In recent days, Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels have reported an alleged Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge using an uncrewed boat, or naval drone. According to those reports, the attack may have taken place on April 30.
Several days later, the Telegram channels VChK-OGPU and Krymsky Veter published a photograph of an obituary for eight officers of the FSB border service who were said to have been killed in the attack. Later, Russian Orthodox Church resources published the names of the dead without surnames. The outlet Novaya-Europe examined the information and said it was able to confirm it in part.
The published images contained a list of the dead with first names, surnames, and dates of birth: Nikita Sergeyevich Podoroga, 10.04.1998; Andrei Olegovich Kovtunov, 14.02.1991; Zair Kazimovich Akhmedov, 21.05.1984; Vasily Yuryevich Makhovsky, 17.04.1986; Yury Yuryevich Kalita, 05.05.1988; Vladislav Ivanovich Turkin, 20.07.1998; Artem Nikolayevich Sheverdinov, 21.08.1989; Aleksandr Vladimirovich Sityukov, 18.07.1993.
What was confirmed
Novaya-Europe reviewed leaked databases and found that at least four of the men listed — Sityukov, Sheverdinov, Makhovsky, and Akhmedov — had served in the detachment of patrol ships of the FSB Border Directorate for Novorossiysk (military unit 2396-B). The unit is based in the Temryuk district of Krasnodar region, which the Crimean Bridge connects with Kerch. Kovtunov also served in the FSB Border Directorate for Novorossiysk. Another of the men named, Podoroga, had previously studied at the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg. The current workplaces of Turkin and Kalita could not be established.
The outlet also said it could partly verify reports of their deaths. The passports of two of the eight presumed dead officers — Podoroga and Makhovsky — are currently listed as invalid, which may indicate that they died. At the same time, there are still no entries about them in the inheritance case registry, although such records can appear long after a death.
The fact that the passports of the other presumed dead men remain valid may be explained by bureaucratic delays, the report said. Under the law, a unit commander must notify the civil registry office within three days of a serviceman’s death. The registry office then passes the information to the Interior Ministry, which cancels the passport. In addition, on May 5, Kalita’s wife posted a photograph of a candle on Facebook without comment, and Podoroga’s wife has a broken-heart emoji in her VK status.
What is known about them and the battle
Novaya-Europe also reviewed the social media pages of some of the presumed dead. The Instagram pages of Kovtunov and Sityukov mostly show photographs with friends and children, as well as pictures from trips around southern Russia. Makhovsky posted similar family photographs, though his page has been inactive since 2018. Podoroga’s VK profile picture shows a wedding photo. The outlet said it found no political content on the open pages of the dead FSB border service officers.
Based on the available information, the dead sailors may have been guarding the Crimean Bridge aboard a patrol boat. On the morning after the April 30 attack, the naval forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces published footage of the operation recorded from the attacking drone.
“There is no good option in such a battle. There are options that are bad to varying degrees. Firing a single heavy machine gun at two targets approaching on converging courses at racing-boat speed is a task with a low probability of success even in training conditions. And here it was night, two o’clock, a swarm, and the bridge behind them,” the authors of the Russian blog Military Review wrote about the incident.
According to that blog, three Russian sailors from the stricken boat survived because the blast threw them overboard. Ukrainian military sources said that the FSB patrol boat Sobol and the anti-sabotage boat Grachonok were destroyed. At the same time, according to unofficial Russian sources, the dead sailors may have been serving on a different model of boat, the PSKA-300 Sokol.
According to calculations by Mediazona, 173 FSB personnel have been killed in the war in Ukraine so far.