Journalists identify Russian soldiers who received medical treatment in Belarus after march on Kyiv – photos
Radio Liberty has identified Russian servicemen who were taken to hospitals in Gomel and Khoiniki in Belarus after being wounded during the offensive on Kyiv in February and March 2022.
Source: Radio Liberty investigation
Details: Radio Liberty has identified 898 servicemen – including special forces, paratroopers and members of the Russian National Guard – who participated in the attempt to capture the Ukrainian capital at the start of the full-scale invasion and may have been complicit in war crimes in Kyiv Oblast.
The units concerned include "special operations forces" which are considered "elite" in Russia and are based near Moscow, in Kubinka (military unit 28337) and Solnechnogorsk (military unit 92154). According to the list of wounded patients, 16 soldiers from these Special Operations Forces units were admitted to hospitals in Gomel following the offensive in Kyiv Oblast.
The leaked patient data suggests that soldiers from other "elite" units – special forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation (also known as the GRU) from Khabarovsk, Tambov, Novosibirsk and Tolyatti – were also taken to Belarus for medical treatment after the battles for Kyiv and Chernihiv.
The leaked documents helped the journalists to identify a Russian soldier who is believed to have been involved in the killing of civilians in Kyiv Oblast: Aleksandr Kvitko, alias Skipper. He is the commander of the sixth company of the 234th Air Assault Regiment from Pskov, which took part in the capture of Bucha.
Oleksandr Kvitko with the alias Skipper.
According to the leaked data, Kvitko was taken to a Gomel hospital on 28 March 2022 with shrapnel wounds to his neck, arm, shin and buttock.
Eyewitnesses say that Kvitko may have been involved in the murder of Alla Minaieva, a local pensioner who lived in the area that his company occupied in Bucha.
Ivan Dulkai, a senior police investigator for particularly important cases, told Radio Liberty: "Civilians who had been helping the woman [Alla Minaieva – ed.] approached Aleksandr Kvitko and asked if they could go to bring her some food. Kvitko explained to them that they did not need to go to see her anymore, because they had ‘dealt with her humanely’."
After Bucha was liberated, Minaieva was found dead in her home. She had been shot in the head.
Other paratroopers besides the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment were involved in the attempt to capture Kyiv: four divisions and several brigades. The documents obtained by the journalists prove for the first time that all these paratroopers were near Kyiv at the same time – in other words, that they worked together to capture the city.
They include the 31st Separate Guards Airborne Assault Brigade from the city of Ulyanovsk, which took part in the attempt to capture Hostomel airport. The leaked data indicates that 74 wounded soldiers from this unit were treated at Belarusian medical facilities. For example, Roman Zyazin, then a 21-year-old Russian serviceman in the brigade, received treatment there.
Roman Zyazin.
The journalists found Zyazin on the list of patients at a Gomel hospital, where he was admitted on 4 March 2022 with a facial injury and an open fracture of the lower jaw. Zyazin did not return to the front line after treatment, but he has continued his military career and is now a cadet at the Military Institute of Physical Culture. He has also featured in a film produced by Zvezda, a TV channel owned and run by the Russian Defence Ministry.
The patient data from the Gomel medical institutions also proves that 68 servicemen from the Kemerovo Oblast (Kuzbass) department of Russia’s National Guard who were sent to capture Kyiv via Hostomel were also treated there.
They are from two units of the National Guard: the Special Rapid Response Unit (SOBR), established to combat organised crime and terrorism, and the Special-Purpose Mobile Unit (OMON), which is supposed to ensure public order and prevent riots. In Russia, these units are used to suppress public protests.
Russian BMD-4 in Hostomel, Kyiv Oblast, where on 3 March 2022, as reported by Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, 20 combat vehicles of the Russian landing force were destroyed.
Among the OMON officers wounded during the offensive on Ukraine, the journalists have identified police lieutenant Aleksei Artamonov. The documents show that he sustained shrapnel wounds and bone fractures in Hostomel, Kyiv Oblast, and was admitted to a Belarusian hospital on 1 March.
Aleksey Artamonov's documents. Photo: Radio Liberty
Another Russian police officer wounded in Hostomel, Sergeant Ivan Dyukanov, was hospitalised with a head injury and bruises on the same day.
On 6 March, according to the list of wounded soldiers, OMON police officers Andrei Leonov and Andrei Khitrov were admitted to medical institutions in Gomel. Leonov had sustained a head injury and concussion, and Khitrov a shrapnel wound to the left shin. Radio Liberty has obtained a document from its sources confirming that Khitrov had been in Hostomel.
PHOTO: RADIO LIBERTY
The OMON officers from Kemerovo Oblast are accused, together with members of an OMON detachment from Krasnoyarsk Krai, of killing civilians by Ukrainian law enforcement. Specifically, they are accused of executing civilians in Hostomel on 25 February. Five Russian National Guard officers from these units have been served with notices of suspicion for the murders of five people.
The journalists have also identified about 70 Russian soldiers from Buryatia among the Gomel hospital patients. They are from the 5th Tank Brigade (Ulan-Ude, military unit 46108) and the 37th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Kyakhta, military unit 69647).
According to Ukrainian law enforcement, these were the two units that took control of part of the Kyiv-Chop (or Zhytomyr) Highway in March 2022 and opened fire on the cars of civilians who were driving west in an attempt to get further away from the fighting.
Radio Liberty has obtained a document that was found near the Zhytomyr Highway after the liberation of Kyiv Oblast. It lists the names of wounded Russian servicemen, including Zorik Zigbin, Munko-Zhargal Zhalmayev and Dmitry Terentyev.
The names of these three soldiers from the 5th Ulan-Ude Tank Brigade were also found on the lists of patients at a Gomel hospital, where they were taken after being injured in Kyiv Oblast in March 2022.
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