Who is Yevhen Brazhnykov
Yevhen Brazhnykov was born in 1979 in Komsomolsk, which is 60 kilometers from Donetsk. In May 2002, he started working in the internal affairs bodies. In five years, he was appointed operational officer of the department for solving crimes against individuals of the criminal investigation department of the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in the Donetsk region.
At the end of 2009, the then Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko decided to restructure the criminal investigation units in Donetsk region and reduce the staff. But the main thing is that all employees had to pass certification, based on the results of which they could be reassigned or not.
It turned out that Brazhnykov, who was already a police captain at the time, was not suitable for the position he held. As a result, he was demoted and appointed operational commissioner in Yasynuvata, a suburb of Donetsk. Brazhnykov appealed this decision in court and won — the appointment order was canceled. But he never got into his old department and eventually resigned from law enforcement bodies.
Brazhnykov did not support the Revolution of Dignity. And in 2014, he joined the "Russian Spring", helped pro-Russian forces, participated in rallies, attacked participants in pro-Ukrainian actions.
Dispersal of the pro-Ukrainian rally in Donetsk on March 13, 2014. The pro-Ukrainian activist Dmytro Chernyavskyi was killed there.
On May 26, 2014, when there was the first battle for the Donetsk airport, he took a rifle and "set up a firing position" in front of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said pro-Russian militant Yevhen Tinyanskyi, whose words were quoted by Denys Kazanskyi in his video. And a little later, during the battles for Slovyansk, Brazhnykov gave the fighters sniper and collimator sights, and thermal imagers. "It played a positive role in strengthening the fighting capacity of the Slovyansk garrison," Tinyanskyi said.
In 2015, Brazhnykov headed the security service of one of the Donetsk factories. But within a year he was detained by employees of the so-called "MDB of the DPR", allegedly because he was a saboteur and wanted to organize a coup against the pro-Russian leaders of Donetsk on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services. In two years, the case turned into an ordinary crime: in 2018, Brazhnykov was found guilty of illegal possession of weapons and imprisoned for 8 years. Even before the sentence, he was placed in "Isolation" — a former cultural space, and since 2014 a notorious prison and torture chamber.
Detention of Brazhnykov in Donetsk in 2016 by employees of the so-called "MDB of the DPR".
In 2017, his relatives submitted Brazhnykov to the lists of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies for exchange. And he was exchanged in 2019 together with Stanislav Aseev, Stanislav Pechonkin and other Ukrainian prisoners. When the prisoners saw him, they began to beat him and said that although he was only a prisoner there, he beat and tortured others. Therefore, Brazhnykov was protected from other prisoners by the Ukrainian military. After the exchange, he worked as a taxi driver in Kyiv.
What is he accused of?
"When I personally saw Brazhnykov in ʼIsolationʼ, I already knew that he was a separatist. But at first I even felt sorry for him, they say, he believed in the "republic", but he was deceived. But later I saw how he hit not by order, but by his own will," says Pechonkin.
After the exchange, Stanislav Aseev filed a criminal complaint against Brazhnykov. On February 21, 2020, the information was entered into the Joint State Register of Law Violations. Already on March 4, Brazhnykov was informed of the suspicion of involvement in a terrorist organization, as well as a war crime in the form of cruel treatment of civilians. On April 16, 2021, investigators completed the investigation and prepared an indictment.
Exchange of prisoners. In the foreground is Stanislav Aseev.
The investigation accuses Brazhnykov that in the spring of 2017 he agreed to carry out the orders of the prison management and extract confessions from the prisoners that they had allegedly committed crimes. For this, according to the investigation, Brazhnykov received certain privileges — he moved freely around the prison, had a mobile phone, and received groceries from relatives. He was not involved in forced labor and was promised to be included in the list for exchange.
The investigation established that Brazhnykov beat at least nine prisoners on the orders of the administration. Among them are Stanislav Aseev and Stanislav Pechonkin — they are treated as victims in the case.
Brazhnykov repeatedly beat the captives with his hands or a plastic pipe, threatened them, kept them under stress, poured cold water over them. There were cases when he forced the victim to stand against the wall in his underwear for several days with his hands up, forbade him to drink and eat, and in addition beat him with a pipe on his hands, head, kidneys, and genitals.
Brazhnykov denies everything. In January 2021, he gave an interview in which he convinced that he was a victim in "Isolation", and then he was threatened in Ukraine. He also said that the accusations against him are fabrications, but in fact the conditions were good in "Isolation", they distributed red caviar, treated him with champagne and gave him mineral water every day.
And what does France have to do with it?
In March 2020, the court sentenced Brazhnykov to 24-hour house arrest for six months. At the end of August, the prosecutor asked the court to appoint another preventive measure, because according to the law it cannot be extended for longer than 6 months. So the prosecutor asked for a personal bond, the mildest preventive measure. But the court refused, thus Brazhnykov was able to move freely.
Brazhnykov at one of the court sessions.
Ґрунт / «Бабель»
Initially, the Krasnoarmeysk court in Brazhnykovʼs native Donetsk region had to consider the case. But the prosecution, and then the victims, asked to transfer the proceedings to almost any court in Kyiv, because both the majority of the victims and Brazhnykov himself were physically present there. Brazhnykov objected to this.
On September 9, 2021, the Supreme Court referred the case to the Obolon District Court. And already on September 20, Brazhnykov fled to France — he flew on a low-cost SkyUp to Beauvais, a city 100 km from Paris. In France, he asked for asylum. His request is still being considered.
Brazhnykov stated that he is not going to return to Ukraine, so it is unlikely that Ukrainian justice will be able to catch him. And Interpol does not announce an international wanted list of those connected with military conflicts.
Brazhnykovʼs boarding pass for a plane to France. In social networks, Brazhnykov constantly threatens the victims in his case, including Aseev. Immediately after the court decision on August 1, Brazhnykov blocked his page. Photo from his Facebook page.
In March 2024, the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutorʼs Office appealed to the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office with a request for mutual assistance. It turns out that their Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Unit is investigating a case related to the events at “Isolation” Prison. And since Evgeny Brazhnykov lives in France, the prosecutorʼs office of this country can take the investigation and conduct it there.
Today, despite Brazhnykovʼs objection, the court granted the request of the prosecutors and agreed to turn to the Ministry of Justice with a request to transfer the case to France. Immediately after that, if the Ministry of Justice has no comments on the materials, it must transfer the materials to the French prosecutorʼs office within 20 days.