Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare. For Elena, a mother from Russia, the pain of losing her 18-year-old son, Valentin, in the war in Ukraine is unbearable.
Desperate for answers, she has taken the bold step of addressing President Vladimir Putin directly, according to Ziare.
She wants to know why her son, a young conscript, was sent to the frontlines.
From the beginning of the war, Russian authorities insisted that new recruits would not see combat.
Valentin was undergoing military training in Kursk when everything changed. In August, Ukrainian forces launched a cross-border offensive. Just a month later, Valentin was killed by shrapnel.
"There should have been trained soldiers there, not children," Elena says. "They took them from their homes, from their mothers, and sent them into battle. How is he a warrior? He was just a boy."
Russian officials have labeled him a hero, but that does little to ease her grief. She wants to know why her son was there in the first place.
"No one gave me an answer. I wanted to turn the whole world upside down. What obligation did he have to give his life? What did my son take from the Fatherland that he had to repay with his death?" she asks.
Valentin was weeks away from turning 19. He had the chance to postpone his service for college but chose to enlist.
Now, his photos fill Elena's home in Rybinsk. His blue beret sits untouched on a shelf. "I keep waiting for him to come home, even though I saw his body. I still can't believe it," she says, holding back tears.
Russia does not release official numbers on war casualties. British estimates suggest over 750,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past three years.
Valentin was buried in a cemetery on the edge of Rybinsk, alongside other young soldiers. Next to him lies another fallen soldier from the same day.
Most people in Russia remain silent about the war. Elena refuses. "I want only one thing—for all the children to come home. I want them to hear us. I want them to return our sons the way we sent them, not in coffins."
