A Russian Soldier Died in Mysterious Circumstances

choi

罗森伯格, 国际纵横：被遗忘的俄军阵亡士兵. BBCChinese, Sept 20, 2014
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/worl ... gottensoilder.shtml

, which is translated from

Steven Rosenberg, Ukraine Crisis: Forgotten Death of Russian Soldier. BBC, Sept 18, 2014.
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29249643
(legend of a photo showing his headstone: Konstantin Kuzmin died aged 29 after joining Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine)

Note:
(a) “She [Konstantin’s sister Oksana] shows me the medal he'd been awarded for military service in the North Caucasus; some of his army photos, too, including a portrait on a military pendant.”
(i) translation: “她向我展示了弟弟在北高加索地区服役而获得的勋章，以及一些他生前在军中拍摄的一些照片，包括一张身穿戎装佩戴勋章的标准照。
(ii)
(A) Oksana
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oksana
(a female given name of Ukrainian origin; derive from the Greek Xenia)
(B) Xenia (Greek)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_(Greek)
(trans[literation:] "guest-friendship")
(iii) military awards and decorations
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_awards_and_decorations
(Necklaces and bracelets were given during the early Middle Ages, evolving into richly jewelled big necklaces, often with a pendant (commonly a medal) attached)

(b) "’He left on 23 July. Three days later my brother called to say he was on the move again. It sounded as if he was frightened of something. “I'm off to the south west! South-west Ukraine!” he said. I thought, perhaps, he meant the border area ... ‘ she added.”
(i) translation: “‘他是在7月23日离开家的。3天之后，我弟弟又打来电话说，他又要出发了，要去乌克兰西南部。听得出来他有点害怕。我当时还想，或者他指的是边界地区吧。’
(ii) The sister quoted Konstantin as saying his departing to “South-west Ukraine.” It can not be--it must have been either “South-west Russia” or “South-east Ukraine”--that is why she added, “I thought, perhaps, he meant the border area.”

(c) “Konstantin was a ‘kontraktnik,’ a professional soldier.”
(i) The noun kontraktnik has the plural form kontraktniki.
(ii) Russian Ground Forces
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces
(section 3.1 Contract soldiers: From small beginnings in the early 1990s, employment of contract soldiers (kontraktniki) has grown greatly within the Ground Forces, though many have been of poor quality (wives of officers with no other prospective employment, for example))
(iii)
(A) -nik
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-nik
(B) -nik
dictionary.reference.com/browse/-nik

(d) “As we were leaving her village we were stopped by traffic police. Our car boot was checked, as were our identities.”
(i) boot (n): “British an enclosed space at the back of a car for carrying luggage or other goods”
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/boot
(ii) car boot sale (n): "British  an outdoor sale at which people sell unwanted possessions, typically from the boots of their cars"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... ale?q=car+boot+sale
(iii) trunk (automobile)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunk_(automobile)
The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English, while boot is used elsewhere in the English-speaking world – except in South Asia, where it is usually called a dickie/dicky or slang diggy)