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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