No Funerals: During the War, Russian Courts Declared About a Thousand Missing Soldiers in Ukraine Dead

“Take the money while it’s being offered,” is how the Russian military leadership persuades the families of missing soldiers to have them declared dead in court so that relatives can receive death benefits, says Irina Chistyakova, the mother of a conscript soldier missing in the war.

The state simplified this procedure in the spring of 2023: if there is no body, but there are grounds to presume the death of a serviceman — for example, he disappeared in an active combat zone — then the court can declare him dead after six months. Previously, it was necessary to wait two years from the end of the war.

IStories calculated how many families have used this right and “buried” their men in court.

“Declare deceased”

Magomed Kalimatov from Ingushetia disappeared in Ukraine at the very beginning of the war. His parents, wife, and six children were waiting for him at home. In March 2023, in a report on local television, his family said that despite not having heard from Kalimatov for over a year, they were not discouraged — they believed that their prayers would be heard. 

Exactly two months after this, Kalimatov’s father filed a lawsuit to have his son declared dead. “His son has five [minor] children dependent on him. When [Kalimatov] went to the training ground, he did not know about the planned special military operation, which was only announced later, and he had the card to which his salary was paid with him,” Magomed Kalimatov’s father reasoned in his lawsuit.

In court, the family referred to the words of fellow soldiers who, after returning from captivity following an exchange, said that Kalimatov had come under fire with them near the village of Malinovka in the Zaporizhzhia region, which the Ukrainian army liberated at the end of March 2022. Neighbors of the Kalimatov family also came to the court, who told the court that they “have known [Magomed] since childhood” and confirmed that he had been sent to Ukraine. 

The court ruled to “declare [Kalimatov] deceased,” “since there are grounds to believe that he went missing under circumstances that threatened death.” Even after the family had Kalimatov declared dead in court, his name is not mentioned in obituaries, and local authorities visit the “family of Magomed Kalimatov, who has long been listed as missing” and write in reports that “his relatives are still in the dark and live in hope that he will return home.”

Similarly, over two years of war, 921 military personnel missing in Ukraine were legally declared dead in court, according to calculations by IStories based on Russian court decisions. This is indicated by the excessive increase in civil lawsuits categorized as “On recognizing a citizen as missing or declaring a citizen dead,” which were granted by Russian courts during the war compared to peacetime (the unfolding chapter Explaining our calculations explains why we consider the excess growth the most reliable estimate).

“We were denied everything without a death certificate”

In court, relatives are asked to justify the purpose of declaring a person dead. If the plaintiff is a military unit, commanders pronounce the standard wording: “Declaration of death is necessary to remove him from the personnel lists and discontinue all forms of provisions.” Judging by the published texts of the decisions, the vast majority of relatives state in court that they need the declaration of death for “receiving payments and benefits from the Ministry of Defense,” “entering into inheritance,” and “terminating the credit obligations [of the deceased].”

For instance, Marina Andreeva from Anapa declared her volunteer husband from the BARS detachment dead in court: fellow soldiers saw him wounded in battle, but they were unable to “retrieve the body from the battlefield” due to artillery fire. In court, she requested “immediate execution of the decision [to declare him dead], as she is in a difficult financial situation and has minor children dependent on her,” and the court granted her request. “We cannot receive payments, we cannot apply for a pension. We were denied everything without a death certificate,” said another family in court.

Some insist that their relatives be recognized as “killed in action”: “It is this wording that will testify that the son died as a true warrior, a defender of the fatherland; and this will allow [him] to receive the status of “Combatant,” and will allow the spouse, children, and parents to receive the due monetary payments,” said the mother of another BARS volunteer in court. To prove her son’s death, she even “provided [the court] with photographs from the scene.” There are also those for whom, in addition to payments, it was important to hold a funeral with military honors.

“Until I find the body — dead or alive — I will not do this”

Others admit that they are resorting to legal declaration of death out of despair. “This [decision] was very difficult for me, very,” says Irina (name changed at the request of the interviewee), whose son went missing in Ukraine at the very beginning of the war. 

“I was advised to do this a year earlier, they called from the military prosecutor’s office and announced that my son had died and that they were ready to declare him dead [in court]. I was against it, I said: ‘Until I find the body — dead or alive — I will not do this.’ I went to Ukraine [to the occupied territories], traveled through the places where he was, through hospitals, talked to people. Comparing everything we uncovered, everything we knew… when I was already desperate, I realized that I couldn’t do anything. The Ministry of Defense, the prosecutor’s office, the Investigative Committee — my papers and traces are left everywhere, no one helps. They always meet me and ask: ‘Well, do you have any news?’ And I say: ‘Don’t you want to tell me any news — you, who are higher-ranking, who can do something and could have done something when it was necessary?’ This is how we have been communicating with them for a year and a half. All official structures have done nothing for me and my son.”

