The InformNapalm, an international journalist network performing open-source investigations into Russia’s global military activity, has identified two Russian regular army servicemen among the troops fighting against Ukraine in the Donbas.
The investigation, published by the organization’s volunteer Irakli Komaxidze on Nov. 27 concerns Aslanbi Tekudzhev and Evgeniy Yepishyn, who are identified as active duty officers belonging to Russia’s 18th Motorized Rifle Brigade deployed near the city of Grozny in the Chechen Republic.
The InformNapalm says the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, a community of pro-Ukrainian hackers, in November provided them with a leaked pack of Russian army documents with information on over 1,000 Russian servicemen who had been assigned to the Kremlin’s military operation to invade and occupy Crimea in March 2014.
In the process of verifying the leaked data, the activists identified two of soldiers, Tekudzhev and Yepishyn, as also being among Russian troops deployed in Donbas.
Aslanbi Tekudzhev, born in Chechnya in 1987, has been as of 2014 a non-commissioned officer commanding a transport unit in the 18th Brigade’s military police service. In the period between Aug. 20-31, 2014, he posted on his Odnoklassniki social network page a series of photos depicting him standing among armed men dressed in combat gear with insignia common among Russian-backed forces in Donbas, particularly white sleeve ribbons. Then on Aug. 31 he published a photo of him sitting inside a supposedly seized Humvee vehicle with the insignia of Ukraine’s Airmobile Forces.
Tekudzev was also described as a regular Russian serviceman in criminal case papers issued by North Caucasian District Military Court dated Aug. 10, 2017.
“According to this open-access document, Tekudzev was found guilty of fraud, specifically of theft by deception,” the InformNapalm claimed. “Using his position, he borrowed money from a fellow serviceman, supposedly to purchase a battery for a car. But he never actually bought one, and pocketed the borrowed cash.”
A screen shot of a social media account the alleged Russian army serviceman Aslanbi Tekuzhev sitting inside a Humvee vehicle supposedly seized from Ukrainian Airborne troops amid fighing in Donbas on Aug. 31, 2014. (InformNapalm)
Another Russian regular mentioned in the investigation is Evgeniy Yepishyn, born in 1985 in the Russian far eastern city of Ulan-Ude.
As of 2014, Yepishyn served as a commander of the 18th Brigade’s military police service at the rank of captain, the investigators say. He was also identified as being among the Russian-led troops in two pictures taken from Tekudzhev’s photo album on his Odnoklassniki page.
A screenshot of one of Tekuzhev’s social network photos taken on Aug. 19, 2014, shows both Tekuszhev and Yepishyn among the Russian-led forces in the Donbas.
Since July 2016, Yepisyn has served with the 100th Surveillance Brigade in the city of Mozdok in Russia’s North Ossetia. InformNapalm also found a photo on Yepisyn’s page in the VKontakte social network showing allegedly newly issued epaulets designating the rank of major in the Russian army.
Servicemen from Russia’s 18th Brigade have earlier been identified in Crimea and the Donbas in another eight investigations by InformNapalm, the activists say. In future, they plan to publish a complete verified report on all Russian army servicemen whose papers were leaked to them.
“We’re planning to do an analysis of the whole list of 1,000 servicemen, in which we’ll check if (these soldiers) have left traces of activities outside of Crimea,” the network’s founder and editor Roman Burko told the Kyiv Post. “So far we have processed roughly 25 percent of the list. Ten percent of them have wider stories or have blown their cover. There are not only social network photos with medals for Crimea’s annexation – (soldiers) are also mentioned in extracts from court decisions, or are featured in death toll figures and media reports from Syria from 2017.”
