- Russian Media Publisher Sentenced to 8 Years in Absentia Over Bucha Comments The Moscow Times
- Russian Blogger Gets Eight Years In Prison For Online Comments On War In Ukraine Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- Russian Hypersonic Missile Scientist Goes on Trial for Treason Bloomberg
- Moscow critic and former publisher sentenced to 8 years for defaming Russian forces in Ukraine war The Washington Post
- ‘It’s All Lies’: Supporters Say Petty Politics Lies Behind Treason Conviction Of Ailing Russian Scientist Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
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Tag Archives: Bucha
‘There are maniacs who enjoy killing,’ Russian defector says of his former unit accused of war crimes in Bucha
CNN
—
Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March.
“I saw them run, then I learned they were rapists. They raped a mother and a daughter,” he said. Their commanders, Chibrin said, shrugged when finding out about the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes.
“They were never jailed. Just fired. Just like that: ‘Go!’ They were simply dismissed from the war. That’s it.”
Chibrin is a former soldier from the Russian city of Yakutsk who says he served in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the notorious Russian military unit accused of committing war crimes during their offensive in Bucha, Borodianka and other towns and villages north of Kyiv.
He deserted from the Russian military in September and fled to Europe via Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Troops from Chibrin’s brigade were labeled war criminals by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and dead bodies lying in the streets were discovered following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.
Chibrin’s military documents, seen by CNN, show his commander was Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in charge of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov, known as the “Butcher of Bucha” is under sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States have sanctioned the entire brigade.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies were fake.
In a move that sparked outrage across the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions.”
Chibrin said he didn’t see any of the supposed heroism, but many of the crimes.
Speaking to CNN in a European country where he has requested asylum, he detailed some of the crimes he says he witnessed and heard accounts of, and said he’d be prepared to testify against his unit at an international criminal court. He maintains he himself didn’t commit any crimes.
“I didn’t see murders but I saw rapists running away, being chased (by higher-ranking members of the unit) because they committed rape,” he said.
He also said that the unit had a “direct command to murder” anyone sharing information about the unit’s positions, whether military or civilians.
“If someone had a phone – we were allowed to shoot them,” he said. He claims there is little doubt some of the men in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were capable of killing unarmed civilians.
“There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,” he said.
Chibrin also described widespread looting, with Russian soldiers taking computers, jewelry and anything they liked.
“They didn’t hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka in the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he said. “The mentality is, if you steal something, you are good. If nobody catches you, good! If you see something that is expensive and you steal it and don’t get caught, you are good.”
As for the unit’s commanders, he said they were well aware of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, but took little interest in seeking justice.
“They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he said. “Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.”
CNN has asked the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on the allegations, but has not received a response.
Chibrin has no doubt that Russia will eventually lose its war against Ukraine, but not until many more lives are lost.
“Because Russia won’t stop until big blood is spilled, until everyone dies. Soldiers are cannon fodder to them. They don’t respect them,” he said.
Having seen the fighting first hand, he said the equipment Russian soldiers have is no match for the weapons to which Ukraine has access. He says that while Ukraine is receiving some of the most advanced weaponry available from its Western allies, the Russian army is relying on Soviet-era equipment used during the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“Of course Russia will lose. Because the whole world is supporting Ukraine. To think that they (the Russians) will win is stupid,” he said. “They thought they would occupy Kyiv in three days. What day is it now [of the war]? 260th? They thought they would come to Ukraine and be met with flowers. But they were told to f*** off and thrown Molotov cocktails at.”
Men in his unit were also extremely ill-prepared for combat, according to Chibrin. He said the training his unit received consisted of commanders giving them a weapon, a target and 5,000 bullets.
“Keep shooting and then you are free to go. No one was doing anything. There was no actual training. I worked with a computer, at the office, worked as a lawnmower…” he said.
The lack of training became obvious once in Ukraine. The same men who were boasting about being “like Rambo” before they were deployed came back broken, he said. “Those who said they’d be shooting Ukrainians easily, when they come back from the front lines … they could not even speak to me. They saw the war, they saw defeat, saw their [fellow] combatants being murdered, saw corpses. They realized – but they couldn’t run away.”
He said many of the men were poorly trained and most had no idea where they were headed.
“It was a big lie. It was a military training with the Belarusian army. And they lied to us. On February 24 they just said everyone will go to war,” Chibrin said, adding that he initially refused to go.
“The first thing I said was, ‘Commander, f*** you, I don’t want to go to the war’ and he said, ‘Hey you, you will have big problems, you will go to jail and your family will have big problems’ … and he attacked me and put me in a special vehicle and closed the door. And I couldn’t open [it] from inside. So, that’s how I went to Ukraine.”
