Kadyrovs rape the fighters of the "DNR"

03.10.2022 0 By NS.Writer

Russian servicemen from Chechnya raped two mobilized men from the so-called "DPR", it is claimed in an appeal addressed to the head of the self-proclaimed republic, Denis Pushylin. Photographs of the document were published by the Telegram channel "BATMAN DNR" criticizing local authorities, the authenticity of the letter has not been confirmed. The editors of Kavkaz.Realii established the identities of two women who could sign the appeal, as well as one of the alleged injured fighters, writes www.kavkazr.com.

Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov

The appeal "from relatives of military personnel" of the so-called people's militia "DPR" was published on the morning of September 27. The authors of the letter introduce themselves as wives and mothers of residents of the city of Dokuchaevsk, which is located approximately 35 kilometers south of Donetsk, mobilized for the war. They claim that their men, who had no prior combat experience, were called to the front by the separatists "after the intensification of military operations."

"In combat positions, our relatives and friends are subjected to mockery and humiliation from the military [of the Russian army from] the Chechen Republic," the authors of the letter state.

Next, they declare an "unprecedented incident" that occurred in the area of the village of Berestovoe on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where the fighting is going on. Two servicemen of the "people's militia" were "raped in front of their colleagues" by the Russian military from Chechnya, the appeal states.

"Co-workers who wanted to protect our guys were threatened with weapons and promised to shoot them "like dogs" (punctuation of the original preserved. — Note). The Chechens insulted our military and declared that we are nobody on our land, not people, cattle, and they will do whatever they want with us," the authors of the letter addressed to the head of the DPR stated.

According to the converts, the military command of the self-proclaimed republic is "trying to hide" the alleged rape on the front line, as it "does not want to enter into a confrontation with the subordinates of [the head of Chechnya] Ramzan Kadyrov." The authors of the letter appeal to Pushylin with a request to protect their loved ones, to bring the servicemen from Chechnya to justice and "to punish them publicly and demonstratively, according to the laws of wartime."

When the crime described above occurred, and what became the motive, it is not specified in the application, the names of the alleged victims are hidden. The letter itself is dated September 23, and nine surnames with initials and signatures are indicated next to the number.

The website Kavkaz.Realii searched for residents of the "DNR" whose personal data completely or partially coincided with those specified in the application, and also received confirmation of the signature of one of the women from her son.

"Mom signed"

As follows from the appeal to Pushylin, two mobilized employees of the occupation administration of Dokuchaevsk suffered from the rape victim in Berestovo. On her site, the surname from collective writing is mentioned - Ostapenko.

According to the announcement of August 24, 2021, Evgeniy Nikolaevich Ostapenko was appointed chief specialist of the housing and communal services department.

Only one resident of Dokuchaevsk has pages in "VKontakte" and "Classmates" under the same name and surname. His father established the website Kavkaz.Realii thanks to the summons from the Soviet army published by Yevgeny back in 2009. It is issued in the name of "Evgeniya Nikol Ostapenko." originally from Dokuchaevsk.

Ostapenko served in the GDR in the artillery brigade, and in this case he must have the corresponding military accounting specialty.

Yevgeny Ostapenko did not mention his wife in social networks. But, according to open information, it is (or was) Albina Ostapenko. This is indicated by the photos of Yevgeny and Albina with their granddaughter Sofia posted in VKontakte, photos from the wedding of Sergey's son, as well as a joint photo of Albina Ostapenko's avatar in a closed account in Odnoklassniki. According to the status on her VKontakte page, the woman is married and lives in Donetsk.

The initials of Ostapenko's wife, Albina, partially coincide with the subject indicated in the collective appeal to the head of the "DNR", Ostapenko A. V.

It was not possible to establish the paternity of the Donetsk resident, she did not respond to the correspondent's messages. Kavkaz.Realii editorial office contacted the woman's son, Sergei Ostapenko.

In response to the sent photos of the complaint about the alleged rape of DPR fighters and a request for a comment, he wrote: "That's where my mother signed" and did not answer again.

Under the flag of "DNR"

Another alleged signatory of the appeal is Gerus E.A. Among the users of "VKontakte" and "Odnoklassnikov" in Dokuchaevsk there is only one woman with such a surname and the initials "E" - Ekaterina Gerus. Her patronymic is Anatolyevna, that is, the second initial also matches.

Gerus heads the reception desk of the so-called "Donetsk Republic" public movement (OD "DR") in Dokuchaevsk. The indication of paternalism is in gratitude for her name.

In January 2022, on the page of the movement "Donetsk Republic" in VKontakte, Ekaterina Gerus's appeal to be vaccinated against the coronavirus was published, the post was accompanied by her photo. Judging by her, Gerus, who maintains pages in the VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks, and Gerus, who heads the reception of Pushylin's "social movement" in Dokuchaevsk, are one and the same person.

In VKontakte, Gerus has photos from voting in the so-called referendum, selfies from his office against the background of the flags of the DPR and Pushylin's portrait, and pictures with his family.

Ekaterina Gerus' husband is 38-year-old Alexander Gerus. He worked as a foreman of loading and unloading works at the local flux-dolomite plant. It was reported that tens of thousands of men, including factory workers, were forcibly mobilized in the occupied "DPR" and "LPR" territories to participate in the Russian invasion. The last time Alexander Gerus visited VKontakte was on the evening of September 14.

