The Moscow Ministry of Defense asserts that only experienced and professional military personnel were sent to Donbass to initiate the special military operation against Ukraine. The story of the young Maxim Khanyghin , however, tells a very different scenario.
Maxim Khanyghin, the story of the Russian conscript soldier who died in Ukraine
Maxim Khanyghin came from the village of Ozernoye , near the city of Saratov, about 700 kilometers of steppe from Moscow. At the end of October 2021, he left for military service . Before leaving the village, he told his mother Ludmilla that he would be away to participate in a drill . The woman was not worried: her second son, Stanislav , had already been drafted in the Russian Far East, at the base located on the island of Sakhalin . After six months, the second son had been offered to sign up to join the Russian army but, despite the favorable pay, he had decided to refuse .due to the excessive distance from home.
Things, however, did not go the same way for Maxim. On his birthday, in fact, the military commissioner of the region contacted the family to tell them that the boy was dead .
Shortly after the phone call with which the dramatic news was learned, the mother of the young Maxim Khanyghin received a text message with which the certificate of “qualification for funeral” was delivered.
The last time the boy had contacted the house was on February 23, 2022 while the last photo sent to family members portrayed him holding a Kalashnikov . The shot was accompanied by the phrase “Don’t worry, it’s only the second time they let me use it” and a smiling emoticon .
The mother: “They didn’t give me his body”
Following the communication received, the grave that should have kept the body of Maxim Khanyghin has already been dug in the cemetery of the village of Ozernoye. The pit, however, is awaiting the young man’s remains.
The boy’s mother, in fact, is still waiting for Moscow to send her the official letter with the notice of her son’s death. Therefore, Ludmilla called Belgord , the place where the young soldier was stationed, but she was told that the young man was completing the training . She then contacted the military registry in Moscow and then also the FSB , heir to the KGB, the Russian Federation’s security service which told her: “We have no information”.
The local enlistment office, on the other hand, promised her that they would do what they could to return Maxim’s body .
Meanwhile, as she waits to bury her eldest son, Ludmilla’s youngest son, Fedor , turned 18 in October 2021 and is expected to leave for military service in the spring.
Official Russian estimates of the war and the many untold Maxim Khanyghins
Maxim Khanyghin is one of the many young Russian soldiers that the Kremlin has sent to die in Ukraine . One of the many that the budgets of the Russian authorities hide and do not include in the official estimates that, almost twenty days after the start of the war against Kiev, they count just 498 losses among the ranks of the Moscow army. According to experts, in fact, it is assumed that the figure should be multiplied by at least three to show the reality of what is happening in Ukraine.
According to reports, the boy would have turned 25 on 25 February but died on the first day of the Russian-Ukrainian war , during the fighting that took place in the Donbass region.