Defector who fled Russian army describes horrors committed by his unit
‘There are maniacs in the Russian army who enjoy killing a man’: Defector who fled Putin’s forces describes, rape, looting and horrors committed by his unit
- Nikita Chibrin was an office worker before he was sent to fight against Ukraine
- His unit massacred civilians and brutally raped women in Bucha and other towns
- The troops he trained with came back from the frontlines as broken men, he said
A defected Russian soldier who fought with one of the units accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine described the rape, looting and horrors committed by Vladimir Putin’s forces
Nikita Chibrin, a former soldier who was part of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade – the notorious Russian military unit accused of massacres in Bucha, Borodianka and other Ukrainian towns – says he is willing to testify against his former brothers in arms.
‘There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,’ said Chibrin, who was a civilian before he was handed a gun and sent to Ukraine, speaking to CNN from a secret location.
His unit brutally raped Ukrainian women and left mass graves in their wake, after being handed down a ‘direct command to kill’ any civilians suspected of sharing information — allowing them to execute anyone with a mobile phone, he said.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6D22BQ47zlY%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26hl%3Den-US
Nikita Chibrin, a former Russian soldier who served with the unit accused of massacres in Bucha, said he is willing to testify against his fellow soldiers
Chibrin’s unit brutally raped Ukrainian women and had a ‘direct command to kill’ anyone suspected of sharing information, he said in an interview with CNN
Chibrin, from Yakutsk in the country’s far east, is pictured with a cat while in uniform.
Chibrin, from Yakutsk in the country’s far east, had been an office worker and mowed lawns for a living before he was signed up to fight.
He says he swore at the first commander he saw, telling him he didn’t want to fight in the war. But he was told his family would suffer if he didn’t follow orders.
The commander attacked him and threw him into a military vehicle, locking the doors so he couldn’t escape. That was how he arrived in Ukraine, said Chibrin.
Chibrin, pictured before he was signed up to fight in the war, had been an office worker and mowed lawns for a living before he was signed up to fight
The same troops he trained with and who went to Ukraine boasting of being ‘like Rambo’ came back as broken men, he said.
‘They saw the war, they saw defeat, saw their [fellow] combatants being murdered, saw corpses,’ he described. ‘They realised – but they couldn’t run away.’
When he was deployed with the 64th brigade, Chibrin remembers two of his fellow soldiers raping Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv.
The unit’s commanders were aware of the rape and looting, he said, but did nothing to stop the soldiers.
‘They reacted like: “Whatever. It happened. So what?” Actually, there was no reaction,’ he said. ‘Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.’
Ukrainian forces discovered mass graves and the bodies of murdered civilians lying in the streets after Chibrin’s unit retreated from the areas surrounding Kyiv.
The officer in charge of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade was Azatbek Omurbekov, nicknamed the ‘Butcher of Bucha’, under EU-US sanctions and wanted for war crimes.
After witnessing the horrors, Chibrin — who maintains he didn’t take any part in the massacres — deserted from the Russian military in September and fled to Europe.
Russian soldiers also looted the unarmed civilians, he said, stealing computers, jewelry and anything else that might be valuable.
Russian officer Azatbek Omurbekov, who led the 64th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade, was identified as Putin’s senior commander in Bucha when the barbarism unfolded
Soldiers would take cars stolen from Ukraine to Belarus, where they would sell them, he said.
The mentality was not to get caught. If you stole something and nobody saw you, the commanders let you off the hook more often than not, he explained.
During the fighting he injured his back, ending up in hospital. But the commanders quickly forced him back to the front.
He fought in the war on-and-off for months, before finally spotting his chance to escape when he was sent to the Kharkiv region and found himself among the forests of Izym.
The Russian-occupied territory would soon fall to a lighting Ukrainian counter-offensive, which would see the Ukrainian armed forces retake 2,000 square kilometers of land between September and October.
He spotted other soldiers fleeing back to Russia on vehicle, and took his chance in the chaos.
Once back in Russia, he spent almost a month in hospital because of his war injuries, his back causing him too much pain to leave his bed.
In order to get proper treatment, the authorities presented him with a form. He would be transferred to a special sanatorium in order to get the medical care he needed. In exchange, he would have to commit to returning to the war.
Chibrin’s military documents, stamped by Russian officer Azatbek Omurbekov, show him as a former member of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade
His new contract came around September, when Putin announced a partial mobilisation of Russian civilians, press-ganging thousands to fight in Ukraine.
Chibrin knew he didn’t have much time before they sent him back to the front.
Grabbing his possessions, he set out for St Petersburg despite his terrible pain, planning to get a train from there to Belarus.
He escaped at the time when Russia was looking out for citizens fleeing its borders, with Chibrin slipping through the cracks and escaping the country.
From there, he was able to find help to get to Kazakhstan with the assistance of Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, before he managed to get to an undisclosed EU country where he is now requesting asylum.
Having seen the fighting first hand, Chibrin said Russia will eventually lose the war in Ukraine, but not until many more lives are lost.
Russia is fighting with inferior weaponry against Ukraine, he thought while on the frontlines, with troops handed out equipment from the Soviet era used during the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
When they came to Ukraine, he said, many Russians thought they would be met with flowers. But instead, they were met with Molotov cocktails.
Source: Read Full Article