Ukrainians Wagnerizing
Pits, killings, beatings in the army.
Today’s topic is army violence. A content warning might be necessary.
First we’ll take a look at a case of brave patriots beating brutally beating a hapless shopkeeper after he didn’t sell them vodka. Then, we’ll examine 5 more recent cases of mobilized soldiers killed by commanders of assault units. Next, we’ll unpack the details of a recent viral video showing a soldier beaten in front of his comrades. Finally, we’ll look at testimony of the violent practices reigning throughout the Ukrainian army, and ruminate on the Ukrainian obsession with emulating Russia’s famously violent Wagner PMC.
Of course, one can quite legitimately retort that blaming it all on the ‘Russian example’ does a disservice to Ukrainian originality and gusto, when it comes to inventing and implementing new forms of bloodletting.
Rogue wolves
The ‘Da Vinci Wolves’ is one of the most hyped-up units in the Ukrainian army. It is largely made up of the hipster-nazis from Honor, an NGO-aligned grouping of football hooligans that split off from the Azov movement in 2019-20. Azovites call them LGBT-sympathizing Sorosites.
In 2021, Zelensky gave the award ‘Hero of Ukraine’ to the soldier Dmytro Kotsyubailo, whose alias was ‘Da Vinci’. Following his speedy demise at war in March 2023, his face never left the airwaves, and the unit got its name.
Finnish president Sanna Marin even attended Kostyubailo’s funeral in Kyiv.
Though much-hyped in the press, I’ve always seen rumours about more unsavoury aspects of the frontline activities of the Da Vinci Wolves, particularly extortion of civilians. I’ve written about the appearance of Honor leaders at the stripper parties run by Ukraine’s army-run scam call centres. I also wrote about the expensive tastes of nazi-hipster celebrity Serhii Filimonov ‘Son of Perun’, leader of the Honor movement and commander of the Da Vinci Wolves. Before 2022, he visited Hong Kong to support the freedom fighters there — now, he poses with blindfolded men in dungeons.
Anyway, on May 2, the brave fighters of the Da Vinci Wolves took it up on themselves to defeat a dangerous enemy several hundred kilometers from the frontlines. In the town of Shakhtarsk, in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast, video cameras captured four warriors beating and kidnapping a 19 year old shopkeeper. He’d refused to sell the patriotic fighters vodka after hours.
Relatives also reported that the soldiers had fired guns and thrown Molotov cocktails at the store. After beating the teenager at length on the ground, he was thrown into their pickup truck, driven away for more torture, and dumped on the edge of the town.
Relatives said that this was not the first time such abuses had taken place. They also complained that the commanders of the Da Vinci Wolves protected the attackers, claiming they were ‘at the frontlines’ or had ‘deserted’.
A criminal investigation was opened into the matter. The command of the Da Vinci Wolves also took responsibility — while simultaneously excusing the soldiers by noting they’d ‘been on the front for a long time’. In terms of compensation, they offered to help out in cleaning the town.
Since then, there has been no more news on what happened. I doubt the patriotic ‘Wolves’ even had to sweep any Shakhtarsk streets.
The 425th
At least five soldiers died in the 425th ‘Skelya’ assault regiment over the course of March. Nothing new for this notorious unit, the most quickly growing regiment in the army, one that has even been graced with mid-workout PR clips from Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson.
As in previous cases in the 425th, command claims health issues were to blame, while relatives and doctors point to broken bones. All five did not survive two weeks after being mobilized — and they never got to the front. Though the deaths occurred in March, talk of the event went viral on Ukrainian media yesterday.
This new batch of troops were all from the western oblast of Ivano-Frankivsk — nationalist hero Stepan Bandera’s birthplace. One of the poorest areas of Ukraine. All the dead come from rustic Carpathian villages and towns.
41 year-old Vasyl Tsyurko died nine days after being mobilized in the bucolic Carpathian city of Yaremcha.
This is what his sister told the western-funded publication suspilne:
"We were told that he was beaten, in bad condition, that his brother needed help. We sent him things, a phone,"
But he never contacted his sister. The reason was that after being mobilized, he’d been sent to the 425th assault regiment, which is notorious for taking phones away from soldiers. When Tsyurko’s sister called the phone she’d given her brother, she got a cold response from an unknown man:
"He said, 'You can't call, because he'll be in solitary confinement for two more days.' I understand that he was given some kind of punishment for something,"
She called on March 8 — on March 10, the family was officially notified that Tsyurko had died six days earlier.
Tsyurko officially died of acute cardiovascular failure and atherosclerotic heart disease. But when his sister visited the hospital where he died, she found that the forensic expert had also diagnosed fatty hepatosis, rib fractures, bruises, abrasions, and stab wounds to the body. Tsyurko’s sister told the following to suspilne:
“He had beaten legs, a very damaged face and stab wounds all over the body. The body is in a terrible condition: beaten, tortured, and mutilated. Of course, in such a condition, my brother could not have accompanied any brigade, because he could not breathe - his ribs were broken, everything was broken. And in the certificate of the place of death is neither the hospital nor the unit. It is unclear where and how it happened. Which alarmed us. Because we were told that he died in the hospital”
