Reporting from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine
BBCOn the frozen frontline within the east of Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian soldier surveyed the fallout from a Russian assault. It was the center of January 2024 and the bottom was coated in ice. Two weeks earlier, an 18-strong Russian assault workforce had damaged by way of the road and seized three positions, killing 5 Ukrainians and dropping 10 Russians earlier than ceding the skinny stretch of land again to the Ukrainians simply hours later. The three positions that had modified fingers had been every only a few foxholes within the floor – dots on a devastated panorama of craters and shredded timber.
The Ukrainian soldier filmed as he seemed over the stays of his fallen comrades. “That is Vitas, the small one,” he mentioned, utilizing the lifeless man’s callsign. He examined one other physique. “A silver ring, that is Grinch,” he mentioned. With issue, he turned over one other frozen physique. It was in unhealthy situation, however the face was recognisable. The soldier sighed. “What can I discover to cowl you, so that you just will not get chilly,” he mentioned to the lifeless man. He picked up a close-by helmet and positioned it over the broken face. “We have now discovered the Penguin,” he mentioned.
A yr later, in January 2025, a Russian soldier was frog-marched down the hall of a rundown native courthouse in Zaporizhzhia flanked by 5 Ukrainian troopers and a big rottweiler educated on the Russian’s scent and straining at its leash to assault him. Dmitriy Kurashov, callsign ‘Stalker’, was about to go on trial for the alleged battlefield execution of Vitalii Hodniuk, a veteran 41-year-old Ukrainian soldier recognized by the callsign ‘Penguin’.
HandoutThe trial was to be the primary of its form. In line with Ukrainian authorities, Russian troops have executed no less than 124 prisoners of struggle on the battlefield for the reason that full-scale invasion started, however Kurashov is the primary particular person to be dropped at trial in Ukraine for the crime. His case is certainly one of a tiny quantity among the many tens of 1000’s of open struggle crimes instances the place a suspect has been captured and will be made to face within the dock. Including to the unprecedented nature of the occasion, three members of Kurashov’s personal unit had agreed to testify towards him.
Within the shiny, boxy courtroom, Kurashov was locked in a glass-enclosed dock. Brief in stature, his head usually bowed, he lower a subdued determine. When he did go searching, he was pressured to swivel his head as a result of he had misplaced one eye to a grenade on the entrance. It was not Kurashov’s first time within the dock; he had been jailed twice earlier than in Russia, and was among the many 1000’s of prisoners freed by the state to participate within the struggle.
The prosecutor learn the fees. Kurashov was accused of capturing Hodniuk execution model because the Ukrainian soldier tried to give up – a violation of the legal guidelines of struggle. Kurashov had intially pleaded not responsible, in the course of the pre-trial part, however now in court docket he switched his plea to responsible. Informally, he maintained his innocence, and was making the swap purely to hurry up the method, he mentioned.
In line with the UN, battlefield executions by Russians have elevated at an alarming charge over the previous yr. In a February report, the UN human rights mission in Ukraine mentioned it had discovered proof of 79 executions by Russian forces since August 2024, in addition to proof of three unlawful killings by Ukraine utilizing first-person drones. The UN additionally mentioned it had discovered no less than three calls by Russian public officers ordering or approving executions, and in keeping with Ukraine there may be proof of Russian battlefield commanders ordering executions up and down the frontline.
The assault on the entrance by Kurashov’s unit was to be his first correct operation, only a few weeks after becoming a member of the struggle. The unit was a part of “Storm-V”, a detachment of the 127th motorised rifle division made up virtually completely of freed prisoners. The Storm-V items have been utilized by Russia as cannon fodder, despatched to stage assaults on the worst components of the frontline. They’re a grim echo of comparable items shaped by Stalin, characterised principally by their extraordinarily excessive charge of attrition.
The operation started early on the morning of 6 January 2024 beneath a dense fog. The 18-strong Storm-V workforce approached the frontline in two armoured autos and a tank and the assault started. Kurashov was directed in direction of the small cluster of foxholes the place Hodniuk and others had been hiding, following a Russian artillery barrage.
That is the place Kurashov’s account diverges from that of the prosecution and the Russian troopers testifying towards him. They are saying Kurashov referred to as right into a foxhole for these inside to give up and Hodniuk emerged unarmed and kneeled on the bottom, just for Kurashov to shoot him with a burst from his AK-47. Kurashov says that it was not him who fired the pictures however one other Russian, a medic with callsign “Sedoy”, who was later killed.
