Ukrainian Drone Ambushes Commander of Russian Brigade Tied to Bucha Massacre, Video

Ukrainian drone operators tracked a Russian colonel commanding a brigade implicated in the Bucha atrocities before striking his vehicle roughly 50 miles behind the front line, leaving him seriously wounded, according to Ukraine’s 423rd Separate Regiment of Unmanned Systems on August 21.

The unit, known as the Skif Griffins, said that Ukrainian intelligence identified Col. Dmitry Shabaev and monitored his movements before one of its drone crews attacked his official vehicle near Huliaipole in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

The drone reportedly struck while the vehicle was moving around 80 kilometers, or roughly 50 miles, from the line of contact.

Shabaev and his driver suffered serious injuries and were evacuated by Russian forces to a military hospital, according to the Ukrainian unit. The extent of their injuries and Shabaev’s current condition could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian reporting said Shabaev was inspecting one of the Russian military’s command posts in the Zaporizhzhia sector when the strike occurred. The Skif Griffins said intelligence had confirmed that the officer targeted in the attack was Shabaev.

Shabaev commands Russia’s 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, a formation whose personnel were among Russian troops implicated in war crimes during the occupation of Bucha and other communities in the Kyiv region at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

European Union sanctions documents specifically identify the 64th Brigade as responsible for killing, raping and torturing civilians in Bucha, describing those acts as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The brigade is part of Russia’s 35th Combined Arms Army and is currently fighting in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to the Ukrainian unit.

Earlier, a man reportedly identified as Robert Shageyev, a former Ukrainian naval officer who commanded the country’s only submarine before defecting to Russia after the occupation of Crimea, was killed in an explosion in Sevastopol.

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