In her desperate search for answers about the death of her son Valentin, Elena even turned to Vladimir Putin.
She wrote to the Russian president demanding an explanation of why an 18-year performance was involved in the fight.
During the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin promised that servicemen would not be sent to war. But in Valentin’s case, the war came to him.
Valentin (18) died of his military service for almost a year
He was deployed to the Kursk region as part of his military service and stationed on the border.
But there were the Ukrainian powers their border -border invasion in August and a month after it started, Valentin died after receiving a shrapnel wound to the head.
“It must be specially trained people there, not children,” says Elena.
“They were taken from home, from a mother’s nest, and brought to an unknown place where it was shot.
“What kind of fighter is he? He is not a fighter. ‘
Valentin’s grave
Like other cases soldiers, Russia sees Valentin as a hero, but it is no comfort for Elena. All she has are questions that she was not afraid of directly to Mr. Putin to sit.
“The most important question was: ‘What did our children do there? “But I got no response,” she says.
“At that moment I just wanted to take the whole world and turn it upside down.
“Who says they are obliged for military service, what do they owe them? What took my son of the motherland to pay a debt with his life? ‘
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Valentin was a few weeks short of his 19th birthday when he died, and almost a year after his military service. Elena did not want him to report so soon – head boy at school, he could have postponed a further study until after further study – but she says he was excited to serve and insisted.
Photos of him in his parade -uniform are all over her apartment in Rybinsk, a city 160 miles northeast of Moscow. His blue beret sits on a shelf. And Elena still hopes he will one day walk through the door.
Valentin, who was at school, was eager to serve
The Valentin cemetery is buried in
“I’m still waiting for him to return home, even though I saw his body. I still can’t believe it, ‘she says and tears running over her face.
“Sometimes I sit and think who my grandchildren could have been. It is impossible to live that way. It’s not life. ‘
Russia does not publish its casualty figures, but the United Kingdom estimates that more than 750,000 Russian troops were either dead or wounded in the three years since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion began.
Valentin is buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rybinsk – a 20 -minute bus ride for Elena. There are dozens and dozens of military graves there, each marked with flags. The grave next to Valentin is for a serviceman who was killed on the same day as him.
It is rare for someone to talk openly about the war in Russia, because if you criticize it, you can end up in prison. But Elena is determined to prevent other mothers from experiencing the same experience.
“I just want one thing – for all kids to come home,” she said.
“I want them to hear us and give our children back in the same condition we gave them, not cold.”