The Russians couldn’t maintain the place for lengthy. Overpowered by Ukrainian forces simply hours later, Kurashov and the opposite survivors crawled out of the foxholes and surrendered. They had been marched away from the entrance to a Ukrainian armoured car and brought as prisoners of struggle. Ukrainian troopers who noticed Hodniuk’s physique instructed the nation’s state safety service, the SBU, that it lay face down with no weapon close by.
The SBU couldn’t entry the scene, as a result of it was too near the contact line, however the company started what would develop into an intensive distant investigation. At an SBU location in Zaporizhzhia final month, the officer in cost – who spoke on situation of anonymity due to his work within the safety service – drew a map of the scene and defined how they put Kurashov within the dock.
“Step one was interrogating the eight prisoners of struggle,” he mentioned. “They had been questioned as witnesses and later their identities had been totally confirmed by way of social networks, cellphones, and partial radio intercepts that preceded the occasion. The complete unit in that sector was tracked.”
Initially, there have been two suspected executions. One other Ukrainian, callsign ‘Grinch’, had been overwhelmed to demise with a shovel, one witness mentioned. However the SBU could not show it. “The polygraph did not verify the data and when the our bodies had been finally recovered from the battlefield, none of them had such accidents,” the investigator mentioned. “My opinion, after analyzing all of the information, is that this was made up.”
It was, he mentioned, an instance of Ukraine’s means to research and prosecute struggle crimes impartially, regardless of being the sufferer and beneath an ongoing state of struggle from the aggressor. “Look, now we have one suspect on trial for an execution,” the SBU investigator mentioned, referring to Kurashov. “I signed it and despatched it to court docket as a result of we have gathered sufficient proof that factors to guilt. If our purpose was merely to suspect anybody and ship them to court docket we might have ten prisoners passing by way of each day.”
The seriousness with which Ukraine is treating this felony prosecution is obvious. The SBU investigation produced greater than 2,000 pages of proof. Every of the witnesses was put by way of filmed reconstructions of the occasion on a Ukrainian military capturing vary. In court docket, all efforts have been made by the prosecutor and the judges to make sure that Kurashov understands his rights, that he can perceive his interpreter, and is given the chance to cross study witnesses towards him – a chance he has thus far declined. (Kurashov’s state-appointed lawyer declined to talk to the BBC. She has spoken solely briefly in court docket, on administrative issues and to make clear some descriptions of the occasion by witnesses.)
The three Russian witnesses all testified on the primary day of Kurashov’s trial – three former prisoners who like Kurashov had gambled on surviving the struggle to realize their freedom. One had been serving 25 years to life for killing two drug sellers, one other 9 years for grievous bodily hurt for killing a person with a brick in a struggle, a 3rd eight years, additionally for grievous bodily hurt.
They gave proof by way of video hyperlink from an adjoining courtroom, so that they could possibly be locked in their very own dock. Dmitry Zuev, 44, was to be the important thing witness. He instructed the court docket that he noticed Kurashov name for the Ukrainians to come back out of the foxhole and give up, after which Hodniuk emerged and knelt together with his fingers up. Then there have been extra gunshots and explosions, Zuev mentioned, and he noticed Hodniuk fall face down into the mud. Zuev additionally instructed the court docket that he personally knew the medic, Sedoy, who Kurashov has accused of the killing, and Sedoy was not there.
Oleg Zamyatin, 54, testified that Hodniuk was not holding a gun when he emerged from the foxhole. Zamyatin didn’t see Kurashov hearth the alleged pictures, he mentioned, as a result of there have been explosions on the similar second.
“However I can say that it was him,” Zamyatin instructed the court docket. “As a result of there was nobody else at that spot besides him.”
Konstantin Zelenin, 41, the commander of Kurashov’s small assault group, instructed the court docket he was hiding in a crater when he noticed Hodniuk exit the foxhole on the suitable aspect together with his fingers up.
“Then, only a cut up second later, because the shelling started once more, I heard a burst from an computerized rifle,” Zelenin mentioned.
“On the suitable aspect was Stalker, and he was there alone.”
Within the dock, Kurashov sat largely mute as his former unit mates testified towards him, talking solely sometimes to his lawyer by way of a slim hole within the enclosure’s door. It’s not clear but if he’ll testify on his personal behalf. The day after certainly one of his hearings, he agreed to speak to the BBC about how he had ended up on trial in Ukraine.
The interview was co-ordinated by the SBU and carried out at a derelict constructing in Zaporizhzhia getting used as a sort of protected home by the service, which confirmed the fundamental information of Kurashov’s life. Kurashov appeared in good situation and mentioned he had agreed freely to participate. The lead choose in his case permitted the interview, for which an SBU press officer was current a number of the time. Kurashov’s remarks to the BBC won’t be admissible in court docket.