Chibrin went on to spend months in Ukraine, on and off. When the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew at the end of March from the area northwest of Kyiv, following the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus.
He said he was suffering from a back injury and went to a military hospital in Russia, but was forced to go back to Ukraine in May. This time he was sent to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, and then spent time in the forests around Izyum.
It was then that he finally found a chance to escape, he said. He noticed that commanders of other units were leaving the area for Russia in a truck and jumped in.
“I jump in [the bed of the truck] and I see, wow, other guys, also leaving Ukraine. And they say we don’t want to [fight the] war, we paid the commander money (to drive). And I am waiting and waiting and then we are near to the Russia border and the car is stopped and the guys are jumping off and I am also jumping off. And I go to the Russia border and I say I need the medical help,” he said.
Once back in Russia, Chibrin said he spent nearly a month in hospital, most of that being bedridden with terrible back pain. But he said he was unable to get proper treatment. “They said that if I wanted to go to a special sanatorium, I needed to sign a paper that said I’d go back to war,” he said.
Refusing to sign, Chibrin said he was getting ready to submit paperwork to get his military contract canceled when the Russian government announced a partial mobilization in September.
“And my friends told me I needed to hide. ‘You need to find place and hide, your contract will not be canceled because of the mobilization,” he said. Knowing he needed to get as far as possible from the far east city of Khabarovsk where he was stationed, Chibrin first fled across Russia to St. Petersburg and then took a train to Belarus. Once there he was able to find an intermediary who helped him get to Kazakhstan from where he ultimately traveled to his current location.
Now he is determined to speak up about the events he witnessed in Ukraine, even writing an anti-war song. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of mothers without children,” the chorus goes.
Ms Marvel Episode 4 Recap: Seeing Red
Last we left Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), her fight with the reckless ClanDestine and the apparent revelation that she inherited her power from Djinn left her very shaken. To rattle her world further, her grandmother Sana (Samina Ahmad) implored her to go to Karachi. Not only did Kamala see the vision of the Partition-era Karachi train when Najma (Nimra Bucha) grabbed her bangle, but so did her grandmother? What’s so imperative about this that she must travel all the way to Pakistan?
We immediately open the episode showing Kamala on a plane going into Karachi with her mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), whom she has some lingering tension with from last week’s wedding. Muneeba has acceded to her mother’s demands that they both travel to Pakistan, at least–she might have lingering tension as well with her own mother, but she’s a devoted daughter first. Kamala’s cousins Zainab and Owais (Vardah Aziz and Asfandyar Khan, respectively) welcome them at the airport near the crack of dawn, along with her Nani Sana, who sweetly embraces her and Muneeba, as she is just coming from a party. But of course, she has to note that Muneeba’s skin is dry. Alas, the standards are always too high in Asian families.
They arrive at Sana’s (large) house, where Sana shows Kamala her art room. She has painted and drawn many pieces of art borne out of the trauma of Partition. It’s a resonant scene as Ahmed masterfully gives a nuanced and poignant performance–but we have to interrupt this grounded resonance when Kamala brings up the bangle to her, and Sana casually says that she is indeed a Djinn, or at least, that’s the story Sana’s father told her as a child. Kamala immediately speaks for me when she responds “How are you so casual about this?”
But Sana seems to have always taken it in stride. “It’s just genetics,” she says, and that the only important thing about the bangle is how it saved her life as a child during Partition. She implores Kamala to figure out what the meaning is of the vision of the train, more to Kamala’s frustration, as Vellani continues to be a powerhouse in her first acting role. But her grandmother reassures her that she’ll be able to figure out the puzzle, even if there are so many pieces. Kamala then goes to a restaurant with her cousins and mom, meeting up with Auntie Rukhsana. Afterwards, as Kamala goes through a bazaar with her cousins, she learns about the first residences made for immigrants and refugees from India during Partition. Through Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s eyes, we get to see her home country in a beautiful light, bustling with people simply living their lives, making delicious food and clothing, and overall being welcoming. But Kamala wants to go to the train station to investigate the vision (not telling her cousins) and decides to go ahead without them and meet up later.
As Kamala arrives at the station, she puts her domino mask on, and almost immediately a dagger flies past her head and lands on a wall painting of Ant-Man. We then meet Kareem, aka Red Dagger (Aramis Knight), who says he’s been searching for her, and found her because he sensed her “Noor,” the essence Najma told her about in the last episode. They then immediately get into a fight, and Kamala seems to display some more prowess with her powers, even using her hard light projections to block a dagger. She finds that he knows about the ClanDestine and Aisha, and then they start working together and escape from the police coming to break up their brawl. Red Dagger takes Kamala through a restaurant to the Red Daggers’ (plural) hideout. It’s a gorgeous turquoise hideout filled with beautiful Pakistani architecture. Usually, they wouldn’t bring in an outsider, but Waleed (Farhan Akhtar) says that he must invite a descendant of Aisha’s. Apparently, Aisha’s story is of legend to the Red Daggers. They’re an ancient order whose purpose is “To protect our people from threats of the unseen.”
