Kerala family awaits repatriation of son's remains from Russian frontline
It has been over seven months since reports from Russia confirmed the death of Binil. Since then, his family has been running from one office to another, hoping to see him one last time.
Binil T B, a native of Wadakkanchery, took a flight to Russia on 24 April, 2024, along with his friends. They had been promised jobs as electricians in Moscow. But things allegedly took a turn for the worse soon after.
Binil was moved to a military settlement, where his passport and documents were confiscated. In the initial days, they were instructed to supply food and essential items to the settlement. But by June 2024, they were sent to the frontline.
Binil and Jain were assigned to one military regiment, while another group, including two Malayalis, Santhosh and Sandeep, was sent to a different location. Sandeep died in a shell attack in August 2025. According to Jain Kurien, who returned from Russia in May 2025, 'I saw him last in the morning on 5 January, 2025. On 6 January, I was transferred to another regiment and on the way, I saw him lying motionless following a drone attack. I was also injured in a similar attack on the way and was hospitalised. When Sandeep died, his body was brought to Moscow within two weeks of the incident. But in the case of Binil, we don't know where the mortal remains are kept,' he said.
Binil's father Babu, a tailor, said, 'It has been difficult to manage things. I have been visiting all possible offices to bring my son back. I have gone to Thiruvananthapuram four times already, spoken to the authorities including Norka and the Russian Embassy. I also sent letters to the Ministry of External Affairs, MoS Suresh Gopi, the Chief Minister's Office, etc. However, we are yet to receive a positive reply as to when his body can be repatriated,' said Babu, adding that he is not even able to focus on work.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
29 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Ukraine drone attack kills one, damages industrial facility in Saratov, Russia says
One person was killed, and several apartments and an industrial facility were damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack on the south Russian region of Saratov, the governor said on Sunday (August 10, 2025). Roman Busargin posted on the Telegram messaging app that residents were evacuated after debris from a destroyed drone damaged three apartments in the overnight attack. Also read | European leaders urge more 'pressure' on Russia ahead of Trump-Putin summit "Several residents required medical assistance," Mr. Busargin said. "Aid was provided onsite, and one person has been hospitalised. Unfortunately, one person has died." Russian air defence units destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones overnight, including eight over the Saratov region, the Defence Ministry said. It reports only how many drones its defence units down, not how many Ukraine launches. Mr. Busargin did not specify what kind of industrial site was damaged. Social media footage showed thick black smoke rising over what looked like an industrial zone. Reuters verified the location seen in one of the videos as matching file and satellite imagery of the area. Reuters could not verify when the video was filmed. Ukrainian media, including the RBK-Ukraine media outlet, reported that the oil refinery in the city of Saratov, the administrative centre of the region, was on fire after a drone attack. Reuters could not verify those reports. There was no official comment from Russia. The Rosneft-owned refinery in the Saratov city was forced to suspend operations earlier this year for safety reasons after Ukrainian drone attacks, industry sources told Reuters. Russia's SHOT Telegram channel, which often publishes information from sources in the security services and law enforcement, reported about eight explosions were heard over Saratov and Engels, cities separated by the Volga River. Russia's civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that flights in and out of Saratov had been halted for about two hours early on Sunday to ensure air safety. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes on each other's territory in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Kyiv says its attacks inside Russia are aimed at destroying infrastructure that is key to Moscow's war efforts, including energy and military infrastructure, and are in response to Russia's continued strikes.