His journey to that depressing stretch of entrance the place Hodniuk died – to changing into Stalker – started in an orphanage in Gremyachinsk, a decayed outdated coal city a couple of thousand miles from Moscow on the way in which to Siberia. Orphaned at beginning, Kurashov was raised in a gaggle residence. As a young person, he received right into a struggle with a police officer and was imprisoned for assault. He served 4 years, however on his launch he had no household, buddies or place to reside, so he grew to become a vagrant. He started robbing summer season homes and retailers for meals and cash, he mentioned, leading to one other imprisonment, this time in a distant penal colony alongside males serving life sentences for the a number of the most brutal crimes.
Six months into that sentence, representatives from the Russian navy got here to the penal colony and instructed the convicts they’d a chance to show a brand new web page of their lives. Kurashov nonetheless had 5 years to serve. “They instructed us you may have a clear slate, develop into a clear particular person,” he mentioned. “Simply signal this contract and go.”
“Go” meant to the “particular navy operation” in Ukraine. Kurashov knew little about it, he mentioned, however he thought something was higher than 5 extra years within the penal colony or being turned out into the streets on the finish of his sentence. So he signed, and was taken instantly to a coaching camp in occupied territory in Ukraine.
Kurashov described his unit as made up completely of “individuals who had been pushed down by life and rejected by society, who had been outdoors of society”. They got 21 days’ coaching, he mentioned, throughout which they had been drunk virtually on a regular basis. “They didn’t need to examine or practice,” he recalled. “All of them mentioned they had been simply there to die.”
There was no coaching on the Geneva Conference, to which Russia and Ukraine are each signatories, and which prohibits the killing of people that have surrendered or not pose a menace. The truth is, the trainers instructed them the other, Kurashov mentioned. “Those who taught us easy methods to take positions instructed us to not take any prisoners,” he mentioned. His description matches accounts from his unit mates, who instructed Ukrainian investigators they had been instructed to execute prisoners and throw grenades into dugouts even when the enemy had surrendered.
It additionally matches accounts from different Russian prisoners of struggle. “I do not recall coaching on worldwide humanitarian legislation,” a Russian POW instructed the UN lately. “Throughout our navy coaching and later, commanders instructed us to not take [Ukrainian soldiers] as prisoners of struggle. It’s logistically cumbersome.”
In line with Kurashov, the unit had been instructed they might be finishing up logistical operations like digging trenches, however as a substitute discovered themselves headed instantly for battle. Throughout the temporary assault on the Ukrainian place, Kurashov’s impression was not certainly one of an in a position navy unit at struggle. “What I noticed was individuals who simply laid down and died,” he mentioned. Inside hours, 10 of the 18-strong assault workforce had been lifeless and the remaining eight had been in captivity.
Inside a fortnight, the incident had develop into certainly one of Ukraine’s many 1000’s of struggle crimes instances. Ukraine has no specialist struggle crimes courts, so the instances usually fall to whichever court docket is native to the offence. On this case, the Zavodskyi District in Zaporizhzhia.
Previous to the complete scale invasion, 32-year-old prosecutor Mykyta Manevskyi had taken on a spread of civil crimes like theft, vandalism and fraud, plus two homicide instances, however by no means a struggle crime. “Whenever you’re working with an unusual homicide case, it has difficulties nevertheless it’s fairly easy,” Manevskyi mentioned. ” the place the homicide passed off, you may accumulate DNA and fingerprints, yow will discover the homicide weapon. You may have virtually instant entry to the physique. You may conduct forensic assessments.”
On this case, Manevskyi’s homicide scene was on the contact line. “We couldn’t even extract the physique for 2 months,” he mentioned. “It made it troublesome to carry out any sort of forensic examination. The physique was too lengthy beneath the solar, the rain and snow, and it was harmed by artillery strikes.”
That made it troublesome to determine something concrete concerning the nature of the pictures that killed Hodniuk. “This isn’t the extent of element, sadly, that we’d like when investigating a homicide,” Manevskyi mentioned. “So we needed to focus extra on working with the witnesses we had.”
The truth is, the prosecution is relying virtually completely on the testimony of the Russian troopers. There aren’t any different eyewitnesses, no drone footage of the particular occasion and the bodily proof is circumstantial, a lot of it badly degraded by the battlefield circumstances which continued for weeks earlier than the our bodies could possibly be recovered.
