CNN
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Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March.
“I saw them run, then I learned they were rapists. They raped a mother and a daughter,” he said. Their commanders, Chibrin said, shrugged when finding out about the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes.
“They were never jailed. Just fired. Just like that: ‘Go!’ They were simply dismissed from the war. That’s it.”
Chibrin is a former soldier from the Russian city of Yakutsk who says he served in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the notorious Russian military unit accused of committing war crimes during their offensive in Bucha, Borodianka and other towns and villages north of Kyiv.
He deserted from the Russian military in September and fled to Europe via Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Troops from Chibrin’s brigade were labeled war criminals by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and dead bodies lying in the streets were discovered following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.
Chibrin’s military documents, seen by CNN, show his commander was Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in charge of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov, known as the “Butcher of Bucha” is under sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States have sanctioned the entire brigade.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies were fake.
In a move that sparked outrage across the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions.”
Chibrin said he didn’t see any of the supposed heroism, but many of the crimes.
Speaking to CNN in a European country where he has requested asylum, he detailed some of the crimes he says he witnessed and heard accounts of, and said he’d be prepared to testify against his unit at an international criminal court. He maintains he himself didn’t commit any crimes.
“I didn’t see murders but I saw rapists running away, being chased (by higher-ranking members of the unit) because they committed rape,” he said.
He also said that the unit had a “direct command to murder” anyone sharing information about the unit’s positions, whether military or civilians.
“If someone had a phone – we were allowed to shoot them,” he said. He claims there is little doubt some of the men in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were capable of killing unarmed civilians.
“There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,” he said.
Chibrin also described widespread looting, with Russian soldiers taking computers, jewelry and anything they liked.
“They didn’t hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka in the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he said. “The mentality is, if you steal something, you are good. If nobody catches you, good! If you see something that is expensive and you steal it and don’t get caught, you are good.”
As for the unit’s commanders, he said they were well aware of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, but took little interest in seeking justice.
“They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he said….