Moscow stifles dissent as soldiers return in coffins [View all]

[R3druM]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/12/us-ukraine-crisis-russians-special-repor-idUSKBN0H70S920140912

Excerpts:

(Reuters) - Late last month Yelena Tumanova was handed the body of her son in a coffin at her home in Russia's Western Volga region. Anton Tumanov was 20 and a soldier serving in the Russian army in the North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

The documents Yelena Tumanova was given with the body raised more questions than they answered - questions about how her son died and about the Russian government’s denials that its troops are in Ukraine. The records do not show Anton Tumanov’s place of death, said human rights activists who spoke to his mother after she got in touch with them.

"Medical documents said there were shrapnel wounds, that is he died from a loss of blood, but how it happened and where were not indicated,” said Sergei Krivenko, who heads a commission on military affairs on Russia’s presidential human rights council.

Yelena Tumanova could not be reached for comment and Reuters was unable to review the documents. But more than 10 soldiers in her dead son’s unit told Krivenko and Ella Polyakova, another member of the presidential human rights council, that Anton Tumanov died in an Aug. 13 battle near the Ukrainian town of Snizhnye. The battle, the soldiers said, killed more than 100 Russian soldiers serving in the 18th motorized rifle brigade of military unit 27777, which is based outside the Chechen capital of Grozny

A cab driver in Moscow who gave his name as Vitaly said his son was also sent to Ukraine. He has a picture on his dashboard of the 20-year-old boy smiling atop an armored personnel carrier.

Vitaly says he is furious that his son – a paratrooper based in Pskov near Estonia - has been sent to Ukraine to fight for the rebels.

"They sent him there illegally to fight for the rebels two weeks ago. He says he'll be back on Nov. 20. I'm counting the days," he said.

Vitaly says officers tried to force his son - serving mandatory military service - to change his status to a contract soldier, which would legally allow him to serve abroad. Conscripts in Russia are exempt from foreign service.

His son refused to sign, but officers sent him to Ukraine anyway.

"They dressed him up like a rebel so no one would know he was a Russian soldier and off he went," said Vitaly.