Feeling that it was wrong for Russia to have undertaken a missile attack on the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv on Monday, a Russian pilot decided to pass on information about his fellows at Russia’s 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division to Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), a source within Ukrainian intelligence told Kyiv Post Thursday evening.
According to HUR, the defector indicated that his division is constantly shelling Ukrainian cities with X-101 missiles.
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The pilot told HUR’s chatbot that he and some of his colleagues – at military unit 06987, based at Engels Airfield in Russia’s Saratov Oblast – were shocked by the attack on Ukraine’s largest kid’s hospital – including many with cancer and others there being treated for injuries from previous Russian attacks – and couldn’t understand why they were forced to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
The pilot forwarded documents to Ukraine related to the activities of his military unit as well as private photos of the command staff of the 22nd Heavy Bombing Aviation Division, Kyiv Post’s source claimed.
According to the source, even an initial analysis of the materials received shows their high value.
The information provided includes documents from the personnel files of senior officers as well as the personal data of Russian military personnel and their families. The most valuable are stamped documents from the 22nd Heavy Bombardment Aviation Division, the source said.
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From their own sources, analysts of the Info Sprotyv received exclusive private photos from the celebration of the appointment of Colonel Ilya Koryakin, Chief of Staff of the 52nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment, to the post of Chief of Staff of the 22nd Air Force in the Naples restaurant in the city of Engels, in Saratov Oblast.
The photo shows more than 30 members of the command staff of the 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division of the Long-Range Aviation Command of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
As highlighted by numerous international rights organizations, Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukrainian hospitals since 2022. One of the first of many hospital attacks since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was a maternity hospital in the now-decimated city of Mariupol – which had a population of about 430,000 before the war.
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