Alexander Korolkov, a 22-year-old conscript from Dmitrov, outside Moscow, was sent to fight in the war with Ukraine despite having attempted suicide during his military service, Veter reported after interviewing his mother.
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“I think it’s all because of the army, because Sasha is very kind, trusting, and sensitive. We didn’t have any problems like teenagers sometimes have, with partying or anything like that. He’s a very homebound boy. There, it seems, he couldn’t handle the pressure,” Maria Korolkova, the conscript’s mother, said.
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“We told Sasha that he absolutely should not sign a contract. Then he called me and said they had pushed him into it,” his mother said. The military unit refused to show her the contract, and she believes it was fabricated.
In April 2025, Korolkov’s unit sent him on an assault operation in the occupied territories of Ukraine. He went missing there, and in the summer of 2026, the unit petitioned a court to have him declared dead. His mother received a death certificate for her son.
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Really hoping the lad isn’t dead and he just deserted to the Ukrainian forces, told them where his unit was and all the information he knew, and is now safe and sound somewhere warm having a bowl of borscht.
That would be a nice if unlikely (he was already suicidal) outcome but it does not invalidate the concern these parents have. There are hundreds if not thousands of similar cases, incl. the “they had pushed him into it” part.
Also, what you describe used to happen a lot in the early days of the war, but I’m not sure it still does?
I know, I know… maybe it would’ve been more correct to say ‘wishing’. Anyway, let us keep a bit of hope alive, even if just a tiny bit.