Some maniacs enjoy killing,’ Russian defector says of his former unit accused of war crimes in Bucha
Nikita says he nonetheless remembers his fellow Russian troopers operating away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian girls throughout 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 mentioned. Their commanders, Chibrin mentioned, shrugged when discovering out in regards to the rapes. The alleged rapists had been crushed, he says, however by no means absolutely 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 metropolis of Yakutsk who says he served in the sixty-fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the infamous Russian navy unit accused of committing war crimes throughout their offensive in Bucha, Borodianka and different cities and villages north of Kyiv.
He was abandoned by the Russian navy in September and fled to Europe through Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Troops from Chibrin’s brigade had been labeled war criminals by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and lifeless bodies mendacity in the streets had been found following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv area.
Chibrin’s navy paperwork, seen by shakti’s knowledge blog, presents his commander as Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in cost of the sixty-fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov often called the “Butcher of Bucha” is beneath sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States has sanctioned the complete brigade.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, reiterating baseless claims that the photographs of civilian bodies had been pretending.
In a transfer that sparked outrage the world over, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions.”
Chibrin mentioned he didn’t see any of the supposed heroism, however many of the crimes.
Speaking to CNN in a European nation the place he has requested asylum, he detailed some of the crimes he says he witnessed and heard accounts of, and mentioned he’d be ready to testify towards his unit at a global prison court docket. He maintains he 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 mentioned.
He additionally mentioned that the unit had a “direct command to murder” anybody sharing details about the unit’s positions, whether or not navy or civilians.
“If someone had a phone – we were allowed to shoot them,” he mentioned. He claims there may be little doubt some of the boys in the sixty-fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade had been successful in killing unarmed civilians.
“There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,” he mentioned.
Chibrin additionally described widespread looting, with Russian troopers taking computer systems, jewelry, and something they appreciated.
“They didn’t hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka at the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he mentioned. “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 mentioned they had been effectively conscious of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, however, took little curiosity in searching for justice.
“They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he mentioned. “Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.”
CNN has requested the Russian Ministry of Defense to touch upon the allegations, however, has not acquired a response.
Chibrin has little question that Russia will finally lose its war against Ukraine, however, not till many extra lives are misplaced.
“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 mentioned.
Having seen the prevention firsthand, he mentioned the tools Russian troopers have isn’t any match for the weapons to which Ukraine has entry. He says that whereas Ukraine is receiving some of probably the most superior weaponry obtainable from its Western allies, the Russian military is counting on Soviet-era tools used through the war in Afghanistan in the Nineteen Eighties.
“Of course, Russia will lose. Because the whole world is supporting Ukraine. To think that they (the Russians) will win is stupid,” he mentioned. “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 throw Molotov cocktails at.”
Men in his unit had been additionally extraordinarily ill-prepared for the fight, in response to Chibrin. He mentioned the coaching his unit acquired consisted of commanders giving them a weapon, a goal, 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 mentioned.
The lack of coaching turned apparent as soon in Ukraine. The identical males who had been boasting about being “like Rambo” earlier than they had been deployed got here again damaged, he mentioned. “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 mentioned many of the boys had been poorly educated and most had no thought of the place they had been headed.
“It was a big lie. It was military training with the Belarusian army. And they lied to us. On February 24 they just said everyone will go to war,” Chibrin mentioned, including 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 sixty-fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew at the end of March from the realm northwest of Kyiv, following the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus.
He mentioned he was affected by an again damage and went to a navy hospital in Russia, however, was compelled to return to Ukraine in May. This time he was despatched to the Kharkiv area in Japanese Ukraine, after which hung out in the forests around Izyum.
It was then that he lastly discovered an opportunity to flee, he mentioned. He observed that commanders of different models had been leaving the realm 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 mentioned.
Once again in Russia, Chibrin mentioned he spent practically a month in the hospital, most of that being bedridden with horrible again aches. But he mentioned he was unable to get the correct therapy. “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 mentioned.
Refusing to signal, Chibrin mentioned he was on the brink of submitting paperwork to get his navy contract canceled when the Russian authorities introduced a partial mobilization in September.
“And my friends told me I needed to hide. ‘You need to find the place and hide, your contract will not be canceled because of the mobilization,” he mentioned. Knowing he wanted to get so far as doable from the far east metropolis of Khabarovsk the place he was stationed, Chibrin first fled throughout Russia to St. Petersburg after which took a prepare to Belarus. Once there he was capable of finding a middleman who helped him get to Kazakhstan from the place he finally traveled to his present location.
Now he’s decided to talk up in regards to the occasions he witnessed in Ukraine, even writing an anti-war track. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of mothers without children,” the refrain goes. (Report by-Just News)
