On a cold April morning, a closed casket was laid to rest with military honors at the local cemetery in Petrozavodsk, a city of 235000 in the Republic of Karelia.
Inside the coffin was the body of 19-year-old Russian soldier Kirill Chistyakov, one of the first to be sent by the Kremlin to attack Ukraine in 2022.
Relatives, friends and local officers gathered to pay their respects to Chistjakov, who was killed about 1750 kilometers from his hometown.
For millions of Russians, the war is far from their daily lives, except for those in the regions near Ukraine who are facing intense cross-border missile attacks.
For the Chistyakov family - and the families of at least 49 Russian soldiers confirmed to have died in the conflict - the war changed everything. Yet even when faced with such loss, it is rare for family members of fallen soldiers to publicly question the war.
Irina Chistyakova, the soldier's mother, cried and fell to her knees as the military guards fired three volleys and local priests said a prayer.
Those who came to say goodbye to Chistjakov also cried and laid wreaths.
Chistyakov was buried at the Sulazhgora Honorary Cemetery along with other Russian soldiers and mercenaries of the Wagner group who died in the war.
"It's painful when parents have to bury their children, especially when it happens to a young person whose whole life was in front of them," said Georgij, Chistjakov's friend. "I am burying him, and he was only a month younger than me".
Irina Chistyakova has been desperately trying to find her son for two years after he disappeared during an operation in the village of Mala Rohan in the Kharkiv region. Russian forces occupied the village for 20 days in March 2022 and used it as a base to fire on the city of Kharkiv.
Although there is no public information on how Chistyakov died, it is known that Mala Rohan was the site of fierce clashes and that Ukraine regained control of the village in late March 2022. Human rights organizations then called for an investigation into claims of alleged abuse of captured Russian soldiers by Ukrainian forces
Although there is no public information on how Chistyakov died, it is known that Mala Rohan was the site of fierce clashes and that Ukraine regained control of the village at the end of March. Human rights organizations then called for an investigation into claims of alleged abuse of captured Russian soldiers by Ukrainian forces in Mala Rohan.
Since childhood, Chistyakov dreamed of becoming a soldier - he joined the cadet military school for boys and graduated with honors.
When he turned 2021 in 19, Chistyakov joined the army as a conscript, fulfilling his mandatory military service. He actually signed a military contract in November of that year, his mother said, and he hardly expected to be sent to the front in just three months.
Shortly before the invasion, he told his family that he and his colleagues were being sent to military exercises in the Kursk region to "protect the border" and that they would not be able to be in contact for about a month.
"They didn't even know why they were going to Ukraine. They had no idea," said his mother in an interview.
The last time Chistyakov called his family was shortly after the start of the invasion, and he did so from a Ukrainian phone number.
Since then, Irina Chistyakova had to search for her son in Russian morgues and in Ukrainian captivity. She even contacted Ukrainian mothers and the Ukrainian Red Cross in search of any information.
Chistyakova spoke about Kirill's disappearance to the media, calling on the authorities to act, and even appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. She became one of the leading voices among mothers whose sons were sent to Ukraine.
"We, the citizens of the Russian Federation, elected you as president so that there would be order in the country... We elected you so that you would defend our law and the citizens of this country," she said at the time in the appeal.
As part of her search for answers, she also pored over numerous photographs of fallen soldiers and visited military morgues in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, helping other families find their missing ones.
Eventually, she spoke with a freed Russian prisoner of war who claimed that her son had also been captured in Ukraine. However, it was later established that the freed prisoner mistook the other young man for Chistyakov.
Čistjakov's remains were identified last month through DNA analysis, his mother said.
Shortly after the start of the invasion, Putin said that "professional military personnel - officers and soldiers under contract - are participating in this operation. There are no recruits, and we don't plan to do that."
Čistjakova believes that her son was "deceived" into signing a military contract.
However, despite her criticism of the Russian military and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the apparent lack of efforts to help her find her son, Chistyakov does not seem to question why the Kremlin started the war. Instead, her criticisms are mostly focused on the fact that untrained soldiers took part in the invasion.
"Such a military operation should have included trained individuals who had experience in conflicts such as Chechnya and Syria," Chistyakova said. "When such a situation arises and troops are deployed, they should not include our children".
Russian authorities insist they were "forced" to launch what they called a special military operation to "protect the country" from Ukrainian and Western aggression.
At the funeral in Petrozavodsk, local officials also praised Chistyakov as a hero who died defending Russia.
"Today we say goodbye to a member of the Russian army, Kirill Alekseyevich Chistyakov, who died in the zone of a special military operation," said local official Dmitry Marchenko, standing next to the coffin at the cemetery.
"Kiril honorably fulfilled his military duty to protect the citizens of the Russian Federation and the citizens of the new regions from the rise of Nazism," he added, referring to Ukrainian territories under Moscow's occupation and repeating the Kremlin's claims that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis.
Chistyakov was also posthumously awarded the Order of Courage, a state award for people who have shown commitment and courage. "Kiril gave his life for his homeland, for his fatherland, for his people," said local military commissar Vladimir Kudrik.
However, the grieving mother said that the awards and honors will not make up for the loss of her son.
“Hell is over for me. No amount of money, no awards or anything else will ever take away this pain. They managed to kill my son. But they could not kill his soul," she said.
"To be a warrior is to live forever".
Prepared by: NB
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