CNN
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Nikita Chibrin says he nonetheless remembers his fellow Russian troopers operating away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian ladies 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 stated. Their commanders, Chibrin stated, shrugged when discovering out in regards to the rapes. The alleged rapists had been crushed, he says, however by no means absolutely punished for his or her 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 abandoned from 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 our bodies mendacity in the streets had been found following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv area.
Chibrin’s navy paperwork, seen by CNN, present his commander was Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in cost of the sixty fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov, often called the “Butcher of Bucha” is underneath sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States have sanctioned your entire brigade.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, whereas reiterating baseless claims that the photographs of civilian our bodies had been faux.
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 stated 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 stated he’d be ready to testify in opposition to his unit at a global felony courtroom. He maintains he himself 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 stated.
He additionally stated 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 stated. He claims there’s little doubt some of the lads in the sixty fourth Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade had been succesful of killing unarmed civilians.
“There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,” he stated.
Chibrin additionally described widespread looting, with Russian troopers taking computer systems, jewellery and something they appreciated.
“They didn’t hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka in the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he stated. “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 stated they had been nicely conscious of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, however took little curiosity in looking for justice.
“They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he stated. “Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.”
CNN has requested the Russian Ministry of Defense for touch upon the allegations, however has not acquired a response.
Chibrin has little question that Russia will ultimately lose its war in opposition to 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 stated.
Having seen the preventing first hand, he stated the tools Russian troopers have is not 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 Eighties.
“Of course Russia will lose. Because the whole world is supporting Ukraine. To think that they (the Russians) will win is stupid,” he stated. “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 thrown Molotov cocktails at.”
Men in his unit had been additionally extraordinarily ill-prepared for fight, in line with Chibrin. He stated 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 stated.
The lack of coaching turned apparent as soon as in Ukraine. The identical males who had been boasting about being “like Rambo” earlier than they had been deployed got here again damaged, he stated. “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 stated many of the lads had been poorly educated and most had no thought the place they had been headed.
“It was a big lie. It was a military training with the Belarusian army. And they lied to us. On February 24 they just said everyone will go to war,” Chibrin stated, 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 world northwest of Kyiv, following the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus.
He stated he was affected by a 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 frolicked in the forests round Izyum.
It was then that he lastly discovered an opportunity to flee, he stated. He observed that commanders of different items had been leaving the world 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 stated.
Once again in Russia, Chibrin stated he spent practically a month in hospital, most of that being bedridden with horrible again ache. But he stated he was unable to get 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 stated.
Refusing to signal, Chibrin stated he was on the brink of submit 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 place and hide, your contract will not be canceled because of the mobilization,” he stated. Knowing he wanted to get so far as attainable 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 an 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 tune. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of mothers without children,” the refrain goes.
