Russian soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine were killed, on average, just months after joining Moscow’s armed forces, according to an independent investigation cited by Business Insider.
Russian soldiers in uniform at a training center for mobilizationPhoto: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia
The investigation carried out by the Russian site Important Stories and analysts from the Conflict Intelligence Team was published on Thursday, one year since President Vladimir Putin announced the decree of “partial mobilization” in Russia.
Investigative journalists and independent analysts have now calculated an estimate of the “life expectancy” of Russians called up by Putin to fight in the war he launched in February 2022, Europe’s biggest since the end of World War II.
Investigators compiled a list of Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine with the help of obituaries published in local newspapers and messages on social networks of their relatives or officials from various regions of Russia.
The result of the investigation shows that, on average, the life expectancy of Russian soldiers between the time of mobilization and the time of their killing is 4 and a half months.
Russia sent men with families to die in Ukraine
Other calculations show that 20 percent of Russian soldiers identified as killed in Ukraine died within two months of their deployment, while 12 percent were under the age of 25.
More than half of the mobilized men who died in Ukraine were between the ages of 30 and 45, despite assurances given by Russian authorities at the time that no men with families would be sent to the “special military operation” area. President Putin had personally given assurances in this regard.
The investigation also provided details regarding the lives and fate of some mobilized men. For example, Viacheslav Moiseev, a 24-year-old man from the Perm region, was killed on August 25. He was mobilized 3 months after the birth of his son.
Two brothers, Igor and Dmitri Dadanov, died on the same day, leaving behind 4 orphaned children. The two were originally from the Republic of Buryatia, one of the Russian regions believed to have suffered among the heaviest losses in the “special military operation”.
Igor Dadanov was 33, the average age of the slain Russian soldiers identified by the new investigation.
HIMARS attack on Makiivka, the biggest disaster for the Russian army
Important Stories also states that the HIMARS attack on the Makiivka barracks on New Year’s Eve was the deadliest incident for the Russian military since the start of the war.
Moreover, this strike by the Ukrainians triggered a wave of consternation and anger in Russia, the number of those killed as a result of the attack being too high to be hidden even by Russian television.
But the Russian military claimed shortly after the extent of the disaster became apparent that the soldiers who lost their lives in Makiivka during the Ukrainian HIMARS attack were to blame for their own deaths because they allegedly revealed their position.
“The main reason for the tragedy at Makiivka was the massive use of mobile phones by the staff, despite the ban. This factor allowed the enemy to locate and establish the coordinates of the location of the military personnel for a missile strike,” stated a statement issued to the press by the Ministry of Defense in Moscow on January 3.
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