Comic fans will know the Red Dagger (Laal Khanjeer in Urdu)/Kareem quite well. He’s one of Kamala’s love interests that she meets on her trip to Karachi. Kareem was never part of an ancient order as it’s portrayed here though; he came up with the persona of Red Dagger himself, and learned his moves via YouTube. He’s like Kamala in that they both are teens amateurly figuring out this hero thing. But he also serves as an interesting contrast to her own conduct as a hero. When she tries to intervene to help as Ms. Marvel, he lets her know that she doesn’t know enough about the situation in Karachi to help. She might be Pakistani, but she’s also American, and didn’t grow up in Pakistan as he did. It’s a fascinating and nuanced showing of the difference between diaspora and resident Pakistanis, as Kamala learns that she can’t know everything about a supposedly “criminal” situation, and that’s OK. What’s important is that she listens and learns. It would be interesting if the show introduced this angle for our young hero but we may simply not have time this season for it. Due to, you know, the Noor Dimension.
But back to said show. These threats the Red Daggers face include the ClanDestine, who, as Waleed says, are not like the Djinn any of us have heard about in stories or religious texts, and says that if Thor landed in the Himalayan mountains, “he too would have been called a Djinn.” Which is a roundabout way of saying, none of these brown or Muslim people are actually Djinn! Huzzah! But this also begs the question, if we were going to bring up Djinn at all, why toss the concept away so quickly and leave Muslim viewers to still have to deal with this discomfort? It remains a puzzling choice for episode three, “Destined” and I wish the show had never brought them up at all if the concept of Djinn wasn’t going to be a throughline anyway. While I understand what the creators were going for through including this discomfort for Kamala and some viewers to ultimately get a (relatively quick) release, I still hold that this aspect just wasn’t needed for the show with the first headlining Muslim superhero. It ended up not really going anywhere and seemed to only make Muslim viewers understandably uncomfortable.
Waleed further explains that the ClanDestines and Aisha are indeed from another dimension, among many unseen, showing Kamala a map of their plane of existence. He then shows her “wall of Noor” that separates their realm from the ClanDestine dimension, which is also powered by Noor. If the ClanDestine get what they want with the bangle opening the wall of their dimension, they’ll unleash their world onto ours until it completely overtakes it. Definitely not advisable, as Waleed says, who further notes to Kamala that the inscription on the bangle says “What you seek is seeking you.” Meanwhile, back in the U.S. at the Department of Damage Control (DODC) max security prison, we see Kamran and the ClanDestine being abused by prison guards–only for them all to quickly overwhelm their captors and escape. Kamran is knocked out in the process, but the real hurt comes when he comes to, as Najma decides that the other ClanDestine should abandon him for previously trying to help Kamala. Ouch!
Back in Karachi, Kamala meets Sana on the rooftop of the house during the Call to Prayer. As Kamala expresses doubt about what she’s finding on her journey, Sana sweetly notes to her “Even at my age, I’m still trying to figure out who I am. My passport is Pakistani, my roots are in India,” and notes that this is all due to British colonization anyway: “There is a border marked with blood and pain,” she says. “People are claiming their identity based on an idea some old Englishman had when they were fleeing the country.” Samina Ahmad is an amazing actress who brings a real majesty to the show and wonderful interactions with Kamala, and the best scenes in this episode are undoubtedly between granddaughter and grandmother. Anything otherworldly can wait, to be honest, as the show consistently shows that it’s strongest in its nuanced and humanistic moments with family and friends.
Kareem (as a civilian) takes Kamala to meet his friends on a beach around a fire, where they have biryani (aka, a perfect food). Kamala worries if it’s too spicy, but thankfully it’s not, and she gets to enjoy her time making some resident Pakistani friends as one of them sings beautifully in Urdu. Again, these interpersonal moments are where the show works best. But back at Sana’s house, Muneeba and her mother finally start to work through their issues. Muneeba reveals that part of the reason she left for America was because she was “continuously shunned by the neighbors because of my crazy mother and her wild theories,” and that she ultimately felt abandoned in a way with her mother’s obsessions. While Shroff once again gives a compelling performance, I’m not sure why Sana espousing these theories to the degree that her family is shunned and her mother ignored her because of them entirely makes sense. Maybe there’s more to the story? But for now, it’s puzzlingly left untouched outside of Muneeba’s comment. That said, it at least concludes with another great moment between Kamala and her mother sharing toffees, and the catharsis of having confronted Sana lets Muneeba strengthen her relationship with her own daughter.
