Barbarians on the Border: The Kolotilovka Massacre
Russian Forces Decapitated a Ukrainian Casualty & Displayed His Head on a Pike - There May Be More Victims
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WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
On August 16th, 2024, Russian military Telegram was alight with murderous fervor after a video surfaced, claiming to be from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, where a Russian soldier posed between the corpse and severed head of a Ukrainian casualty killed in a fight at the border some time earlier that week. The caption from the far-right neo-Nazi-aligned news aggregator Telegram channel, Rosich, unleashed racism-drenched cheers writing:
“Born an orc, defend Mordor!
Khokhlina lost his head and suddenly impaled himself on a pike to better see the beauty of the Kursk region.” (Rosich Telegram)
These disturbing events need context so that the full-extent of Russian war crimes can be understood and prosecuted. I will seek to illustrate the situation leading to up this most recent round of heinous acts by Russian military units toward Ukrainian combatants.
Sometime on the morning of either August 12th, 13th, or 14th, Ukrainian forces attacked by means of a small one-vehicle raid upon the border crossing checkpoint outside of the small Russian border town of Kolotilovka in Belgorod Oblast. In video footage captured by Russian surveillance drones, a Kozak-2 IMV can be seen moving at great speed down a road between a field and a tree line heading toward the border crossing (see images below). While under mortar fire, the Kozak-2 attempts to avoid dragons teeth deployed around the mouth of the crossing, but rams into a concrete barrier causing the crew and dismounts to evacuate the vehicle to carry on the raid by foot.
(Google Earth).
Shown above are a selection of aerial images of Kolotilovka and the border crossing checkpoint to give geographical context and reference points for landmarks seen in the criminal footage. Of note are the green-roofed border checkpoint buildings visible in the background of the videos of the massacre and the following videos from Chechen Akhmat forces.
Other footage then shows several hits with mortars inflicting casualties on the Ukrainian infantry attempting to find cover, while simultaneously pushing the checkpoint. It is in this engagement in which the beheaded casualty was sustained. Importantly, he was not beheaded due to his combat injuries as shown in the videographic and photographic evidence. Remaining Ukrainian infantry retreated after sustaining these losses and were seen retreating back across the border on foot in stills from Russian surveillance drone footage.
In a graphic mobile phone video, a Chechen Akhmat soldier is shown searching the body and bragging about the success of the mission. Surveillance drone footage also features Chechen “Spetznaz” responding to the border raid, as the voice of a Chechen officer relays directions to his men. And on August 16th, the video shown earlier of a 155th Naval Infantry Brigade solider posing with the grisly display shows the same location and casualty. Shown below are stills from the 155th video showing the casualty from the above Chechen video with new bloodstains not able to be seen near or around the head and neck area of the deceased. This proves desecration of that corpse was done at this specific location sometimes in the days between August 14th and August 16th. Additional evidence does point to the Chechens carrying out the actual crime.
Terrifyingly, this incident is probably not isolated and not stemming from just one rogue soldier. Evidence provided by OSINT analyst PStyleOne1 on X of intercepted Russian radio transmission seems to implicate the unit’s command structure and point toward more potential offenses (PStyleOne1). The intercepted radio call is between two figures, callsigns “Bugay” and “Pushkar”. “Pushkar” informs “Bugay” that he has cut the head off of four of the Ukrainian soldiers, collected their documents, and attempted to identify their rank and military unit. Callsign “Pushkar” asks permission to publish a video of the decapitation later from “Bugay”. Click the hyperlinks to X to watch the video with a complete translation and transcript in Russian and English.
This revelation should not be surprising however, as the Russian command structure (often at the battalion and company level) have been implicated in the war crimes carried out in locations such as Bucha, Irpin, and Mariupol in 2022.
On August 17th, Ukrainian milblogger, Hovoryat’ Sniper, published an update that the identity of one of the soldiers, callsign “Pushkar”, had been revealed through an open-source investigation on Russian social media platforms. It was revealed that he was a member of the Akhmat forces as a “Spetznaz Machine Gunner”, according to his social media profiles. His name, Denis Pushkaryov, and photos of him in uniform are shown below.
These crimes are still being investigated and only preliminary statements have been made by the Ukrainian government regarding holding any certain individuals accountable. Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram:
“I appealed to the UN and the ICRC regarding another act of violation of international humanitarian law by the Russian side. I also note that the enemy uses such videos to intimidate and demoralize Ukrainians. However, this only strengthens us in our desire to bring everyone who commits such inhuman atrocities to inevitable responsibility!” (Ombudsman Dymtro Lubinets)
Much remains to be seen on the status of these war crimes or how Ukraine will officially respond, as it remains a developing situation.
Ukrainian Sources:
Омбудсман Лубінець Дмитро. (n.d.). Telegram. https://t.me/dmytro_lubinetzs/6472
Говорять снайпер ✙. (n.d.). Telegram. https://t.me/stanislav_osman/6834
(1) PS01 △ on X: “WAR CRIME🚨 This is a radio intercept about the beheadings shown in the ISIS like video of the Russian 155th brigade In the radio intercept, the commander give the order to behead 4 people and put their heads on sticks like in the gruesome video. One of the victim is https://t.co/hcwtZjlKTK” / X. (n.d.). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1824551478997959121
Russian Sources:
“Росич | Rosich.” Telegram. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://t.me/rosich_russia/65201>.
“Росич | Rosich.” Telegram. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://t.me/rosich_russia/65213>.
“Операция Z: Военкоры Русской Весны.” Telegram. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://t.me/RVvoenkor/74801>.
“Операция Z: Военкоры Русской Весны.” Telegram. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://t.me/RVvoenkor/74815>.
“Операция Z: Военкоры Русской Весны.” Telegram. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://t.me/RVvoenkor/74884>.
English Sources:
“Google Earth.” N.p., n.d. Web. <https://earth.google.com/web/@50.81354257,35.41457263,228.48231587a,3702.22692227d,35y,-0h,0t,0r/data=OgMKATA>.