A teenage karate star has become the youngest Russian soldier sent to his death by Vladimir Putin in the war in Ukraine.
Vladislav Balakhnin, 18, was a black belt like the Kremlin autocrat and had won national competitions.
It took the Russian invading forces almost a month to return his body for a recently-held funeral with full military honours after he died on the battlefield.
He lost his life on 8 March as Putin’s forces attacked an unidentified Ukrainian airport.
Vladislav was drafted into the army last year and signed as a contract soldier in February, a process which critics say was a backdoor for forcing teenage conscripts on the frontline as cannon fodder in Ukraine.
His grieving mother Rosa recalled the last time she spoke to him on 13 February as Putin sent tens of thousands of troops westward to “military exercises” close to Ukraine, at the time vowing there would be no invasion.
“He said ‘mum, we are leaving. Don’t search for me, don’t call. There will be no (phone) coverage. Everything will be okay’.”
Rosa said that he was into karate and boxing, and never drank or smoked.
Vladislav was captured in photos with his parents and his girlfriend, and at his school graduation ball some nine months before he was killed.
His mother said the 18-year-old had been “dreaming of winning the maroon beret” by later joining the Spetsnaz special forces of Russia ’s national guard.
“He trained a lot, preparing himself for the army,” she told Ura.ru.
“When he signed up for a contract he did it to get that dream maroon beret."
He would have been 19 in July, and is the youngest so-far declared Russian soldier to die in the war, which the Kremlin insists on calling a “special military operation”.
Russia is now experiencing a rising number of military funerals as the scale of the losses from the catastrophic war hit home.
So far the toll - far higher than the Kremlin has publicly acknowledged - has not triggered a political or public backlash against Putin.
Ukraine has claimed that Russia has suffered 18,300 deaths in the war.
However, Russia has failed to provide statistics on its war losses amid suspicions it is seeking to cover-up the true war toll.
In 2014 - the year he grabbed Crimea from Ukraine - Putin was awarded a black belt in Kyokushin-kan, a full contact form of karate in which no protective gear is worn and in which striking an opponent in the head with hands is not permitted.
After Putin launched his war on Ukraine his taekwondo black belt was removed in protest.
