A 'hero' Russian world champion in an international tank warfare competition was killed when he was sent by Vladimir Putin into a real battle in Ukraine.
Bato Basanov was in a record-breaking tank biathlon team that performed last year in war games in front of defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the army general staff Valery Gerasimov.
But his luck ran out on the battlefield when his tank was hit in Ukraine, killing him.
The 25-year-old is the latest of dozens of men from the impoverished region of Buryatia some 3,500 miles east of Moscow to be killed in Putin’s war.
As two bereft mothers in grief-stricken Buryatia spoke about collecting the bodies of their sons, one reportedly said to the other: "You’re lucky because your son’s body arrived intact. Mine came back as a head and two hands."
Basanov, a corporal, had been hailed last year for "glorifying Russia by becoming a world champion in tank biathlon as part of his team".
He shot without missing a single target at speeds of up to 50mph at the Alabino training ground in Moscow region.
Yet as a report from Volya Media said: "The death of Bato Basanov is grim confirmation that tank biathlon and real war are completely different things."
Russian commanders Shoigu and Gerasimov saw regular tank biathlon competitions as key military prestige events, yet the huge death toll of Russian forces shows they were not ready for real war.
Basanov — whose Russian T-72B3 team beat soldiers from 19 countries in combat games including China — was shown being presented to Gerasimov, now in charge of Putin's crumbling war effort.
Yet an anonymous Russian military expert has blamed Putin’s government for botched modernisation of tanks, leaving them worse in optics and targeting technology than Ukraine’s older tanks which were upgraded with Western equipment.
"Combat training in [Russian] tank units is disgusting," he added.
The "shortcomings" have led to Russia’s dismal performance in the war, he said.
Basanov was a gunner of the first company of the tank battalion of the 37th separate guards motorised rifle brigade of the Russian Air Defence Forces.
The body of the ‘hero’ took seven weeks to be retrieved and returned to his family for a funeral on Friday.
His friends and family said in a joint statement: "Bato was an open, responsive, very sociable man, a faithful comrade and friend, who was always ready to come to the rescue.
"Cheerful, smiling and sincere, Bato has always been the pride of our family, a kind, honest, much-loved son."
