‘Storming Cities and Houses Is Our Element’: Who Is Destroying Vovchansk and Killing Civilians

For almost a month now, the Russian army has been storming and shelling the city of Vovchansk in Kharkiv region, 4 kilometres from the border with the Russian aggressor state. The Russian military intensified their attacks in this area on the morning of 10 May. For the second time since the start of the full-scale invasion, local residents had to leave their homes, which now look like a burning wreck. Eventually, Ukrainian defenders pushed back the attackers and now control 70% of Vovchansk, with fierce fighting continuing on the outskirts. Fifty people, mostly elderly, remain in the part of the city that is occupied by Russia, and the Kharkiv police call them prisoners. Civilians suffer daily from abuse by Russian soldiers and even point-blank shootings.

Slidstvo.Info journalists have identified the alleged perpetrators of the civilian killings and destruction of Vovchansk. The video has English subtitles.

‘IF YOU DON’T OBEY, YOU’LL BE SHOT’

“You need to understand that while civilians are under occupation, we cannot share all the photos and videos that testify to war crimes in Vovchansk,” says Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the Kharkiv Police Investigation Department.

Serhiy Bolvinov, Head of the Kharkiv Police Investigation Department

Law enforcement officers do not know for sure what is happening in the occupied part of the recently cosy border town in Kharkiv region. Most young people evacuated from Vovchansk. For those of the older generation who did not have time or refused to leave, it is rare to find a smartphone.

So it’s not hard for the Russian military to find out who posted the latest video or photo from there. The people who remained on the other side of the fighting are effectively in Russian captivity, Bolvinov adds. They have no choice but to wait for release, as the invaders prohibit evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine.

“And it’s not just a verbal ban, the enemy is killing civilians. We have recorded such facts, we have confirmation of this, that a Russian soldier shot an elderly civilian man at close range, his name was Vitaliy. The man refused to obey the orders of the Russian soldier and go with him”, says Serhiy Bolvinov, deputy head of the Kharkiv regional police.

Andriy Ladyka during one of the evacuations from the north of Kharkiv region / Photo from the Facebook page of Oleksiy Kharkivskyi

If you want to see more exposés of Russian military crimes on our website, please support our work with a one-time or monthly donation!

The occupiers also obstructed the evacuation as long as it was possible. On 22 May, a Russian FPV drone hit a police car that was rushing to evacuate civilians from the war zone in the middle of the city. 

As a result, Senior Lieutenant Dmytro Mozharovskyi was seriously wounded and 41-year-old Major Andriy Ladyka died on the spot. 

Civilians also tried to evacuate on their own, but did not have time. The drone footage, published by Ukrainian bloggers Kostyantyn and Vlada Liberovs, shows two motionless women wearing red and light jackets.

According to Slidstvo.Info journalists, their bodies are lying near the Vovcha River, where the contact line is located. On the corner of Korolenko and Lermontov streets. To the south, a woman in a wheelchair was killed by a Russian sniper.

Her husband, Oleksandr Dmytrovych, miraculously survived and told prosecutors how everything happened: “My wife was sick, we hid from the shelling at home for four days, and finally decided to flee. Halfway there, the shelling intensified. I bent down and there was a machine gun burst from a five-storey building. I knew it was Russians. I shouted at them: ‘What are you doing, we are civilians!’ I turned around and saw a man with his eyes open and my wife lying there.”

It is unknown what has happened to the body of the woman in the wheelchair and the others killed in Vovchansk. 

‘STORMING CITIES AND HOUSES IS OUR ELEMENT’

As soon as the Russian military began to storm Vovchansk, Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov came to shoot a propaganda video, which showed the faces of the occupiers. 

In the video, the Russian military brags about how they are destroying Ukrainian cities: “It is our element to storm cities, villages, streets and houses. God knows, we even enjoy it now (laughs — ed.). We feel like we are at home.” 

The video shows that Kadyrov’s men are based in the Kharkiv direction. They are led by Rustam Aguyev, who also heads one of the district police departments in Chechnya. According to Radio Liberty’s Kavkaz.Realii project, Rustam Aguyev personally participated in the torture of Chechen residents. At the same time, the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov awarded the occupier the Order of Courage. 

In addition to Kadyrov’s men, the occupiers from the 272nd Motorised Rifle Regiment and the Russian Guard are fighting in the Vovchansk sector, according to the Institute for War Studies. Slidstvo.Info has learned from the Ukrainian military that the occupiers from the 138th motorised rifle brigade are also being captured. These are the same Russians who, from the first days of the full-scale invasion, shelled civilian homes near Kharkiv — in Mala Rohan and Vilkhivka.

The propaganda report also includes a collaborator from Luhansk, Vladyslav Tarasenko, call sign ‘Taras’, who, according to his own story, has been at war since he was 11 years old, and is now 21. He says his father was a member of an illegal armed group and was one of the first to seize the Security Service building in Luhansk in 2014. Then he started fighting on the side of Russia. 

Slidstvo.Info journalists found Tarasenko’s social media, where he does not hide the fact that he is a militant. He posts photos of himself wearing a uniform and holding a weapon. He has a Russian coat of arms on his cover.

The journalists of Slidstvo.Info managed to identify three more occupiers who left their geolocation enabled in one of the messengers while they were in Vovchansk. Among them is Yuriy Alyokhin from Kaluga.

His Odnoklassniki page is closed, and his avatar shows him in civilian clothes with a bottle of beer. But on the dating site, Yurii told us more about himself: he is 40 years old, a dog handler by profession, has blond hair and blue eyes, and is looking for a woman for a serious relationship.

Another occupier is Anatoliy Ivanov from Ryazan.

The Russian closed his social media pages, but wrote in his profile on a dating site that he was a good, kind, decent guy.

The third soldier who also left his geolocation enabled in Vovchansk is Aleksandr Antipov — this is one of the tags for his number in Getcontact. On social media, the occupier signs himself as ‘Mad Racer’. His profile photo shows him with a weapon and in military uniform. He is registered in the city of Dedovsk, Moscow oblast.

Currently, there is no direct evidence of war crimes against civilians in Vovchansk by the Russian occupiers mentioned in the Slidstvo.Info material. At the same time, journalists have confirmation of the involvement of specific militants in the shelling of the city and their illegal stay on its territory. 

Since 10 May this year, the police of Kharkiv region have registered 24 dead civilians and 12 missing persons in Vovchansk. These figures were provided by the chief investigator of the region, Serhiy Bolvinov, in a comment to Slidstvo.Info. However, he says they are not accurate, as it is currently impossible to work in the city. Heavy fighting for the liberation of Vovchansk continues.

READ ALSO: “Russians Have Hundreds of New Satellite Dishes in Kharkiv Oblast” — Radio and Military Technology Consultant