telegram channel that “the words are really not the best ones – both because they were taken out of context, and perhaps in themselves, too, out of excitement,” and then he completely blamed “Bandera trolls” for everything.

"These are the guys from the Center for Informal Psychological Operations, Bandera trolls. On my VKontakte page it is clearly written that I said that our guys are fighting and that this guy died, unfortunately, so that our guys could have a normal childhood. So that they could relax in children's camps, so that the city could be improved and so that the Bandera infection would not come to us," the propaganda publication Izvestia quoted Bannikov as saying.

In January 2024, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov stated that Russian soldiers were dying in Ukraine so that Russian schools would not have gender-neutral toilets.

“These guys, who saw toilets in schools where instead of two rooms – for girls and boys, there were three rooms – for girls, boys and gender-neutral, don’t need to be told what values ​​we stand for,” he said at a meeting with wounded Russian soldiers in a hospital.

At the same time, Beglov suggested that military personnel who had lost their health meet with Paralympic athletes to “discuss with them the start of their sports careers.”

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