“I’ve been searching for a year and a half, just trying to find some clue, at least to learn the story of what happened to my son, how it happened, when he went missing. They were among the first to enter [Ukraine], it was an order for him — he’s a young boy who didn’t know what to do. He turned 20 [years old] already in Ukraine,” says Irina. “I’m still looking for him. But I understand that he died. I understand that I could simply spend my whole life searching... And I’m not getting any younger, I’m not eternal, and my strength isn’t eternal. It wasn’t so much about the money [that I went to court], I just [wanted] to put a period on it for myself.”

“We can’t even mourn him as parents”

Those who have already accepted the death of a relative in the war, but cannot bury them, are also going to court. The bodies of some were left on the battlefield by their comrades, others cannot be found even in the territories controlled by Russian troops, and some relatives hope to retrieve the remains “when the war is over.”

“The grief is unbearable… We can't even mourn him as parents because they still can’t retrieve our boy’s body. Since February 20th, our boys have been lying in enemy territory, on the ground,” writes the mother of 26-year-old Stepan Kiselev, who had to declare him dead in court. Tatiana Mindubaeva from Sochi declared her husband dead in court in August 2023. “He was left on the battlefield by his comrades in the Volnovakha district of the DPR. But his comrades can’t say for sure that he was dead. They say he showed no signs of life, and then they say he periodically regained consciousness when they were dragging him,” she wrote a year earlier in a group searching for those missing in the war.

Svetlana Chignaeva’s husband from Tatarstan was mobilized in the fall of 2022. In December 2023, she went to court to have him declared dead. “Because my husband still hasn’t been brought back to me,” she explains in a conversation with IStories. “I was left alone with three minor children.” From her husband’s comrade, she knows that he was sent as part of an assault group into an offensive battle on the front line near Pervomaiske in the Donetsk direction; he did not return from the battlefield. Svetlana’s neighbor, whose husband was with Chignaev on the front lines and knows that he got under fire, even came to the court.

“He remained lying on the battlefield, showing no signs of life. Fellow servicemen repeatedly tried to reach the deceased’s body, but finding themselves under heavy mortar fire, they were forced to retreat. Due to this, they were unable to retrieve the private’s body,” the report of the battalion commander, in which Chignaev served, stated. In court, it was stated that despite Pervomaiske being under the control of the Russian armed forces, “the location of the body is unknown.” Svetlana hardly believes that her husband’s body will be brought home: “They give some hope, but it’s unlikely. I understand that these are all standard phrases.”

“The man has been gone for two years. We know perfectly well that [he died], everything was proven in court. When the war is over, we will go and retrieve [his remains],” Inna Averina from the Chelyabinsk Oblast told IStories. 

She lost contact with her 18-year-old brother a couple of days before the start of the full-scale invasion, she explained in court: “[While doing his compulsory military service], on February 21, 2022, he signed a contract, and on the same day, after a call from my brother from the airport, contact was lost.” Later, she learned that he went missing at the end of March near Malinovka in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. In court, only the response of the military prosecutor’s office was read, which established that “due to the constant movement of the military unit’s subdivisions and the lack of constant communication, it is not possible to establish the whereabouts [of Averina’s brother].”

In some cases, the relatives who go to court for a declaration of death would simply have nothing to bury: in court cases, there are details of the deaths of servicemen whose bodies were “completely destroyed.” 

At the court hearing for the declaration of death of Alla Ostaeva’s husband, they read the testimony of his fellow soldier, who witnessed his death: “One of the shells hit the crater where [the deceased] was with his fellow soldiers, after which an explosion followed. After the shelling ended, about half an hour later, they approached [the deceased’s] position and inspected the crater. They found nothing but scraps — remnants of military uniforms in the crater.” 

“Due to the strong destructive effect of the missile’s explosives, no remains could be found in the tank; the tank was completely burned out from the inside,” they explained in court to the relatives regarding the absence of another deceased’s body in Maryinka.

Military prosecutors or commanders of military units often declare soldiers whose bodies remain in Ukraine as dead in court. “Due to mortar fire, it was not possible to retrieve the body, and it was left in trench 219 near <address>,” was said in court about one of the contract soldiers of military unit No. 34670, which participates in such lawsuits more often than others — at least 33 people from the 752nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment were “buried” in court.

Editor: Alesya Marokhovskaya