There was also a piece of rib taken for histological analysis. Lets look at the exhumation photos for a missing part of a rib.
How can you tell what is broken and what is clipped for histological analysis? And this is just half (one side) of Zolotaryov's ribs.
Just ignore the arrows pointing at cracks, I am using a ready image. But there are plenty of defects on the ribs that could be the places where a sample was taken.
I asked a coroner. Pieces for further examination are clipped from the edge of the rib (one cut), not the middle (two cuts). How do you know that a piece was not taken from the end of a rib?