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Russian Officer First Ever Named by Ukrainian Prosecutors for Bucha Massacre
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Ukraine has identified a Russian platoon commander as a suspect in the killings of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in 2022, the first time it has named a Russian commander in the case, according to Reuters on November 20.
Ukrainian officials said the commander, Yurii Vladimirovich Kim (Юрий Владимирович Ким) of the 76th Air Assault Division, has been served with a notice of suspicion in connection with 17 killings and four instances of ill-treatment purposely committed by forces under his command in Bucha.
The notice of suspicion is a procedural step toward a possible arrest warrant and follows earlier Ukrainian cases against dozens of lower-ranking Russian soldiers over Bucha.
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The foundation said its review of the case was based on witness testimony, crime-scene forensics, and open-source intelligence, and that the evidence showed multiple instances where “Kim specifically ordered his forces to hunt, harm, and kill individuals perceived as supporting or assisting Ukrainian armed or security forces.”
It added that after the civilian killings, “evidence shows the commander ordered his subordinates to burn some of the bodies to conceal the crime.”
Ukrainian police said the step demonstrated a determination to move beyond prosecutions of only field-level perpetrators and to reconstruct the command structure behind the killings.
“We have moved beyond bringing low-ranking perpetrators to account—now we are uncovering the chain of command decisions through which ordinary orders turned into mass executions of civilians,” said Maksym Tsutskiridze, First Deputy Head of the National Police and head of the Investigation Department.
Earlier, it was reported that Ukrainian prosecutors identified a platoon commander from the 3rd Parachute Company of Russia’s 234th Airborne Assault Regiment as the soldier who attempted to murder a civilian in Bucha in March 2022 and charged him with violating the laws and customs of war combined with premeditated murder.
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