On June 25, Volodymyr Rogov, the "head" of the occupation administration of the Zaporizhzhia region, announced the killing of two minor Ukrainian partisans.
According to him, one of them was 16-year-old Tihran Ohanesian, who was previously held captive by the Russians.
Rogov claimed that at 7 p.m., when people were resting on the city embankment, two men opened fire with assault rifles. Propaganda channels wrote that a policeman and another Russian were allegedly killed, but it was not possible to establish whether this is true.
According to the Telegram channel "Berdyansk today", the information about Tihranʼs murder is most likely true.
Olha Reshetylova, coordinator of the "Media Initiative for Human Rights" organization, reported that the second murdered teenager was Mykyta Khanhanov.
According to her, a few days ago, an occupation investigator came for the boys with an armed convoy, but the teenagers managed to escape. The day before the murder, the boys distinguished themselves in the occupation police. On the day of the murder, Tigranʼs mother spoke with him half an hour before the investigator called her to tell her the terrible news. During the phone conversation, Tigran was calm, said that he was walking with Nikita, and they were thinking about how to celebrate Nikitaʼs birthday. On June 25, the boy should have turned 17 years old.
Reshetylova emphasizes the discrepancies in facts, time, and clothes. According to her, the relatives have not yet seen the bodies of the boys. Instead, the parents have been interrogated and searched since yesterday evening. Tihranʼs and Mykytaʼs parents believe that the shootout, the death video is a stage for the murder of the boys.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers initiated criminal proceedings for the murder of children. "Media Initiative for Human Rights" will conduct its own investigation.
- On June 15, 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding an end to the persecution of Ukrainian teenagers Tihran Ohanesian and Mykyta Khanhanov from occupied Berdyansk and to allow them to leave the territory controlled by Ukraine.