Mourners back young Russian gunner’s death in Ukraine as sacrifice for motherland

Russian private was too young to know any other leader than Putin. Killed in Ukraine, the tank gunner’s eulogies back war – a good death in the name of his motherland.

Mourners attend the funeral service for 20 year-old Russian serviceman Nikita Avrov. Picture: AFP

A baby-faced 20-year-old, Nikita Avrov was killed in Ukraine while serving as a gunner on a Russian tank.

At his funeral, those giving ­eulogies leave no room for doubt: the private died for a good cause, for his Russian motherland.

In front of his family’s house in the town of Luga, 150km south of St Petersburg, Avrov’s casket is briefly put on display, surrounded by funeral wreaths, while the flag of his motorised infantry division flies alongside.

About 60 people file past to pay their final respects to a soldier who was born after President Vladimir Putin took power in 2000.

Mourners also hold a ceremony at a war memorial where an Eternal Flame burns beside monuments to Soviet soldiers killed in World War II and ­Afghanistan.

Five fur-hatted soldiers and their commanding officer carry the coffin to the cemetery to the mournful sound of a brass band and fire their guns into the air.

In this town of 30,000 people, there is little sense of the bloody military operation in neighbouring Ukraine, launched by Russian troops on February 24, to fierce ­resistance from Ukrainian forces ­depicted by Moscow as hordes of neo-Nazis.

Some cars bear stickers with the letter Z, which has come to symbolise patriotic backing for the Russian operation.

According to the local authorities, Avrov was a gunner: loading the weapons of an assault tank.

He died late last month in Izyum, a town in eastern Ukraine that was taken by Russian troops.

Whether officials, military or clergy, those who speak at the memorial ceremony frame his death as a patriotic sacrifice.

“Fighting neo-Nazis and ­nationalists in Ukraine, he died for our motherland, for peace for each of us,” says Alexei Golubev, a ­municipal official, as the dead man posthumously receives a bravery medal.

“When Russia shows weakness, some impure people try to bring it to its knees … But they won’t manage it!”, says Sergei ­Nikitin, a colonel.

His speech echoes Moscow’s official rhetoric: that the West took advantage of Russia’s weakness after the breakup of the USSR and brought Ukraine under its sway.

In a nearby Russian Orthodox church, a priest makes similar patriotic points. “Nikita wasn’t afraid of the forces of evil. He ­defended us so that we could have peaceful skies,” says Father Nikolai, as 200 people gather to listen to the eulogy.

Mourners attend the funeral service for 20 year-old Russian serviceman Nikita Avrov, at a church in in Luga, after his death during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Picture: AFP

Standing outside are two former classmates of Avrov, who give their names as Sergei and Anton.

“Nikita was a soldier and died in combat. That’s a heroic deed,” Sergei says. “We have to defend our country. It’s true that it’s the best ones who die,” adds Anton.

A mournful mood about such deaths prevails among women present. The exact numbers of Russian troops killed in Ukraine are not known, while a Kremlin spokesman last week acknowledged they are “significant”. Russia last gave a figure of 1351 deaths, on March 25.

Russians choose their words carefully, since they face potential jail terms if they are found guilty of making “fake” statements about the military’s activities in Ukraine.

At the cemetery, another woman, 48-year-old Svetlana, who prefers not to give her surname, expresses bemusement. “It’s terrifying to even imagine what the mother feels. You wouldn’t wish that on your enemy. What grief. What are these horrors happening, that mothers are losing children? This can have no justification,” she says.

AFP