Rights defenders demand to establish circumstances of Astrakhan soldiers' death in Rostov Region

The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of the Astrakhan Region is checking – at the request of relatives – the information about the death of two soldiers on the border with Ukraine, said Anatoly Salin, an expert of the above NGO.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 25, Sergey Krivenko and Ella Polyakova, members of the Council under the Russian President on Civil Society Development and Human Rights (known as SPCh), appealed to the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) asking to check the information about the death of nine contractors of the 18^th Motorised Brigade in the firing range in the Rostov Region. Elena Tumanova, the mother of one of the soldiers, has reported that her son and his colleagues, who were serving at the 18^th Motorized Rifle Brigade deployed in Chechnya, perished near Donetsk in Uktaine.

The request to the Astrakhan Committee was sent by relatives of the two soldiers.

One of the casualties – Junior Sergeant Konstantin Kuzmin from the village of Ikryanoe, took his service in Chechnya, in the city of Shali. In July, he was sent by the command of his unit to the Rostov Region. His last call to relatives was on August 8, when he said that he was in southern Ukraine. On August 12, he was killed. According to the forensic examiner, the body had multiple wounds, a blood loss, followed by charring.

Rights defenders have sent inquiries to the Prosecutor's Office of the Southern Military District, asking to find out why the documents fail to specify the exact cause of death, the TV Channel "Astrakhan 24" reports.

Another resident of the Astrakhan Region, named Ildar, born in 1993, who served in the airborne troops, was transferred, in July 2014, for further service in the city of Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Region, where on July 28 he died from a gunshot wound, the "Astra News" reports.

Anatoly Salin refused to disclose more details about Ildar.

As reported by "Province.ru", activist of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers try to clarify whether there were more casualties from Astrakhan in the Rostov Region.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.