After spending time with her mother Kamala returns to the Red Dagger hideout, where Waleed says that her genetics could be the answer to why she can “shape the Noor” in our dimension. He then gives Kamala a vest that she’ll presumably use to make her costume–only for the moment to be interrupted when the ClanDestine attack, looking to steal Kamala’s bangle! We still have no idea what the rush is to open the dimension but they really want it regardless. Kamala escapes from them with Waleed and Kareem, but they come in hot pursuit on the streets of Karachi where Kamala succeeds in using her Noor powers to avoid hitting a family and derails one of the ClanDestine’s trucks. Tragically, Najma kills Waleed as he protects Kamala and Kareem, and they make a final stand against them. Kamala seems far more skilled in using her powers, as opposed to the last fight. But not even that can stop Najma–even as Kareem gets the upper hand against the ClanDestine, Najma manages to stab Kamala’s bangle with a knife, immersing her back into the vision of the train… except it’s no longer a vision, and Kamala has fully landed back in Partition-era India! It’s an incredibly harrowing scene and nothing like has ever been on Disney+, let alone Marvel’s series for the platform, with huge crowds of people desperately clamoring onto the last train to Karachi. That’s where the episode ends, and I can only hope that we see the depiction of this traumatic time period handled well and with care next week.
“Seeing Red” is a mostly compelling episode that shines most when it focuses (once again) on the intimate and nuanced moments between Kamala and her family. This is where the show is at its strongest, particularly in this episode’s context of explaining the traumas of Partition and the lingering effects it has on Sana and her family. While some of the scenes with the Red Daggers were sweet and fun, the exposition on the “Noor dimension” tended to sink rather than swim, and the ClanDestine’s rush to open a door to it still makes little sense. It’s easy to feel whiplash with this show, appreciating it for its nuanced depictions of Pakistani and Muslim culture, but then feel disoriented by the over-exposition on the apparent sources of Kamala’s powers. Hopefully next week the answers become clearer and more grounded as Kamala’s relationships with her family and friends.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Chechen Soldiers in Bucha Civilian Massacre Accused of Killing Russian Comrades
BUCHA, Ukraine—Ihor Yuschenko, 61, a former colonel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces who once served as the deputy chief of staff of ground forces in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, watched in horror as a war crime took place right outside his window in broad daylight.
According to Yuschenko, a column of Russian troops advancing through the town stopped and opened fire on his street in central Bucha on Feb. 27, killing two pedestrians. This column had included Chechen fighters known as Kadyrovtsy, members of various military groupings who are loyal to Chechnya’s local strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, known as “Putin’s soldier.” Yuschenko said he was able to identify them by their black garb, their use of Islamic slogans, and Kadyrov’s name on their body armor.
About an hour later, their column was decimated by the Ukrainian army in a different part of town—but the Kadyrovtsy returned.“Many Chechen soldiers penetrated this street to kill Ukrainian civilian people,” Yuschenko told The Daily Beast.
He described how Chechen fighters, also dressed in black, shot up a car that had been driving down the street with at least “thirty bullets,” according to Yuschenko, killing its occupants and causing it to come to a stop on the side of the road next to the apartment building he was staying in. The Kadyrovtsy then allegedly dragged the two dead people whom they had shot out of the car, left them by the side of the road, and drove off in the car themselves.
Yuschenko’s mother, Zina Yehorovna, his friend Pavel Kondratyev, and his neighbor Bogdan each confirmed these events to The Daily Beast. According to Bogdan however, the Chechens then hit a civilian who had been trying to flee the scene with the car, leaving him hanging off the hood of the car before he slid off onto the street.
“They just shot them.”
“It’s simply a war crime what they have done here,” Yuschenko said, standing next to the bench that the car had crashed into after the Kadyrovtsy allegedly attacked it. “This is not war.”
Artem Hurin, a member of the city council of the neighboring town of Irpin who also serves as a deputy commander in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, was one of the first people to visit Bucha after the Russians retreated. There, he heard numerous accounts from residents about life in areas like Yablonska Street, where a group of Kadyrovtsy who were supposed to advance onto Kyiv were stationed.
According to Hurin, Ukrainian civilians were not the only people the Kadyrovtsy allegedly brutalized in the town. Hurin said that residents he spoke to in Borodyanka, which lies northwest of Bucha, recounted what the Kadyrovtsy did with injured Russian soldiers they brought there from Bucha. “They would bring heavily wounded Russian soldiers to a big hospital they had there, and those who were very heavily wounded, they would just shoot them,” he told The Daily Beast. “And no one other than the Kadyrovtsy did this.”
