Share20-year-old Kemal Bostanov died during the fighting in the Kharkov village. By law, now his family is entitled to payments. The young man’s mother sued: she does not want the money to be received by a man who saw his son only as a baby.
The families of the dead servicemen are entitled to insurance and a one-time allowance in the amount of 7.421 million rubles, monthly monetary compensation to each family member and some other social support measures. This is a law that provides for payments to those who died in the line of duty. Additionally, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree specifically for Ukraine. The document provides for an additional 5 million rubles in case of death and 3 million in case of injury.
“Anyway, I’ll stay in the army”
“I buried my son on June 11. The moment of payments has come, and then the biological father appears. During this time, I have never seen a child for 20 years, I have not paid a single ruble of alimony, ”Anastasia Yudina, a resident of Gorbunkov, tells Fontanka.
With Kemal’s father, Hasan Bostanov, she was together for only a year and a half. At the age of 17, she became pregnant, gave birth to a son, and six months later she decided to end the relationship. According to her, because of the changes.
According to Anastasia, as a teenager, Kemal asked permission to change his surname to his mother’s, and school certificates were signed for him as Kirill Yudin. According to his mother, he spoke with his father several times around the same time, but stopped because Bostanov “began to persuade him to the Muslim faith.” At the same time, the father sent 25 thousand rubles for the child, but, according to Anastasia, he did not help more. The court denied her child support.
Ros Kemal in Gorbunki in a large family: with his mother and two younger sisters. He graduated from the Petrodvorets College in Strelna with a degree in car repair and maintenance, following which, almost immediately, in June 2021, he was drafted into the army.
“On January 1 or 2, he sent such a message to a friend: “I will stay in the army anyway. I don’t want to go back to Gorbunki, go to work, drink beer in the evenings. That’s not mine”. I respected the choice of my son and, of course, supported him. It was discussed that later it would be easier to enter a military school. The army is courage. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but he really was a man. From the age of 14 he worked and was my support and support, ”recalls the mother.
In February, the young man was taken to Kursk for training. According to official documents, at the same time he signed the contract – on the 10th. According to the interlocutor of Fontanka, her son was a grenade launcher by profession, but he was sent to the infantry. Before Kemal disappeared, Anastasia persuaded him to refuse the service: “As I remember now, on March 10, I asked him very much to refuse the contract. She said, “Son, please. I will do everything, I will appeal to all instances and ask to break this contract, [объясню]that you are my conscript to be returned home. By that moment, I understood that he had already shot and seen the dead. I already knew the whole essence of this … special operation. Kemal told me the following phrase: “I will not leave the guys who give me back [прикрывали]”. I do not know the details, but he was in someone else’s clothes. He said: “My clothes burned down.”
Around the same time, in March, the young man warned his mother that he would be left without a phone for a couple of weeks. He didn’t call once more.
“Invited to the funeral, he didn’t even answer anything”
The death of Anastasia’s son was reported on June 5 – he died in the Ukrainian village of Malaya Rogan, in the Kharkov region. Mothers whose sons disappeared there from March 25 to March 28 have their own chat. According to the interlocutor of “Fontanka”, it consists of regarding 100 people. Most of the women did not know regarding the fate of their children.
Anastasia recalls how she was looking for her son for several months: “I started calling all the military registration and enlistment offices, both in the regional one and in our Lomonosov. No one might give me an answer: where is my son, how is my son. “We can’t help you” – these were the answers. Then they gave me the phone number of the Ministry of Defense. I called Moscow, left an application for my son. On April 4, at 6:38 am, they called me and said that he was in captivity. [Попросили] call following 10:00, explained that there was a big exchange of prisoners at night. I called, they said: everything is in order, your son is in the ranks, he is serving. I thought: such different information in two hours? I called once more, they said: “Your son is missing.” How so? The Ministry of Defense is doing a great job with us. And from that day began the daily search for my son. I searched for two months, fought in all instances. Every day I watched videos with prisoners, dead. I still see all these boys torn apart.
Anastasia contacted Khasan Bostanov following reporting her son’s disappearance: she found it on social networks and asked for help with the search, “if there are connections.” She says she received no response, but wrote to Kemal’s father once more following the news of the death: “It was my stupidity. I humanly decided that he had the right to know, and I told him myself. Invited to the funeral, he didn’t even answer anything.”
Further, according to the mother, the events developed as follows: she sent Hassan her number and asked him to call back. They talked regarding the circumstances of their son’s death, the father promised to refuse payments, but then changed his mind and said that it would be better to send the money back as soon as they arrived. Later, Anastasia received a call from the military unit and said that Hasan had submitted documents for payments. The application, which a resident of the Leningrad region filed with the court, was returned to her and asked to apply at the place of residence of her father – in Karachay-Cherkessia.
Fontanka contacted Kemal’s father, Khasan Bostanov. He has a different version of events: “He was born under me. Believe me I participated [в воспитании]I sent money. If he wanted to change his last name, he would have changed a long time ago. There was a disagreement, he said: “I do not want any faith yet.” We had such a conversation, we didn’t have any more contradictions with this child. ”
According to his father, he did not submit documents for payments and “everything went” from the application that Anastasia sent to the court. He clarified that he spoke with his son “not all the time”: “They disappeared, [когда Кемалу было полгода]I didn’t know where they were. Then they left [на связь]. It is necessary, it is necessary. She had a big appetite. Of course, I didn’t give much.” How often the man helped his son financially, he might not remember, but said that they communicated regularly. The young man’s father claims that he wrote a waiver of Kemal’s share of the land, which is due to him as an heir: “There is a law. Who do I ask what? She gets her share, what else does she want? Why should I give up my son? I don’t think regarding money, a person just hit the ground. Hasan Bostanov is going to send his part of the payments to the Donbass aid fund.
“Most often, the courts approach such cases formally”
The press service of the Leningrad region administration sees the situation unambiguously: the payment is divided equally among all members of the family of the deceased. “According to regional legislation, if the parent of the deceased is not deprived of parental rights, then he is included in the family, and he is entitled to payment. Participation (or non-participation) in raising a child is not a legal concept, ”the press service explained to Fontanka.
In the fund “Mother’s Right”, who is involved in helping the dead military personnel, we were explained that the mother can ask the court to recognize her ex-husband as an unworthy heir, if there are grounds for this. For example, the father did not raise his son, did not fulfill the duties of a parent, and did not pay alimony, which the mother filed for.
Veronika Marchenko, chairman of the board of the foundation, emphasizes that “it will be possible to win such a trial only if you have documentary evidence of the mother’s appeal on all the facts that did not suit her even before the death of her son.” “Unfortunately, most often the courts of first and second instance approach such cases formally and refuse the mother if there is no fact of deprivation of the father of parental rights,” adds the head of “Mother’s Rights”.
Despite this, the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia from 2019 explicitly states: one of the purposes of payments following the death of a serviceman is to express gratitude to citizens who “raised and educated worthy members of society – defenders of the Fatherland.” Consequently, the circle of persons entitled to receive social support measures “can be checked taking into account their actions for the upbringing, physical, mental, spiritual, moral, social development and material maintenance of the deceased.”
Alina Ampelonskaya, Fontanka.ru
