Irina Samarina, a resident of Chelyabinsk, lost both of her sons almost simultaneously. One of them was a member of the Wagner PMC, while the other passed away due to a cardiac arrest during military service. Samarina spoke to a 7x7 journalist on April 30 and said that both burials had been scheduled for the same day.
Maksim and Daniil Zharkov were both military men, with Maksim, 28, continuing his service as an army cook after completing his compulsory military duty. Daniil, after an unsuccessful attempt to enter a military academy in St. Petersburg, enrolled at another institute. At the age of 22, he volunteered to fight in the Wagner PMC. "Put me before the fact," said their mother, Irina Samarina. Daniil had served in the war for almost six months.
Samarina learned about the deaths of both her sons just one day apart. On April 23, Samarina was informed that Maksim had died of a cardiac arrest a day earlier, with no previous known illnesses, and then on April 24, she received a call informing her that Daniil had died on April 9.
Samarina shared her grief on her VKontakte page, writing "No more sons! Love you, my babies, sleep well."
The funeral service for both brothers was held on April 26 at the Church of St. George the Victorious in Chelyabinsk. On May 4, Daniil will be buried in Kazantsevsky cemetery and Maksim, an hour later, in the Novopolsk cemetery.
Samarina attempted to obtain a monument for Daniil but was reportedly refused due to the lack of an order from the Wagner PMC.
The war in Ukraine and subsequent mobilization have affected the lives of many Russian families, including that of Irina Yakovleva from Ufa. Her younger son Anton was mobilized on September 27, 2022, and two weeks later, her eldest son Konstantin was involved in a car accident and left in serious condition in intensive care. Yakovleva had to fight for the life of one son while trying to bring back the other from the front lines, as he had stopped communicating after refusing to fight. Eventually, she managed to bring her mobilized son back on her own.