Locals mourn as a mass grave is exhumed. Local authorities attempted to identify the bodies of civilians who had died during the Russian occupation in Bucha, Ukraine.
Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Eyewitnesses have alleged that Kadyrovtsy had executed people as early as March 5, and the Mayor of Bucha Anatoliy Fedoruk stated Chechen units had tied white bands around prisoners’ arms that were similar to the ones found on the bodies of executed civilians. Hurin said he saw evidence of executions and torture on bodies he found in the street, and spoke to a woman who endured four days of torture at the hands of one Kadyrovtsy fighter and one Belarusian soldier before they shot her husband in the head.
“They didn’t allow them to do anything. There they just killed people through binoculars for example,” Hurin said, describing what happened to people who tried to leave their homes to get food and water. “They just shot them.”
He also confirmed previous reports about a local base at a glass factory on Yablonska Street, which Ukraine’s Ombudsman for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova said served as a torture chamber operated by Russians and Chechens.
According to the Kyiv Oblast Police, the bodies of around 1,150 civilians have been found throughout the Kyiv region since Russian forces retreated in late March and early April. In Bucha alone, over 400 people have been found dead so far, most of whom were killed by the town’s Russian occupiers over the course of several weeks in March prior to their withdrawal from the town on April 1.
But accounts like Yuschenko’s provide evidence that indiscriminate violence toward civilians was part of the Russian army’s playbook in Bucha from almost the very beginning of the war itself, with Chechen Kadyrovtsy playing a key role in the brutality even early on—against local residents and their own fellow soldiers alike. A lot remains unknown about Chechen activity in Bucha, but new details and testimony from residents and local authorities are making it possible to form a clearer picture of Chechen forces’ brutal presence in the town and their participation in the weeks-long war crimes against Bucha’s residents.
Social media evidence, testimony from residents, and materials seized by Kyiv Oblast police suggest that the Kadyrovtsy regiments in Bucha most likely belonged to the Special Rapid Response Unit (SOBR) and (Special Purpose Mobile Unit) OMON, and that these units, along with other Russian troops, were likely responsible for a significant portion of the massacre that took place there.
According to independent security analyst Harold Chambers, who specializes in the north Caucasus, this sort of personal violence by Kadyrovtsy in Bucha comes as no surprise.
“What they do have experience in, in terms of military operations, is really these zachistki, these clean sweep operations,” Chambers said, speaking about a brutal style of house-to-house searches and killings that Russian forces perfected during the Chechen Wars in the 1990s and early 2000s. “It plays into their specialty of targeting civilian populations, and from the stories we’ve already heard out of Bucha, that’s very much what was going on.”
Despite their presence in Bucha in late February, Russian forces were not able to gain full control of the town until several days later on or after March 2. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has identified the 64th separate motorized infantry brigade as one of the Russian military groups responsible for the massacre that ensued in Bucha throughout March, but evidence suggests they were not the only ones involved.
According to Andriy Halavin, the priest at the Church of the Holy Apostle St. Andrew the First-Called in Bucha, where a mass grave for around 280 people was dug during the Russian occupation, regiments that included SOBR and OMON units began to replace the original occupying forces later in March.
“At the beginning, even though they were, shall we say, strict, they were fair. At the very beginning they would just search my car and tell me to just continue with my work, and so on,” Halavin said. “But after that the others came.”
Andriy Nebytov, the head of the Kyiv Oblast Police which is responsible for Bucha, confirmed that SOBR and OMON units were present in the Kyiv region, citing documents seized by his police department that show lists of members of the regiments who had arrived in the area. Because the information will be used in future criminal cases against Russia, his office was unable to provide the list to The Daily Beast, but the documents are seen in a video Nebytov recently published.
On Feb. 27, Ukrainian forces destroyed a large column of vehicles that included Kadyrovtsy on Vokzal’na Street near Bucha’s train station, which lines up with Yuschenko’s account from that same day. The column had arrived in the town from Hostomel, which lies just to the northeast of Bucha, where Hussein Mezhidov, the Chechen commander of the “Yug” battalion of the 141st Special Motorized Regiment that forms the backbone of the Kadyrovtsy, was seen in a video on Feb. 26.
“This situation was the biggest terror of my life.”
According to Chambers, the most likely Chechen unit present in Bucha on Feb. 27 was the SOBR “Akhmat” group. Nevertheless, Chambers noted that the pattern of organization of Kadyrovtsy units around Kyiv makes identifying specific fighting groups who had fought on that front particularly difficult.
