News
The family of a 32-year-old man who was drafted from the town of Zauralskiy in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region last year has appealed to a local deputy to investigate the cause of their relative's death.
The family had to go into debt to bury the man, as they had spent all their savings to buy food and uniforms when they sent him to the military after he was drafted, according to a post on the website of the “Just Russia – Patriots – For Truth” party.
Yevgeny Duz, a foreman at a local marble processing plant, was mobilized on September 27, and deployed to be trained in a military unit in the town of Yelansky near Yekaterinburg.
Two months later, he was taken to a Chelyabinsk hospital in serious condition, where he died in late December. Yevgeny was survived by a wife and three sons aged 18, 11 and 8.
Duz began feeling unwell almost immediately after being called up to the army. According to his relatives, he called his wife and complained that he was forced to participate in combat training with a fever. Then, according to a fellow soldier, his phone was stolen.
On November 22, the man was discharged to an infectious disease hospital in Chelyabinsk. The family was informed about his hospitalization only after he stopped regaining consciousness, while his wife was banned from visiting him. Duz died on December 30.
His relatives were told that he had pulmonary edema (a condition caused by too much fluid in the lungs), but could not obtain a death certificate.
According to the family members, they had no money left for the funeral after buying supplies for Duz’s training camp. The family had to borrow money from their friends in order to bury their relative. The man’s wife did not receive any payments from Russia’s Defense Ministry.