Three More Russians Lost Their Lives in Syria – Media

According to Reuters, three more Russians have been killed in the fighting in Syria.

Photo: Reuters / Omar Sanadiki

The Reuters news agency reported about the deaths of three more Russians in the fighting in Syria. Two of them were Russian military, while the third one was a fighter of a private military company. The death of one of them was confirmed by his friend.

According to the news agency, since the end of January this year, two more Russian soldiers lost their lives in Syria: an officer Sergei Travin, who was a little over forty years old, and a commander of a mountain reconnaissance battalion, 37-year-old Igor Vorona. Their deaths were not confirmed by the Russian Defense Ministry. Reuters did not provide details of their deaths. Igor Vorona’s friend, Svetlana Goncharova, confirmed his death to the RBC information portal. According to her, the serviceman was killed on February 5, 2017.

As Roman Savostyanov, another friend of Vorona, told RBC, the serviceman was a career military man. “Igor is my former comrade-in-arms. In 2001, I served with him in the 84th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion of the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division,” Savostyanov said. According to him, Vorona obtained a rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army Special Forces. “He did not tell me about Syria, we usually just corresponded about civil issues,” the former comrade-in-arms added.

Recently, Vorona graduated from a military academy in Moscow and was killed in Syria, his friend Elena Petrova told RBC. “This is my friend, like a member of my family. I had known about his death in February, literally right after it happened. Many people do not return from temporary duty in Ukraine and Syria. They do not tell anything about this on TV, but everyone knows this,” Petrova said. According to her, Vorona was a lieutenant colonel of the Russian Army.

Igor Vorona (Photo: RBC / Personal archive)

In addition, Reuters found out that one of the fighters of a private military company, 52-year-old Yuriy Sokalskiy, also was killed in Syria. According to a person familiar with him, on January 10 of this year, he went from Gelendzhik, where he lived, to Rostov-on-Don in order to join a group, which worked for a private military company and was going to be sent to Syria.

As Reuters reported, citing a document from the Russian Consulate in Damascus, as well as a death certificate, issued by the military hospital in Homs, Sokalskiy died of shrapnel injuries in Tiyas village (Homs province) on January 31. According to the news agency, in addition to him, Aleksey Naynodin, Roman Rudenko and another man, a resident of the Russian city of Kropotkin, whose name was not found out by Reuters, also died on the same day.

RBC sent a request to the Russian Defense Ministry, asking to provide comments on the news agency’s information.

Earlier, information about the deaths of Naynodin and Rudenko, who died on the same day, were also announced by the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT).

On March 6, it also became known about the deaths of two other Russian servicemen in Syria, Yuriy Slyshkin and Artem Gorbunov. The death of the second was confirmed by the Russian Defense Ministry, while, according to RBC, the first soldier fought in the ranks of the so-called Wagner private military company.

On March 7, the CIT reported about the death of Russian citizen Vasily Yurlin in Syria, who was also a fighter of the Wagner private military company. The serviceman’s father, Sergey Yurlin, confirmed his death to RBC. Answering a question whether his son worked for a private military company, he said: “Yes, something like that.” On March 20, the Fontanka newspaper reported about the death of a 45-year-old fighter of a private military company, Aleksandr Sagaydak. His friends confirmed this information to RBC.