The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has identified five Russian soldiers who tortured civilians during the occupation of the Sumy region.
This was reported by SBU press service.
The special service established that this was done by servicemen of the 423rd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 4th Tank Division of the 1st Tank Army of the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. Itʼs about senior lieutenant Aleksei Rizhkovich, lieutenant Maksim Volchek, sergeant Rustam Irzayev, privates Petr Ilyushin and Vadim Mitin. They were part of Russian "punitive squads" that kidnapped and tortured local residents.
During the occupation of Trostyanets (Okhtyrsky district), on March 13, 2022, armed occupiers detained four civilians on the street and took them to the territory of the elevator, where the Russians set up headquarters and a torture chamber in one of the outbuildings.
Civilians were handcuffed, hoods pulled over their eyes, and sticky tape wrapped around them. The occupiers beat one of the detainees and shot in the air, imitating his execution, in order to psychologically influence the others. After that, at gunpoint, they ordered everyone to lie down on the floor and not move. The next day, the detainees were transferred to a basement without sufficient drinking water and food. Two of them spent four days there. Later, the occupiers released them.
The occupier Maksim Volchek was particularly cruel. For this, the Russian command awarded him the "Suvorov Medal", which he received after the expulsion of the Russians from the Sumy region. SBU also claims that Rustam Irzayev beat a bound civilian kidnapped in the middle of the street with a stick and promised him to "break all his bones."
SBU declared the suspicion in absentia of violating the laws and customs of war to all five occupiers.