2024-08-19 19:31:16
Imprisoned, tortured, killed
Russian commanders apparently kill their own soldiers
15.08.2024Reading time: 3 min.
They complained of cruel treatment and died: Russian conscripts are said to have been murdered by their superiors. The authorities are investigating.
First imprisonment in a basement without a toilet or bed, then the journey to certain death: high-ranking Russian military officers are said to have first tortured some soldiers from their unit and then murdered several of them.
This became known in the course of an investigation conducted by the Russian authorities against a major general of the 6th Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Army and several of his subordinate officers. This was first reported by the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne mowlennya, which cited a source from the Russian Investigative Committee.
According to the report, the high-ranking military officers are accused of having imprisoned, tortured and murdered soldiers from their own unit. The investigation into this is said to have been launched at the end of March.
Soldiers complained about cruel treatment
The 6th Motorized Rifle Brigade is a unit that was founded in 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It consists of several regiments, which are mainly staffed by conscripts. Colonel Marat Ospanov was appointed the first commander of the division. During his tenure, he rose to the rank of major general.
In the spring of 2023, soldiers began to complain about the poor working conditions and the cruel treatment by the commanders. Videos from this time show, for example, how conscripts complain about serving as “cannon fodder”. They were also threatened with being shot if they expressed their opinions.
Among the accusations the soldiers made against their command was that they were not given the opportunity to bathe or buy food. Injured soldiers were not rescued from the battlefield. As a result, the regimental commander was replaced, but the local news channel Muksun reported that, according to the soldiers, the abuse actually came from Ospanov, who remained in office.
In March 2024, Ospanov and his officers were charged by the Russian authorities. A published decree states that in response to complaints from soldiers the previous year, Ospanov is said to have ordered his officers to illegally arrest those soldiers who “violated military discipline, refused orders or otherwise behaved inappropriately”.
“In an effort to intimidate the soldiers, enforce strict compliance with their orders and maintain military discipline, MP Ospanov created an organized group of his subordinates,” the document continues.
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According to investigators, Ospanov’s deputy, 44-year-old Colonel Stanislav Ivanisov, was tasked with organizing the detention of soldiers. Another deputy, 41-year-old Yevgeny Malyshko, was tasked with “killing soldiers who, in MP Ospanov’s opinion, were beyond reform.”
According to the report, 19 soldiers were imprisoned in basements of the Russian-occupied city of Popasna at various times from May 11, 2023 – without access to toilets or beds and with only little food and water. In early September 2023, the military prosecutor’s office released eleven prisoners and the authorities launched an investigation.
But the accusations do not end there: According to Suspilne, Ospanow described the eight remaining soldiers as “incorrigible”. Seven of them are now said to be dead. Only a young medic survived, probably because he was hospitalized with injuries after a front-line deployment. He and a few of the others were released from custody before a routine inspection of the unit by the Russian Defense Ministry and sent to the front for a mission in which he was injured. The soldiers who returned, however, were imprisoned again.