“The Kadyrovtsky do not seem to be fighting as much in delineated units, they seem to be working more in combined groups,” Chambers said. “You have a lot of commanders overlapping together, so it seems less clear how the units were actually being separated.”
Militarily and strategically, Kadyrovtsy deployed to Kyiv Oblast served several purposes—some groups were designed to be strike teams meant to assassinate Ukrainian President Zelensky and his family if they were able to make it into Kyiv, but according to Michael Kofman, the director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, these units’ primary purpose was a broader one.
“The Chechens have a real purpose. The Russian military needs manpower,” Kofman said. He added that the Kadyrovtsy were meant to be deployed into the cities, especially into Kyiv, in order to support soldiers from the Eastern Military District, who were supposed to hold the blockade of the capital, and to fight alongside airborne units within the city limits.
“These Chechen units and these auxiliaries were therefore really important for the urban fight, because a lot of the other units they’d send were pretty low on manpower availability,” he said.
A Ukrainian serviceman looks on as workers exhume bodies from a mass grave in Bucha, north-west of Kyiv. Ukraine says it has discovered 1,222 bodies in Bucha and other towns.
AFP via Getty Images
Ultimately, none of that happened, and the Kadyrovtsy, together with other Russian units, were left to their own devices and given carte blanche to allegedly abuse and massacre the population of Bucha for weeks, as people like Yuschenko saw firsthand. Yuschenko said all his years of military service paled in comparison to his experiences in the town.
“There, you know where the frontline is, you know where threats may come from,” Yuschenko said about his time fighting in eastern Ukraine. “This was much more frightening than the Donbas. From lieutenant, to platoon commander, to deputy chief of staff, this situation was the biggest terror of my life.”
Ukraine names 10 Russian soldiers in alleged human rights abuses in Bucha | Ukraine
Ukraine’s prosecutor general has named 10 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in human rights abuses during the month-long occupation of Bucha.
Iryna Venediktova also told German TV that that Ukranian investigators had identified “more than 8,000 cases” of suspected war crimes since Russia’s invasion, which included accusations of “killing civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sexual crimes”.
Her comments came as the international criminal court (ICC) ramps up its investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine since the start of the war. The Dutch government will “very soon” send a team of “several dozen” forensic specialists to Ukraine on behalf of the ICC to gather evidence of human rights abuses, the ANP press agency reported on Thursday.
Russian forces’ retreat from Kyiv in early April left horrifying evidence of atrocities littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, where scores of bodies in civilian clothes were found lying in the streets or buried in shallow graves.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Venediktova identified 10 soldiers – two sergeants, four corporals and four privates – who she said were all “involved in the torture of peaceful people” during the brutal occupation of Bucha, a small commuter town 18.5 miles north-west of Kyiv.
Venediktova said the soldiers were part of the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade, a unit based in the Khabarovsk region, on the Pacific coast in Russia’s far east.
“During the occupation of Bucha, they took unarmed civilians hostage, killed them with hunger and thirst, and kept them on their knees with their hands tied and their eyes taped. [The hostages] were mocked and beaten with fists and the rifle stocks. They were beaten for information about the location of the [Ukrainian] armed forces … and some were tortured for no reason at all,” she wrote.
Venediktova appealed to the public to help gather evidence, and said that Ukrainian prosecutors and police officers are now investigating whether any of the men were also involved in homicides.
Ukraine, together with a number of western countries and human rights organisations, has accused Russian forces of summarily killing civilians in Bucha.
Stanislav Kozynchuk, the deputy head of the prosecutor’s office for the Kyiv region, said that investigators are working with victims to identify the perpetrators of human rights abuses.
“Our suspects are military personnel from the Russian Federation,” he said. “We understand who was there, what happened, and now we are looking into these military units which participated in the killings.”
Some of the implicated soldiers have already been redeployed to fight in eastern Ukraine, he said.
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said that “Russian forces committed a litany of apparent war crimes during their occupation” of the town, adding that investigators “found extensive evidence of summary executions, other unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and torture, all of which would constitute war crimes and potential crimes against humanity.”
The Guardian has reported that dozens of civilians who died during the Russian occupation of Bucha were killed by tiny metal arrows from shells of a type fired by Russian artillery.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s defence ministry identified Russia’s 64th Motor Rifle Brigade as the unit that had occupied Bucha, publishing the names, ranks and passport details of all the soldiers.
Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in the alleged human rights abuses, while Russian state television has aired reports claiming that the images of dead civilians in Bucha were staged or the result of crimes committed by Ukrainian forces.
