At the age of 43
Former Russian international dies in war
12/29/2024 – 10:08 p.mReading time: 1 min.
20 years ago, Aleksey Bugaev was on the pitch for Russia at the 2004 European Championship. Most recently he fought in the war of aggression against Ukraine.
Former Russian international Aleksey Bugaev has died. His lawyer Anton Smirnov confirmed this to the Russian sports portal “sport24.ru”. Bugaev was killed at the front in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The explosive thing: The 43-year-old was actually sentenced to almost ten years in prison for drug trafficking in September of this year, but reported for military service and is said to have hoped for a pardon. Just three months after the verdict, the former professional footballer died in the war. Bugaev’s father Ivan also confirmed this. “Unfortunately the news about his death is true. It happened today,” he told “sport24.ru”.
According to lawyer Smirnov, it is currently not possible to recover Bugaev’s body. “The military operations are still ongoing. Let us hope that we can still get his body for burial,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is not described as such in Russia. The government’s formulation under President Vladimir Putin is “military operation”, which is why Smirnov also speaks of a “military action”.
In the 2000s, Aleksey Bugaev played for Torpedo Moscow, Tom Tomsk and FK Krasnodar, among others, and played more than 100 games in the Russian first league. During the 2004 European Championships he even played for the Russian national team and appeared in two games. In total he played seven times for “Sbornaja”.