Ekaterina Gerus did not answer the questions of Kavkaz.Realii, and later restricted access to her page, this happened after a request to comment on the complete coincidence of her initials with the signatory of the appeal to the head of the "DNR".

As stated by Victoria Shilo, who lives in Zelenograd and is named by Alexander Gerus as her sister, "there are no grounds to believe" that her brother suffered from the actions of the Russian military from Chechnya. She did not give a direct answer to the question about ego mobilization. Irina Gerus, Alexander's mother, after reading the request for comment, limited the opportunity of the Kavkaz. Realii correspondent to send her messages in VKontakte.

Kavkaz.Realii editors checked other accounts of residents of the "DNR" with the surname Gerus. The initials of two more women partially coincide with those indicated in the address to Pushilin (surname and first letter of the name). One of them has not been on social media since 2018. The second answered Kavkaz.Realii that she saw the letter for the first time. "With my last name, I only have a daughter in Donetsk, but it's definitely not us," she wrote.

Thus, the collective appeal to Denys Pushylin could be signed by at least two residents of the "DNR" - Ekaterina Gerus and Albina Ostapenko, and one of the alleged victims in the area of the village of Berestovoe could be an employee of the occupation administration of Dokuchaevsk, Yevgeny Ostapenko. At the same time, these data do not constitute confirmation of the very fact of rape.

The Russian-controlled DNR authorities made it clear that they did not intend to verify (at least publicly) the published appeal: on the page of the separatist administration of Dokuchaevsk and in other local accounts, posts with the same content were published - that Pushylin's mourning is a "fake". The authorities of the "DPR" did not provide any evidence of this statement.

What is known about Chechen fighters in the region?

As for Berestovo, where the alleged rape of mobilized residents of the "DNR" took place, the front line is actually located near the village. Fighting in the area has been going on since at least the end of May, as evidenced by information in the Telegram bot of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which collects data on fighting. The first mention of Berestovo in the context of a full-scale Russian invasion is dated May 21, one of the last - August 15.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine, Russian army soldiers from Chechnya appeared in the Berestovo district even earlier — in March. There was at least one paramilitary unit operating there - the Akhmat special forces unit. His number is unknown, the commander is Apty Alaudinov, a close associate of Ramzan Kadyrov, who recently became the head of the Security Council of Chechnya. The SBU declared Alaudinov a suspect under the article of encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of the country.

On September 17, a few days before the publication of the appeal about rape in the name of the head of the "DPR", Alaudinov was mentioned in Kadyrov's Telegram channel in the Berestovo region. Then he announced the capture of a prisoner - Alaudinov generally shows prisoners more often and more than other Kadyrov commanders. Before that, Bellingcat and The Insider investigators established that a fighter of the "Akhmat" detachment - a mercenary of non-Chechen origin - castrated and executed a Ukrainian soldier captured in the Luhansk region (40 km from Berestovo).

The information about the alleged rape in the Berestovo area was confirmed on September 27 by an anonymous source of a human rights activist from Chechnya Abubakar Yangulbaev in the Kadyrov regiment "North". Some interlocutors of Kavkaz.Realii from the Chechen diaspora in Europe doubted the authenticity of this confirmation. However, Yangulbaev himself is confident in the information that, as he claims, the informant gives him.

"This is their [Kadyrov's] employee, who is disappointed and sometimes leaks information. Until I had no reason to doubt. In addition, he says that in places [at the front] there are many domestic conflicts on the basis of national enmity," Kadyrov's critic, who left Russia, answered a clarifying question from Kavkaz.Realii.

In September, the adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, said about the frequent "domestic conflicts" of fighters from Chechnya with other Russian military (as well as mercenaries and mobilized convicts). He told about the shooting in the center of Kherson due to the distribution of loot. Allegedly, the people of Kadyrov participated in this. Podoliak did not provide evidence. In April, the main intelligence department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced a similar incident involving fighters from Chechnya.

At the end of September, a video appeared on Telegram channels in which a Russian army soldier allegedly says in Chechen that he is waiting for the death of his "Russian" colleague in order to take his weapons. It is not known where, when and by whom this recording was made. It is impossible to geolocate the shooting location.

"This Russian has a new machine gun, so I stand behind him to take his machine gun when he is killed. That's how we let these Russians go forward," says a voice-over (Kavkaz.Realii confirmed the accuracy of the translation from Chechen. — Note.

The leadership of Chechnya and the Russian army do not comment on information about conflicts between fighters of different divisions of the troop grouping in Ukraine.

Ramzan Kadyrov accused the commander of the Central Military District, Major General Alexander Lapin, of the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian city of Lyman (it is located 60 km from Berestovo). As the head of the region wrote in his telegram channel, Lapin sent mobilized fighters of the so-called LPR to defend the area, and he himself "sat around" in the headquarters, unable to organize "elementary military logistics."
In Chechnya, they are looking for defectors from mobilization: this category includes those who have recently applied for a foreign passport, those who wish to change their registration address, as well as relatives of those protesting against conscription. These residents are taken to the war in priority order - often people of non-conscription age.
The US Treasury has imposed sanctions on the head of Chechnya and members of his family due to the war in Ukraine. New restrictions will affect Ramzan Kadyrov's business interests and his reputation in the Middle East, according to Kavkaz.Realii experts.

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