During a meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in the Kremlin on Tuesday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said that “Russian forces had no connections to Bucha.”
“We know who did it. We know who prepared this provocation … We know who they are,” Putin added, without providing further details.
Earlier this month, Putin awarded the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade the honorary title of “guards” and praised the unit for its “great heroism and courage”.
“This high distinction recognises your special merits, great heroism and courage in defending your Fatherland, and in protecting Russia’s sovereignty and national interests,” Putin’s statement said.
New drone video shows Russian military vehicles and forces on Bucha street strewn with civilian bodies
Despite Russia’s repeated denials they were responsible for any carnage in Bucha, located outside Kyiv, Russian military vehicles and forces were seen on a Bucha street near civilian bodies, new drone video obtained exclusively by CNN shows.
CNN has geolocated and confirmed the authenticity of the videos, which were taken by a drone on March 12 and 13. CNN is not naming the individual that took the video over concerns for their safety.
A Russian military vehicle is seen sitting at an intersection in the video from March 13. CNN has identified three objects in the video — just down the street from the military vehicle — are the same bodies that were seen in the video from April 1 and satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies on March 18.
Additional drone video from March 13 shows another Russian military vehicle traveling further up the street, in the direction of the bodies.
In the March 12 video, a number of Russian soldiers are seen around a military vehicle parked outside of a house, just down the street from the bodies. It’s unclear what they are doing at the house.
CNN asked the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
International outrage: Russian officials — President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — have repeatedly claimed that the videos and satellite images that show bodies in Bucha are fake.
This drone video is the first piece of evidence to emerge from Bucha that shows Russian vehicles and troops operating on the street, where the bodies were found by Ukrainian forces when they retook the town on April 1.
The images that emerged from Bucha after Russian forces retreated have drawn enormous outrage from the international community. It also prompted some leaders, including US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, to call the atrocities that took place in Bucha war crimes.
Putin gives honorary title to Russian brigade accused of war crimes in Bucha
Troops in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were named by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense as war criminals earlier this month, after mass graves containing murdered civilians were discovered and dead bodies lay in the street following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.
In a signed letter on Monday, Putin congratulated the unit for their “great heroism and courage” and awarded the unit the title of “Guards” for “protecting Russia’s sovereignty.”
“Through astute and bold actions during the special military operation in Ukraine, the unit’s staff became a role model in fulfilling its military duty, valor, dedication and professionalism,” the president’s congratulatory statement read.
The move will be seen as a public message to Ukraine’s government and the West, after numerous international leaders condemned the alleged atrocities by Russian troops in the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Borodianka.
Earlier this month, accounts of summary executions, brutality and indiscriminate shelling emerged in the wake of Russia’s hasty retreat from central Ukraine. CNN teams saw dozens of bodies buried or strewn across the ground in the devastated suburb of Bucha, after a brutal occupation that lasted over a month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russia for the killings and called on Moscow to stop committing “war crimes.”
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies on the streets of Bucha are fake.
But during a visit to the towns of Bucha and Borodianka last week, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC are being committed.”
Khan also warned that it would be “challenging” to guarantee justice would be served in Ukraine, given Russia’s decision to withdraw its signature from the ICC statute, which gives the court jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Russia does not extradite its citizens to other countries.
Since Russia’s failed attempt to capture Kyiv, it has refocused its invasion of Ukraine with an assault on the eastern Donbas region.
Ukrainian Prosecutor Says Russians Left Key Computer Server in Bucha
- Ukrainian authorities are investigating war crimes in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb that Russia occupied.
- Last week, Ukrainian authorities unearthed a mass grave where more than 300 people had been buried.
- Prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko said that Russia left behind a server with info about the killings.
The chief regional prosecutor in Bucha, Ukraine, told the New York Times that Russian soldiers left behind a computer server with potentially damning information as investigators are zeroing in on killings and mass graves in the city.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities unearthed a mass grave in the Kyiv suburb, claiming that Russian soldiers killed and buried 360 Ukrainians in a 45-foot-long trench. Journalists who visited Bucha after Russian troops pulled out also reported bodies of civilians in their homes, on the street, and in the suburb’s glass factory.
Around 35,000 people live in the northern Kyiv suburb.
“We have already established lists and data of servicemen,” prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko told The Times. “This data runs to more than a hundred pages.”
Kravchenko added that the killings are being investigated as war crimes and that most of the more than 250 people killed were hit by bullets or shrapnel.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the bodies found in Bucha were “staged,” a claim similar to those pushed by Russian propagandists.
