the letter went viral. four days later, the russian ministry of defence issued a rare public denial. governor kozhemyako, the man the soldiers had pinned their hopes on, also responded to the appeal. he added that he shared the letter with the military prosecutor s office, but he also denied the number of losses. our investigation has uncovered evidence that supports the black berets account. russian authorities haven t
but kozhemyako developed a reputation for being an enthusiastic recruiter. at the end of october, ramaz completed his short training and was deployed to eastern ukraine. he arrived in the town of volnovakha, where the 155 was staged. 0n hisjourney, he sent updates to his mother. in volnovakha, the 155 was preparing for an imminent offensive on the strategic town of vuhledar. it sits on an elevated terrain in the donetsk region of donbas.
but the highest one is in november 2022, during the offensive on pavlivka and vuhledar. we found that at least 60 black berets were killed or went missing in the months following the start of the assault on october 28th. most happened after their letter was sent to governor kozhemyako. we think that the real number of losses in 155 is definitely higher than the figure we have because we can t always attribute certain people to the unit, and also we only rely on open source material. so we believe that the real number of total losses on the russian side is probably at least two times higher than the figure we have. so if we put aside the first two weeks of the invasion, which have seen a tremendous rate of losses, then this october and november battle for pavlivka probably can be named as one of the highest concentration of forces for a single unit.
they found no wrongdoing by the 155th brigade s commanders. by december, ramaz, the young rapper from yagodnoye, was still missing. his mother, svetlana, shared her despair online, and asked for help to find him. back in october, governor kozhemyako had promised to support the families. he wrote this on telegram. but families sent messages on his channel saying they could not get responses.
in the days after the letter, more videos surfaced showing the same tactical mistakes as the footage from october and november. lone russian units attacking in a single line and getting hit repeatedly. 13 days after the 155 s second letter, a journalist asked president putin about the fate of the russian marines ukraine. this is his response. and governor kozhemya ko? he never replied to the second letter. we contacted governor kozhemyako for a comment on ourfindings. he did not respond.