Yelena Matveyeva shows photos of her husband, Stanislav, who is thought to have died fighting in Syia. "Wherever they sent them, there was no defense. They just threw them into battle like pigs," she contends. "The government should avenge them somehow."
Radio Free Europe: After Syria Deaths, Creeping Anger -- And Kremlin Silence -- Over Mercenaries
Combat was not Ruslan Gavrilov’s primary motivation in signing up to go to Syria with a shadowy private military company. But the 34-year-old Russian also wasn't "going to Syria to build houses," he told relatives.
Rather, his mother says, Gavrilov was simply down on his luck and "wanted to earn some money." He was one of at least 10 men around her son's age who were recruited from their village around the same time, she adds.
"He didn’t have regular work -- it was temporary, hanging doors or putting up ceilings," Faina Gavrilova tells Current Time TV at the family home in Kedrovoye, in the central Russian region of Sverdlovsk. "Sometimes there's work; sometimes there isn't."
Gavrilov is on a growing list of Russian fighters who are thought to have died in massive U.S. air strikes in Syria's Deir al-Zor Province on February 7, at least several of them natives of Sverdlovsk.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: This story reminds me of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster when the Kremlin decided to stay quiet instead of informing the public that the disaster was unfolding. As to how is the Russian public reacting to these reports on Russian contractors being killed in Syria .... if social media and independent Russian media is any indication .... there are many who want answers, there are many who are critical of the Kremlin, and there are some who are calling for revenge. This story is not going to go away soon, and with the Russian Presidential election now only weeks away .... I can Russian President Putin being put under a lot of pressure to explain what really happened. The problem is that it was only a few weeks ago that he declared "Mission Accomplish" in Syria .... Is Putin's Declaration Of ‘Mission Accomplished’ On Syria Premature? (December 12, 2017).
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