However the testimony shouldn’t be with out its issues. The witnesses are all POWs, being held by the nation prosecuting the case. They had been every interrogated as much as 10 instances by the Ukrainian state safety service, throughout which era a few of their tales developed. One bore a grudge towards Kurashov from their time collectively in coaching, he instructed investigators. One other mentioned he resented the defendant for, in his view, getting them caught.
“It’s a tough space,” mentioned Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of worldwide legislation on the Open College of the Netherlands. “POWs are a very weak class of witnesses, any proof they offer ought to be taken with a grain of salt.” There was nothing inherently mistaken with POWs testifying, Vasiliev mentioned, however varied components might have affected their determination to seem for the prosecution. “Possibly they’re anticipating higher remedy in Ukrainian custody, perhaps they count on to be prioritised in a prisoner swap,” he mentioned. “They may have varied incentives to lie.”
Kurashov maintains his story concerning the medic, Sedoy. He instructed the BBC he had pleaded responsible as a result of he believed the earlier the trial was over the earlier he could possibly be exchanged again to Russia.
But when Kurashov is discovered responsible, he’s not a prisoner of struggle. He’s merely a prisoner in Ukraine’s civil authorized system. Yuriy Belousov, the top of the struggle crimes division of Ukraine’s Workplace of the Prosecutor Normal, instructed the BBC that Russian troopers convicted of struggle crimes would go to jail in Ukraine and keep there. “We prosecute on behalf of the victims and their kinfolk and they need to really feel justice has been finished,” Belousov mentioned.
In the long run, it is probably not that straightforward. Russia has captured many 1000’s of civilians throughout its full scale invasion of Ukraine and is successfully holding them hostage in Russian prisons. If the Kremlin decides it needs Kurashov again, it might have leverage to get him.
“That’s much less of a authorized and extra of an moral situation,” Belousov mentioned. “If, for instance, 100 folks can be provided to change for this one, then sure perhaps. It’s our obligation to prosecute on behalf of victims, however additionally it is our obligation to save lots of our individuals who have been saved in Russia.”
Belousov and his colleagues are aiming at larger fish than Kurashov. Their purpose for this yr and subsequent is to deliver instances towards center and better stage Russian command, he mentioned. In line with the testimony from the captured Russians in Kurashov’s unit, their senior commander issued an order instantly earlier than the assault that no prisoners ought to be taken.
In line with Belousov, comparable proof has been discovered up and down the frontline. Grim video proof, generally shared on Russian social media, seems to bear that out. Russia has in flip accused Ukrainian troops of extra-judicial killings, and Ukraine has launched a number of investigations into its personal forces (the precise quantity is unclear). However the variety of allegations towards Russia far outweighs that towards Ukraine. Russia has beforehand denied committing struggle crimes within the battle.
The UN has additionally documented a number of instances of Russian public figures calling for executions. Final July, after Ukraine’s Azov Brigade posted a social media video displaying certainly one of its members capturing a Russian soldier in a dugout, the deputy head of Russia’s Safety Council, Dmitry Medvedev, referred to as for “complete executions” of Ukrainian servicemen.
“No phrases about mercy. No humanity. No pardon. They don’t have any proper to life. Execute, execute and execute,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram social media platform.
Medvedev’s phrases won’t price him something. As a substitute they run downhill till they attain the extent of Vitalii Hodniuk, Dmitry Kurashov, and all the opposite Russian and Ukrainian males killing one another in service of the struggle’s obscure targets. On this case, a kind of males stands accused of breaking the legal guidelines of the killing he had been despatched to do – legal guidelines he might effectively have been ordered to ignore.
If discovered responsible, Kurashov faces as much as life in jail. On the finish of his dialog with the BBC, he mentioned that he had no actual imaginative and prescient for the longer term, aside from a want to return to Russia. “At the very least I’ll have a incapacity,” he mentioned, referring to the lack of his eye, and the anticipated advantages it will draw. “I will not must be a vagrant anymore.”
Vitalii Hodniuk can’t return residence, after all. It was two months earlier than his physique might even be recovered. His household didn’t need to communicate publicly about his passing, however they did help within the SBU in its investigation. Hodniuk’s document exhibits that he was an skilled soldier who defended Ukraine towards Russian-backed forces from 2015 to 2020 and joined as much as struggle once more in 2022.
Final Might, six months after he died, the Penguin was introduced again to his village to be buried. On a shiny morning, only a stone’s throw from the place he grew up and went to high school, folks lined the road on their knees to look at his coffin cross by.
Kurashov’s trial continues.
Daria Mitiuk contributed to this report. Pictures by Joel Gunter.
