The commander of a reconnaissance platoon of the 247th Air Assault Regiment of the Russian Armed Forces has been notified in absentia of suspicion of cruel treatment of the civilian population and other violations of the laws and customs of war.
This is reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.
According to the investigation, in the summer of 2023 the 33-year-old Russian serviceman was enforcing the occupation regime in the temporarily occupied left bank of Kherson region.
According to the "Book of Torturers of the Ukrainian People" project, this concerns Lieutenant Shek Volodymyr Viacheslavovych, a native of the village of Olhyne in the Stepnovskyi district of Stavropol Krai, Russia.
After the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, he and other Russian servicemen patrolled the flooded Oleshky in a motorboat. During one such patrol, the occupiers unlawfully detained two local residents who were unarmed and did not take part in hostilities.
The men were taken to a flat on the ninth floor of a high-rise building, where they were held for 10 days in exhausting conditions – without sufficient food and water, proper sanitary conditions, or medical care.
The commander questioned one of the victims about local volunteers and his nephew. During interrogations, the man was beaten and tortured with electric shocks by attaching wires to his fingers and placing a wet rag under his feet.
During one interrogation, the suspect threw an electrical cable around the victim’s neck and strangled him until he lost consciousness.
The occupiers accused the other man of recording the firing positions of the Russian army. Under torture, they tried to obtain information from him about passing data to the Defence Forces of Ukraine.
The man was systematically tortured with electric shocks and beaten all over his body. As a result of the abuse, he sustained numerous serious injuries, including fractures of 11 ribs, the sternum and the jaw on both sides, lung contusions, and burns.
Due to the lack of medical care and infection of his wounds, the victim developed gangrene, which led to the amputation of a finger on his hand.
At the end of June 2023, both victims were released.
The Russian serviceman is suspected of cruel treatment of the civilian population and other violations of the laws and customs of war, committed by a group of persons acting in prior conspiracy – Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The suspicion was issued in absentia.