Russian investigative bloggers have identified a Russian Air Force serviceman, Vadim Kostenko, as having been killed on duty in Syria.

Ruslan Leviev, posted on his LiveJournal page this morning that he and his group, the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), had found messages of mourning on VKontakte pages linking to Kostenko, who, the group found, was a kontraktnik (a contract soldier) in the 960th Close Air Support Regiment.

As Leviev points out, Sukhoi Su-25 attack jets from the 960th have been documented operating in Syria.

Grigoriy Donskikh: Brother, I will not forget you… Vadik Kostenko… We remember… we love…. we mourn….. Alyona Galkina: Awful, he was just a young man, what happened? Grigoriy: Alyona, he was killed while fulfilling military duties in Syria… Alyona: Kontraktnik? Grigoriy: Alyona, yes

According to posts by Kostenko’s friends on Odnoklassniki, another social network, he was killed on October 24.

The following replies were posted on October 25:

Angelina Sviridova: What happened with the guy? Tanya Gerasimenko: He was killed Angelina: What an awful shame… Under what circumstances? Tanya: He was killed in Syria Angelina: Awful! He served there? Tanya: Of course Angelina: When did this happen? Tanya: Yesterday

After Leviev published the post and received media attention, a “close relative” of Kostenko spoke to Russia’s RBK news agency and confirmed that Vadim had indeed been killed.

According to the relative, the family was initially informed by the military that Vadim had hanged himself, however staff at the base subsequently told them that while his body had been found, but could not give specific details.

Leviev cites a Wall Street Journal report from October 23, in which an unnamed Russian Defence Ministry official is reported to have confirmed that one soldier had died in Syria as a result of “careless handling of weaponry.”

Leviev writes:

The article was published a day before Vadim’s death, while the MoD source already confirmed the death of a serviceman, which means there is a date mismatch. But an incident due to mishandling ammunition could harm more than one serviceman, so Vadim could have been wounded and died only after the WSJ article was published. On the other hand, Vadim’s relatives and friends say he was killed. From our experience of investigating the conflict in Ukraine, when a serviceman dies in an accident, the relatives know the cause of the death right away. There is also the “rumor” of 9 other killed soldiers. As an indirect confirmation of the accident version, it should be noted that in the evening of October 23 local Syrian activists reported thick smoke coming from Hmeimim airbase.

One friend (whose identity has been withheld) of Kostenko’s told Leviev that nine other servicemen had died in the same incident.

The girl told us that officials came to Vadim’s parents from his military unit and confirmed his death. According to her, first they said he hanged himself, then that he was hanged and shot, and finally that he was found dead. She puts the time of his death as 3 PM on Saturday, October 24. She says his body was flown from Syria on a cargo plane. In any other situation, we would consider this information not enough to publish it yet. But we do know that soon Vadim’s funeral is to take place in Grechanaya Balka, Kalininski district, Krasnodar region. This is why we decided to publish this post for the media to know about the upcoming funeral and be able to verify our information more thoroughly.

— Pierre Vaux