News18
an hour ago
- News18
Indian refiners can do without Russian oil, but with trade-offs
New Delhi, Aug 10 (PTI) Indian refiners, the world's biggest user of Russian oil, can operate without supplies from Moscow from a technical standpoint, but the shift would involve major economic and strategic trade-offs, analysts said. Russian crude supports high distillate yields – the share of crude converted into fuels like petrol, diesel, and jet fuel through distillation. Replacing Russian crude, which accounts for up to 38 per cent of India's refinery intake, with alternatives will shift yields, resulting in lower middle distillates (diesel and jet fuel) and higher residue outputs, according to global real-time data and analytics provider Kpler. US President Donald Trump last week announced an additional 25 per cent tariff on US imports from India — raising the overall duty to 50 per cent — as a penalty for the country's continued imports of Russian oil. Since the steep tariffs are likely to hit the USD 27 billion of non-exempt exports that India does to the US, there has been chatter around stopping or curtailing oil imports from Russia. 'Indian refiners can operate without Russian crude from a technical standpoint, but the shift would involve major economic and strategic trade-offs," Kpler said in a report, 'US Tariffs on Indian Imports: Implications for Energy Markets & Trade Flows'. India turned to purchasing Russian oil sold at a discount after Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and shunned its supplies over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Consequently, from a mere 1.7 per cent share in total oil imports in 2019-20 (FY20), Russia's share increased to 35.1 per cent in FY25, and it is now the biggest oil supplier to India. In terms of volume, India imported 88 million tonnes from Russia in FY25, out of the total shipment of 245 million tonnes. In July, India received 1.6 million barrels per day of crude from Russia, ahead of China's nearly 1 million bpd and Turkey's around 5,00,000 bpd. Kpler said deep discounts and strong compatibility with India's refining systems led to a surge in imports of Russian Ural crude oil. 'Russian crude supports high distillate yields (diesel and jet fuel) and is ideally suited to India's advanced refining infrastructure. It has enabled both state-owned and private refiners to operate above nameplate capacity while maintaining strong margins. 'A reversal of this will result in a mild yield shift (lower middle distillate yields, higher residue yields) and probably a small reduction in primary throughput rates, as margins will no longer command a sizeable premium against regional benchmarks, considering existing discounts on Russian oil," Kpler said. The Indian government has issued diplomatic but firm responses to the US tariffs, emphasising the importance of maintaining energy security. 'Should Russian oil become inaccessible, India could face an additional USD 3-5 billion in annual import costs (based on a USD 5 per barrel premium on 1.8 million bpd). If global prices rise further (a scenario in which Russian crude exports are being curtailed, in the absence of sufficient buying interest from India), the financial burden could increase significantly," the report said. This may prompt the government to cap retail fuel prices, which could strain fiscal balances. A spike in the import bill could even lead to a reduction in overall crude purchases. India's limited storage capacity further constrains its ability to manage such disruptions. While Russian flows to India continue under a 'business-as-usual' stance, the escalating US rhetoric has reopened conversations about supply diversification, with some Indian refiners reportedly booking increased volumes of Middle Eastern crude. According to Kpler, replacing 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude would require a multi-regional approach. The Middle East remains the most viable option operationally, grades such as WTI Midland from the US could contribute 2,00,000-4,00,000 bpd. These (US crude) are lighter and yield less diesel, a disadvantage for India's distillate-heavy demand. Long-haul freight and cost considerations will also restrict scalability, it said. West Africa and Latin America (LatAm) crudes offer moderate potential. 'A balanced replacement strategy may involve 60-70 per cent of substitute volumes from the Middle East, with US and African/LatAm crudes serving as tactical fillers. Nevertheless, none match Russian barrels in cost, quality, or reliability (some of the Russia-to-India barrels have already been contracted under term agreements)," it noted. According to Kpler, Indian refiners can technically adapt to the loss of Russian barrels, but with significant economic consequences. 'Replacing 1.7-2.0 million bpd of discounted, medium-sour crude would erode refining margins and misalign product yields. Lighter substitutes like WTI or West African grades produce more gasoline and naphtha, reducing diesel output and hurting both domestic and export economics." Even Middle Eastern grades, while closer in quality, are priced tightly to official selling prices (OSP), leaving limited arbitrage opportunities. top videos View all 'In addition to higher feedstock costs, Indian refiners would face elevated freight and credit charges," it said. 'The transition is commercially painful, even if technically feasible." PTI ANZ BAL BAL (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: August 10, 2025, 12:00 IST News agency-feeds Indian refiners can do without Russian oil, but with trade-offs Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Just as Russia's Most-famous dissident seemed set to go free, tragedy struck
