The prisoner who went missing in the Siberian colony died in Ukraine

In one of the graves with Russians who died in Ukraine, delivered to Novosibirsk airport, is the body of 39-year-old prisoner Gennady Gerbold from Buryatia, who disappeared last November from the local colony No. 8. His relatives were contacted by “representatives of the PMC”, who said that he died about two weeks ago. The information was confirmed by Sibir.Realii and Radio Svoboda journalists.

The sister of the deceased prisoner reported that she found out that he was recruited into the PMC and was in Ukraine only in December. “On November 27, we spoke with him, he assured that he would not go to Ukraine under any circumstances. On the 28th, he disappeared and I learned about his “death”. Of course, I suspect that he was forcibly taken to the war,” said Herbold .

Relatives of the deceased in a conversation with a Radio Liberty journalist stated that the coffin with the body was delivered to the airport two weeks ago, but it has not yet been sent to Buryatia. They also reported that Herbold was serving a sentence on the charge of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm that caused the victim’s death due to carelessness. Before that, he was tried under the article of illegal felling of planted forests.

Earlier, Sibir.Realii reported that several dozen coffins with the bodies of dead Russian servicemen were delivered to the Tolmachevo airport in Novosibirsk. The journalists had a video recorded by an eyewitness, which shows more than a hundred wooden boxes stacked in a separate room. Death certificates are attached to the vast majority. Siberia. Realia managed to confirm the identity of several military personnel, all of them were recruited by “Wagner PMC”

The administration of Tolmachevo denies that one of the airport premises is on the footage. “This is unreliable information. The premises broadcasted in this video do not belong to and are not located on the territory of the Tolmachevo airport,” the representative of the airport told the “Podyem” publication.

• On February 12, the BBC and Mediazon published data on the number of Russian army casualties since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to journalists’ calculations based on open sources, 14 thousand 93 Russian soldiers died. We are talking only about confirmed cases of death – the real number of losses may be much higher. The journalists noted that since the publication of the previous summary, on January 27, 1,555 names have been added to the list of the dead, and this is the largest increase during the entire war.
• The Ministry of Defense of Russia does not disclose data on personnel losses and does not comment on the figures reported by journalists.
• “PMC Wagner” is an unofficial Russian military unit that does not belong to the Ministry of Defense of Russia or other state structures. Fighters of PMC Wagner participate in ground operations in Syria, Africa and in the war with Ukraine. Mercenaries are suspected of committing numerous war crimes.
• The first reports appeared in the summer of last year that the founder of the PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is touring Russian colonies, offering prisoners to go to war as part of Wagner’s PMC. There is no exact data on how many prisoners were recruited, however, according to human rights activists and various media sources, it could be tens of thousands of people.