BBC News:
Kostroma is not a bad place to go looking for the effects of the Ukraine war on Russia. For this city is home to a celebrated regiment that bears its name and has been in the forefront of all the main battles in the Kremlin’s campaign against its neighbours.
The 331st Guards Parachute Regiment, often called the Kostroma Airborne Regiment, has been the subject of investigations by BBC’s Newsnight since shortly after last February’s invasion. These have revealed the price paid by the regiment and its home community. We had confirmed 39 fatalities by April last year, 62 by late July, and now the toll has reached 94.
Much of the work compiling this list has involved combing social media accounts on V’Kontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, and local media reporting. We can then cross reference this with satellite and Google Street View imagery.
One video discovered on V’Kontakte showed soldiers’ graves at a cemetery north-east of Kostroma. The graves shown in the videos match the names of the soldiers we have collated.