Serhiy Kaplychny, who works at Bucha’s cemetery, told The Times that only two members of the Ukrainian military were killed and buried in the mass grave. A separate visual investigation by The New York Times found that the mass grave was created before Russia pulled out of the suburb on March 30.
As troops were driven out by Ukrainian forces, videos and photos of atrocities from Bucha flooded the internet.
Kravchenko told The Times that authorities are investigating reports of rape, torture, and executions that took place in Bucha over the month that Russia occupied the city, highlighting that many of the heinous acts were reported to occur at the glass factory.
The Ukrainian government has also set up a website, warcrimes.gov.ua, where citizens and reporters have posted over 7,000 photos and videos related to potential war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells 60 Minutes what he saw in Bucha: “Death. Just death.”
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside a government building in Kyiv for a two-part report that airs Sunday on 60 Minutes after coverage of the Masters.
“What must the world understand?” Pelley asked Zelenskyy.
“We are defending the ability of a person to live in the modern world. They say we’re defending Western values. I always say, what are Western values? Someone who lives in the United States or Europe, do they also not like children? Do they not want their children to go to university, do they not want their grandfather to live for 100 years? We have the same values. We are defending the right to live. I never thought this right was so costly. These are human values. So that Russia doesn’t choose what we should do and how I’m using my rights. That right was given to me by God and my parents,” Zelenskyy said.
Pelley also went to Bucha, where residents were killed and evidence of war crimes are emerging. Zelenskyy visited Bucha this week; when asked by Pelley what he saw there, Zelenskyy responded, “Death. Just death.”
Pelley has reported on the war in Ukraine since it broke out. He spoke with refugees and those trying to help them from a train station near Poland’s border with Ukraine, and embedded with medical volunteers in Lviv as they delivered much needed supplies into the country as hospitals, health care facilities and ambulances have been under attack.
Condemning Bucha cruelty, EU offers speedy start for Ukraine membership
KYIV, April 8 (Reuters) – European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town of Bucha showed the “cruel face” of Russia’s army and pledged to try to speed Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the European Union.
During a visit to Bucha, where forensic investigators started to exhume bodies from a mass grave, von der Leyen looked visibly moved by what she saw in the town northwest of Kyiv where Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces. read more
Russia denies targeting civilians and has called the allegations that Russian forces executed civilians in Bucha while they occupied the town a “monstrous forgery” aimed at denigrating the Russian army.
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As EU officials were about to arrive in Kyiv, at least 50 people were killed and many more wounded in a missile strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing the threat of a major Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. read more
At a news conference, von der Leyen condemned what she called “the cynical behaviour” of those who wrote “for our children” on the weapons found near the scene.
The mayor of the town of Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk estimated that about 4,000 people were gathered at the station at the time. Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.
Saying the EU could never match the sacrifice of Ukraine, von der Leyen offered it a speedier start to its bid for bloc membership.
Handing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a questionnaire which will form a starting point for a decision on membership, she said: “It will not as usual be a matter of years to form this opinion but I think a matter of weeks.”
Zelenskiy told the same news conference he would come back with answers in a week.
“Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards the European future, this is what I see,” von der Leyen said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen departs Poland for Kyiv in Przemysl, Poland, April 8, 2022. REUTERS/Janis Laizans
Earlier in Bucha, she told reporters that “the unthinkable has happened here”.
“We have seen the cruel face of Putin’s army. We have seen the recklessness and the cold-heartedness with which they have been occupying the city,” she said.
The images from Bucha, which was retaken along with other towns north of the capital as Russian forces withdrew to focus efforts on the east of the country, have prompted a renewed effort by Western nations to punish Moscow for the Feb. 24 invasion.
MORAL SUPPORT
Von der Leyen’s trip to Kyiv was aimed at offering Zelenskiy moral and some financial support.
She pledged her support for Ukraine to “emerge from the war as a democratic country”, something, she said, the European Union and other donors would help with.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, said he hoped the EU could allocate a further 500 million euros ($543 million) to Ukraine for arms purchases in a couple of days.
Zelenskiy says the war is a direct attack on not only Ukraine’s existence, but the security of Europe as a whole.
Russia calls its action a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” its neighbour. Before the invasion, Putin had presented Ukraine’s tilt in recent years to the West – including its aspiration to join NATO – as a threat to Russia’s security.
Zelenskiy has urged Brussels to do more to punish Russia, including banning purchases of Russian oil and gas, and has called on the EU to accept Ukraine as a full member.
Earlier, Borrell said oil sanctions were “a big elephant in the room”, with some concerns that a move to cut out Russian crude could cause a spike in prices that would be painful to European economies. He said a decision on exports would be raised on Monday in Brussels.
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Reporting by Janis Laizans; Writing by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Frances Kerry and Grant McCool
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