Investigators with the Bellingcat group and The Insider outlet claim that they have been able to identify a Russian occupier who had been captured on a video torturing a man wearing a Ukrainian military uniform.
The investigation, released on August 5, says the war criminal’s name is Ochur-Suge Mongush, a man born in Tuva in 1993.
The report says the incident took place on the territory of the Pryvillia Rehabilitation Center in the occupied Luhansk region. It is believed that the man in question is part of the Chachen-based Akhmat battalion, deployed in Ukraine.
Investigators say they reached out to Ochur-Suge Mongush, who tried to deny his involvement in a phone call, but gave himself away by getting mixed up in recollections. In particular, the war criminal admitted in the conversation, and repeated several times, that it was really him in one of the videos shot in the occupied town of Siverodonetsk. He also confirmed that the torture video was filmed at Pryvillia.
Memo
On July 28, footage was shared across Russian Telegram channels, in which two invaders were torturing a Ukrainian prisoner of war. Nearby a car was parked with a capital letter Z inscribed on the hood – this letter, which the occupiers put on their vehicles, became one of the symbols of the Russian armed invasion of Ukraine.
Two Russian soldiers were seen beating the prisoner and castrating him with a stationery knife.
New videos released by Russian platforms on July 29 show what appear to be the same Russian soldiers shooting the man wearing a Ukrainian uniform in the head after the latter was maimed.
Ukrainian law enforcers have initiated criminal proceedings into the violation of the laws and customs of war.
