The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) gathered evidence on the Russian Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, the commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Federation.
On February 24, 2022, he personally ordered the subordinate units of the Russian troops to capture the Kherson region.
Under his command, the occupation groups of the Russian Federation invaded the southern region of Ukraine from the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea.
According to the investigation, it was Rezantsev who ordered to seize the strategically important airfield in Chornobayivka at any cost.
The invaders also carried out the instructions of the Russian general to carry out massive air attacks on the civilian infrastructure of the Kherson Region.
In addition, during the occupation of the right bank of the region, Rezantsev organized mass repressions against the members of the Resistance Movement in the region. On his orders, people were kidnapped right in the middle of the street or from private cars while crossing Russian checkpoints.
On the basis of the collected evidence, the investigators of the Security Service informed Rezantsev in absentia about the suspicion under Part 2 of Art. 28, Part 2 of Art. 437 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (waging an aggressive war committed by a group of persons based on a prior conspiracy).
- Russian invaders captured Kherson and almost the entire Kherson region at the beginning of a full-scale invasion, in February-March 2022. In November, the Defense Forces of Ukraine liberated the right-bank part of the Kherson region, together with the regional center, from the Russian occupiers.
- After that, the Russians began systematically shelling Kherson and other liberated settlements in the region. Prokudin noted that the occupiers are randomly shelling all areas of Kherson where people live, although there is neither military equipment nor soldiers there. Because of this, the Kherson regional military administration is preparing the evacuation of Ukrainians from the region.
- The left-bank part of the Kherson region remains under Russian occupation. In the captured territories, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the occupiers put pressure on the local population and limit their rights, as well as move Russian soldiers into the homes of Ukrainians.