Russian twin brothers who were killed on the same day while fighting in Ukraine were buried in their home city Tuesday, according to friends and local media reports.
Alexei and Anton Vorobyov, 29, both army sergeants, were both killed on March 12, three weeks into Russia's invasion of its neighbor to the west, the Bataysk Gorod news website reported.
Photos and video from the double funeral showed the two mens' lacquered coffins, draped in Russian flags, being interred side by side in a new cemetery in the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk. In the presence of several hundred mourners, an honor guard fired a salute and a military band played the Russian national anthem, reports said.
"I have many memories about Anton, and all of them are good memories. We never had a single fight in 19 years," Anastasia Novikova, a childhood friend of Anton’s who attended the funeral, told The Moscow Times.
While the Russian Defense Ministry said last week 1,351 of its soldiers have been killed since the start of its "special military operation" on Feb. 24, other estimates of Russia’s losses are far higher. NATO has said as many as 15,000 Russian troops may have been killed.
Funerals for servicemen killed in Ukraine have been taking place across Russia.
Anton and Alexei served with the 150th Rifle Division, a famous World War II-era unit that was re-formed in 2013. Deployed in eastern Ukraine at the start of the invasion, the division is reported to have taken heavy casualties in the first weeks.
“They were signalmen,” Novikova said of the brothers, who stayed on as regular soldiers after the end of their period of compulsory military service. “When they learned that the legendary 150th Rifle Division was re-emerging, of course they enlisted. Anton would say to me that he loved the service.”
It took the military authorities two weeks to transport the brothers' bodies to Novocherkask following their deaths. After the funeral service, a wake was held at the House of Officers in Novocherkassk.
Both men left behind partners, one of whom is pregnant, reports said.
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