“Alexei Martynov, a 28-year-old employee of the Moscow government, was mobilised on 23 September, his father said. His death was confirmed on 10 October. “My son has died, what am I for?” he wrote in a post on 13 October. “We don’t know anything more than what was put on the internet,” he told the Observer.
Old photographs from Victory Day in 2016 showed Martynov in army uniform, two months after completing his mandatory service. According to Natalya Loseva, the deputy editorial director of the RT television channel, he had served in the Semyonovsky regiment, whose main activities are ceremonial.
“He had no combat experience,” Loseva wrote in an angry post last week that made Martynov the highest-profile death yet from the wave of mobilisation. “He was sent to the front within just a few days. He died heroically on 10 October.””
Putin is destroying Russia