Roger Carstens was rushing across Tel Aviv to meet Roman Abramovich, knowing he would have to ask the White House for forgiveness rather than permission. Twice before, the Biden administration had turned down requests by the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs to meet this enigmatic Russian oligarch, one of the handful of people Carstens considered a 'back channel wizard" with the influence to untangle the thorniest diplomatic knots. But in November 2023, when Carstens traveled to Israel to help American families whose loved ones Hamas had taken hostage, a message reached his phone saying Abramovich was also in town. It seemed like an unmissable chance to advance a prisoner swap that could free U.S. citizens jailed in Russia—and at the same time, rescue Vladimir Putin's archnemesis, the Russian dissident leader Alexei Navalny. The hostage envoy had been on the ground in six wars but joked the most combat he'd ever seen was wearing a suit and tie in Washington, 'trying to get anything done." He had a plan to free Navalny and the Americans but the White House didn't think the time was right to move on it. He often joked that he felt like Gulliver, tied down by Lilliputians. His perceived adversaries: senior White House and State Department officials who had been working, albeit more cautiously, toward the same end, and were weighing the geopolitical and moral risks of trading prisoners with Putin. Carstens complained to colleagues he was stuck reporting to decision makers who, in his view, had never been to combat, never smelled cordite and who sat at their desks, offering reasons why his proposals wouldn't work. This time, the former Green Beret wasn't going to give anyone enough time to tell him no. On Nov. 30, he shot off an email to Washington, where the day was still young, saying he was poised to sit with Abramovich. Minutes later, he walked into a hotel chosen for the meeting. Sitting opposite, the billionaire said he could see prisoner talks—between the Central Intelligence Agency and Russia's FSB spy service—were stalled. 'I'm not sure the FSB is passing on our messages," Carstens said. He reiterated the latest offer from the White House: a mix of prisoners that included neither Navalny—whom Germany wanted—nor Russia's own must-have, an FSB officer named Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence for murdering a Putin opponent in downtown Berlin. Carstens felt that proposal was never going to fly. 'But let me run another idea by you," he ventured, 'Not officially, but just to get your view." Carstens pitched an idea he called 'enlarging the problem." Germany would free Krasikov, if Russia freed Navalny. As an add-on, the U.S. and European allies could return various deep-cover sleeper spies in their possession, and Russia would release two Americans held on espionage charges the U.S. government strongly denied: former Marine Paul Whelan, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. It sounded intriguing, Abramovich said, but added that he couldn't imagine Putin would free Navalny. After 30 minutes, Carstens left, reopening his phone to see cascading messages ordering him not to hold the meeting. A few days later, Carstens heard back from Abramovich, who seemed as surprised as anybody. Putin, he said, was willing to free Navalny. That same week, guards bundled the 47-year-old dissident onto a prison train and locked the door with no word of where he was heading. Hours turned to days as Navalny read the books he'd been allowed to take from the IK-6 prison camp. He couldn't see the towns passing outside, but the train was snaking across the Ural Mountains, then north toward the Arctic Circle to the 'dead railway," built by political prisoners under Stalin. It took two weeks to reach his ice-covered destination, known as 'Polar Wolf." 'I am your new Santa Claus," he wrote in his first letter home to his wife, Yulia. 'Unfortunately, there are no reindeer, but there are huge, fluffy and very beautiful German shepherds." A few weeks after he arrived, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz logged on to a private videoconference with Joe Biden, officially to discuss the war in Ukraine. Unofficially, the prisoner trade was on the agenda. Hours earlier, the Journal's editor in chief, Emma Tucker, had met with Scholz's top aides in Switzerland. Biden had just met Paul Whelan's sister, Elizabeth, a portrait painter who struck up an easy rapport with the president. Sullivan had been in constant contact with his opposite number in Berlin ahead of the meeting. The idea was so delicate Scholz was too nervous to mention specifics over the call. 'I will fly to see you," Scholz said. 