Russian mercenaries return in coffins from their ‘deadly vacation’

Russian state television showed the funeral of a Russian servicemen who died in Donbas for the first time. However, the audience is being convinced that he went to fight the Ukrainian army of his own volition, having written a holiday request. According to the Ukrainian NSDC, the number of Russian servicemen who died in Donbas may reach two thousand. More on the Russian soldiers’ ‘deadly holidays’ and how the Russian media present them.  “Anatoliy Travkin was paid his last respects in Kostroma. A month ago he want to Donbas and died in combat. He did not speak about his decision to his wife, whom he married this summer, nor the commandment of the unit he served in. Officially, he went on holiday,” reports Russian Channel One. The report showed the grieving wife of the deceased, his friends and family. Russian journalists emphasize that Travkin was buried “in a military ceremony.” However, nobody from the leadership of the unit the deceased had served in spoke on camera. The Russian journalists did not question whether the commandment really had not given orders to go fight in Donbas on the side of the separatists. The request, which Travkin allegedly had written himself, failed to appear in the shot as well. The information that the leadership of the military unit did not order to go to war to Ukraine is presented as 100% factual by the Russian journalists. However, the interview the authors of the report added emphasizes that Russia is proud of the young man’s actions. This opinion was shared with the Russian Channel One by Mikhail Kozlov, a paratrooper veteran who came to bid farewell to the deceased. “It is sad that we are losing young men. But I am proud of the fact that boys who are partial to what is happening in our world now are growing up in provincial Russian towns. And they follow their souls, their hearts, in doing what they must,” the Russian paratrooper veteran said. When talking about “our world,” the subject of the report meant Ukrainian Donbas, where the body of the deceased came from. According to the Ukrainian NSDC, there are increasingly more pseudo-volunteers who decided to go on holiday in a combat zone in a foreign country instead of the seaside. NSDC: casualties among Russian soldiers in Donbas may reach 2 thousand In particular, according to the NSDC information center official Andriy Lysenko, Ukrainian intelligence data shows that the number of Russian servicemen in the combat zone in Donbas may reach 2 thousand people. “We can calculate the number of the wounded by multiplying the number of the dead by four,” noted Lysenko. Russian TV channel TVRain shows the deaths of the Russian servicemen in a somewhat different light. In particular, today, the TV channel’s website posted information that the body of the deceased Russian soldier Vasily Karayev will be returned from Donetsk to his parents. As TVRain notes, “the exact cause of death is unknown. They promised to inform his family members of it after the coffin arrives.” Trying to make sense of the situation, the journalists turned to the press secretary of the Central Military District. The latter denied the information that Vasily Karavayev died during a shelling in Donbas. According to him, this cannot be, as Russian servicemen are not participating in battle in Ukraine. Officially, Russia does not acknowledge the presence of its troops in Ukraine, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult to hide their cargo 200, their dead soldiers. Meanwhile Russian representative in the UN Vitaly Churkin earlier stated that “Russian volunteers” are participating in combat in the east of Ukraine. He also added that “nobody is hiding this fact.” Meanwhile the NATO published images that prove the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

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  Source: Radio Liberty Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina