In Bashkortostan, well-dressed officials sent an old man in rags to the war

Ruslan Vakhitov, the acting head of the district, published solemn photos from a village consisting of 176 residents on VKontakte.

Яуын, Ҡыйғы районы (Yauyn, Kyygy districts).

Vakhitov took up his post relatively recently – on May 14, 2024, but has already managed to take part in several funerals of the local war veterans. Previously, he worked as the first deputy head of the administration for construction and issues of the administration activity support – he was responsible for comfortable working conditions for the local officials amidst widespread devastation and poverty. 

Vakhitov participated in the funeral of a war veteran for the first time long before his position as acting head. On April 6, 2022, Vinner Saifullin, a 23-year-old tractor driver from the  district, was killed. 

Vakhitov, born in 1984, is quite young, but he himself is in no hurry to go to the war. On June 15, 2024, Vakhitov took part in the funeral of his peer, Irshat Sharipov, who went to the war  for money in 2023, because he lived in poverty. Игенселәр (Igenselär) Sharipov’s native village, consisted of only 58 people. Now there are 57.

On June 10, 2024, the official published on his Telegram channel an appeal to the population to bring personal belongings of the fellow villagers killed in the war in order to create a museum of the district’s residents killed in the war. The publication was accompanied by a photo of Vakhitov himself, and next to him at least 34 obituaries with photos of the killed residents of this district.

On July 12, 2024, under the leadership of Vakhitov, a volleyball match was held in Иҫке Мөхәмәт (Ikke Mөkәmet) village in memory of the villager Murat Yusupov, who died in the war, whose posthumous portrait Vakhitov placed on the pedestal of the pioneer winner, as if to show that Yusupov continues to win matches even after death. Considering that most of the villages under Vakhitov’s leadership are small villages with 100-500 residents, from where both young and old, and sometimes entire families, go to the war, then very soon there will be only portraits at Vakhiov’s matches. 

In the autumn of 2023, Vakhitov gave his old Niva to help the Kremlin soldiers. Now he sent an equally old man. According to the declaration in 2018, Ruslan Vakhitov (then the chief architect of the district) had 2 vehicles, and in 2021 there were already 5 of them, including a Ford Mondeo, which was much newer than the Niva and therefore it could not be sent to the war – as, in fact, Vakhitov himself could not be sent there.