'I would be happy to." The chancellor traveled without telling his own cabinet, giving such short notice that the only plane the German government could book was a medium-haul Airbus A321, which had to refuel in Iceland. There were no aides and no note-takers in the Feb. 9 meeting, just Biden and Scholz. Hours earlier, Tucker Carlson aired an interview with Putin at the Kremlin, where the former Fox host pushed the Russian president to release Gershkovich. Putin, chastened by Carlson, looked embarrassed. The pieces all seemed to be clicking into place. In the Oval Office, Scholz agreed to free the assassin Krasikov as the centerpiece of a broader deal. The chancellor would rescue Navalny from his Arctic prison—and, he hoped, boost the aging U.S. president's chances in what was certain to be a bruising re-election campaign. 'For you, I will do this," Scholz told Biden. On Feb. 15, 2024, the narrow streets of Munich were lined with black motorcades delivering the West's most important leaders to the Bavarian city's annual security conference. Carstens wasn't registered as a speaker or panelist, but he quietly slipped out of Washington on a red-eye flight bound for Germany. By now, the administration was accelerating the Navalny trade toward completion, but preferred to keep Carstens on the periphery of any Russia prisoner talks. Christo Grozev was already there, waiting anxiously in a cafe close to the venue's security perimeter. The Bulgarian investigative journalist and spy-hunter felt the deal was almost done, yet he and Carstens wanted to be as close as possible to the West's top security officials to spot-check that nothing would derail it. Odessa Rae, the 'Navalny" film producer, was texting from Dubai in route to Ukraine after meeting their Russian contact, Stanislav Petlinsky. Vice President Kamala Harris was flying in on Air Force Two, officially to deliver a keynote address, while more quietly representing Biden at a meeting with Slovenian leaders to confirm the trade could include two Russian sleeper spies in their custody: a married couple posing as Argentine nationals. Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, was at the conference, and still uneasy about the moral line her country was inching toward, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to meet her and soothe any concerns. Navalny's wife, Yulia, was also in Munich, on hand to address lingering doubts. Next to Grozev, messaging contacts to try to piece together the state of play, was Maria Pevchikh, Navalny's friend and head of investigations. Their location felt ominous. Seventeen years earlier, at the same Munich gathering, Russia's president delivered a speech castigating the world order in which America was 'one master, one sovereign," a diatribe considered the starting gun of his war against the West. Now, within touching distance of the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Soviet collapse, the memory of that speech was like a specter. As the evening wrapped toward a close, Pevchikh raised a question, like a terrible premonition: 'What if they kill him?" After years studying Russian intelligence services, Grozev was confident her concern wouldn't come to pass. There was a protocol, he reassured her, a methodology for prison swaps upheld since the Cold War. The Journal even had prewritten articles, ready to go, the moment Navalny walked free. The next day, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray was sitting down for lunch with the chiefs of Britain's MI6 and Germany's BND intelligence agency. Their discreet and thankless work was about to pay off in the very real gift of freedom not only for Navalny but also for Gershkovich, whose reporting Wray admired. But as the meal unfolded, dignitaries began reaching for their phones, buzzing with news from Russia. The most powerful security czars in the Western alliance turned to each other in horror and bewilderment. 'Alexei Navalny has died in prison," the Kremlin's state newswire announced. 'The cause of death is being established." The guests rose one by one to start fielding calls. Wray rushed upstairs to confer with Blinken. America's top diplomat immediately shot back: 'Get me Yulia." An aide struggled to reach Navalny's wife and came back with the number for Grozev. Weaving through the tightly controlled security cordons, European and American officials were scrambling to find each other and confer on what would happen next. The news spread through the hallways and coffee line where a German diplomat blurted out in full earshot of reporters, 'Oh no! We were working on getting him out!" Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, reacts as she speaks during the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 16, 2024. Grozev guided Navalny's ashen-faced widow through the hotel gates to the secretary of state's suite. The two embraced, then sat down, and Yulia delivered a powerful message: Putin must be punished for the misery he has wrought. Minutes later she walked down toward the lectern in the shellshocked conference hall with delegates standing to applaud, or crying in their seats, her eyes filled with tears and righteous anger. 'I want Putin, his entourage, Putin's friends, and his government to know they will pay for what they have done to our country, to our family, and my husband," she said. Chancellor Scholz wanted to see Yulia but wasn't sure if the woman who had minutes earlier discovered she was a widow would want time with her family. 'I want to meet," she responded and arrived, somehow still composed, in the hotel suite where the chancellor was waiting. 'I have one request," Yulia said, before turning to the question of Krasikov. 'Do not release that man." Across the world, the secret club of people who had labored at organizing an exchange were reeling as its one necessary component was lying dead in an Arctic morgue. Officials across the West had worked for months to free not just Navalny but a growing list of Americans seized by the Kremlin as bargaining chips. CIA officers and their European partners had hunted down Russian spies undercover in an Arctic research institute, the front lines of Ukraine and the suburbs of an Alpine capital. The Justice Department had extradited Russian cybercriminals arrested in the Maldives and on a Swiss mountainside helipad—high-wire legal and diplomatic maneuvers that had given the U.S. trading stock for an exchange that was now on ice. In Los Angeles, Journal publisher Almar Latour was visiting a museum exhibit of art made by prisoners from Soviet gulags, and wondering if a dark gray pencil sketch was drawn in the same camp as Navalny, when his phone rang. It was Carstens, who had landed in Munich just in time to learn it was all for nought. The U.S. could have brought Navalny back alive if it had acted with more urgency, Carstens said. 'If only I had moved faster." The special envoy was blaming himself for not putting more pressure on the White House. 'We could have wrapped this up in August!" Rae, on her way to Ukraine, was boarding a flight, talking to a fellow passenger about her film, neither of them aware until she glanced at her phone that its subject, her friend, had just died. In Russia's IK-17 labor camp, Paul Whelan was trading cigarettes to place a call to his family: 'If they are willing to kill Navalny they could do something to me. Poison me. Break my leg?" His sister Elizabeth was quizzing a case officer on Carstens's staff over text messages about the consequences of a death she was sure wasn't an accident. The IK-17 Penal Colony, where American Paul Whelan was transferred to serve a 16-year sentence on espionage charges he and the U.S. government denied. Jake Sullivan was on his office sofa when a delegation from The Wall Street Journal stepped in. Their meeting, pre-scheduled, was meant to deliver good news, but word of Navalny's death, hours earlier, lent it the air of a wake. Sullivan had a habit of looking toward the floor, or to one side, as he carefully deliberated the angles of a problem. After a long pause, he spoke: 'I never thought a deal with Navalny would work." But he also hadn't expected Putin to kill him, and still wasn't sure if he would ever know the truth behind the dissident's death. Navalny's supporters had lost everything—the man they were trying to save and Russia's dreams for a democratic future. And the Journal, whose reporter, Gershkovich, had now spent 323 days in the Moscow jail where Stalin's henchman once executed purged officials, was no closer to freeing him than in the first hours of his arrest. But in the cloud of grief and disorientation, the national security adviser could also glimpse a new possibility. Germany had crossed the psychological threshold of agreeing to free a murderer—and perhaps they would accept other political prisoners in Navalny's place. The question hanging over that analysis was whether Putin had come to the same fatal conclusion. In the weeks to come, CIA officials would fly to meet their Russian counterparts in Saudi hotels, booked under false names, carrying eyes-only hard-copy lists of prisoners the West could trade with the Kremlin. The world would finally see the fruits of their labor when, on Aug. 1, 2024 six planes delivered 24 prisoners and two children to an exchange point outside a Turkish air terminal, a mix of Russian spies, hackers, cybercriminals—and Krasikov—traded for Russian dissidents, German convicts, and Americans including Whelan, Gershkovich, and other journalists. That trade, the largest East-West swap in modern history, would cement a cold, inescapable fact about the emerging world order: taking and trading prisoners, and bending the justice system to do it, is now what powerful countries do, a transactional order of statecraft encapsulated by Navalny's arrest, the campaign to free him, and his tragic death. For now, however, looking up from his office couch, Sullivan engaged the Journal without offering false hope. The newspaper's lawyers had brought Gershkovich's mother, Ella Milman, and she was looking right at him, asking: 'Doesn't this create more urgency to free Evan?" 'It might," he said. 'It's not a breaking point," he added. 'We will get this done. I see a pathway." Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson are leaders on The Wall Street Journal's World Enterprise Team. This piece is adapted from their new book, 'Swap: A Secret History of the New Cold War," which will be published on Aug. 19 by HarperCollins (which, like the Journal, is owned by News Corp).
