Counting of killed Komi warriors reaches 600

According to Telegram channel Pesets, Eduard Pashnin from the Ust-Kolomsky area became the 600th killed warrior from the Komi Republic killed in Ukraine since the full-scale onslaught started in February 2022.

The social media channel’s counting of killed local men is far from complete. Several hundred more Komi warriors are likely to rest on Ukrainian soil and might never be accounted for.

Eduard Pashnin served as a senior rifleman in an infantry unit. He was a war veteran with fighting experiences from Chechnya in the late 1990s. In October 2023, the 55-year old grandfather again signed up for war. Nine months later he was reported killed.

Photos from Pashin’s social media pages show a military man and a family man. He happily poses on camera together with fellow war veterans, as well as with his two grandchildren.

According to local authorities in the Ust-Kolomsky area, Pashnin underwent training in Sputnik, the base of the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade in the Kola Peninsula, ahead of his deployment in Ukraine.

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Eduard Pashnin became the 24th warrior from the Ust-Kolomsky municipality that have been killed since the onslaught started in February 2022. Only since April this year, a total of five local men have vanished. The population of the remote and far northern municipality is about 21 thousand.

Judging from the overview, the number of killed Komi men is significantly higher in 2024 than in 2023. The figures indicate that a total of 278 local men vanished in 2023. The figure for 2024 (until 1st of August) is 218. 

A closer look at the last 100 Komi men killed show that one forth were from the regional capital of Syktyvkar. Many others are from regional towns like Ukhta, Sosnogorsk, Pechora, Inta and Vorkuta. The Komi Republic has a population of 720,000.

A significant number of the warriors from the Komi Republic serve in the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade, both of them based in the Kola Peninsula near the border to Norway and Finland.

Following the partial Russian mobilisation in September 2022, hundreds of Komi men were sent to the training facilities of the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade in Pechenga, Kola Peninsula, ahead of their deployment in Ukraine.

In September 2022, regional Governor Vladimir Uiba paid a visit to the Kola Peninsula.

“The Republic of Komi and the whole country are proud of you,” Uiba underlined to the about 30 men that were lined up in a ceremony ahead of their departure to Ukraine. The governor himself has no military background. Nevertheless, he had dressed up in uniform and put medals on his chest. On his caps was a big “Z”, the fascism-inspired symbol of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

According to Uiba, the Komi soldiers were part of an infantry squadron named “Komi” and adhered to the Northern Fleet’s coastal forces.