Putin's cousin reveals mystery of 48,000 missing soldiers
No fewer than 48,000 Russians participating in the war against Ukraine have gone missing without a trace. This number was reported during a roundtable at the State Duma by the Russian Deputy Defence Minister, Anna Cywileva, the cousin of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
"The numbers concerning the missing should not appear anywhere, this is classified information," added the Deputy Defence Minister of Russia during the session when colleagues pointed it out to her.
Putin's cousin's blunder: Disclosed classified data
The Commission for Labour, Social Policy, and Veterans' Affairs held a roundtable on "Ensuring Legislative Social Support for Participants of the Special Military Operation and Members of Their Families (Problems and Solutions)" on November 26 at 3 PM Eastern Time.
The event was broadcast on the official State Duma website, but the recording was not preserved. One of the readers of the ASTRA channel managed to save the material.
During the event, the Russian Deputy Defence Minister, Anna Cywileva, who is reportedly a cousin of Vladimir Putin, also spoke. She stated that currently, all men signing a contract with the Ministry of Defence are required to undergo a DNA test. This data is then entered into the Ministry of Internal Affairs database.
"We also collect DNA from relatives, which also goes into the database. The number of relatives who have reached out to us stands at 48,000," added Cywileva.
Kartapolov: These are very sensitive information
In response, the Chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, warned her: "Colleagues, I strongly urge that these numbers concerning the missing do not appear anywhere. These are very sensitive information. When preparing the final documents, I also ask that these numbers do not appear anywhere," he emphasized.
Cywileva responded that she reported the number of applications, not the missing.
It is unclear whether Cywileva was referring to 48,000 relatives of missing soldiers who provided their DNA or a collective database of relatives of military personnel operating in the war zone.
However, as Astra highlights earlier, relatives of Russian soldiers reported that free DNA submission was only possible if the soldier had been officially granted "missing" status. Families of soldiers also confirmed this.
At the same time, the website of the Irkutsk Human Rights Ombudsman stated that DNA could only be provided if the soldier had been declared missing.
