Russian national Sergey Ryabihin (L), a platoon commander in the "Karpaty" group of PMC Wagner, in the foreground of the monument to a Soviet junior political officer (Politruk) urging Soviet troops forward against German positions. Slovianoserbsk area, Luhansk Oblast, 2014 or 2015. Photo: Social media
Read more on PMC Wagner:
- Wagner mercenaries: what we know about Putin’s private army in Donbas
- Ukraine names over 150 mercenaries from “Putin’s private army” fighting in Ukraine and Syria
PMC Wagner’s special task force “Karpaty”
The first public mention of the Karpaty operative task force as a part of the Russian PMC Wagner appeared in an interview of a “Donetsk People’s Republic militant” Mikhail Polinkov with a separatist media outlet in February 2018. RFE/RL’s Donbas desk analyzed the interview and asked the Ukrainian Security Sevice (SBU) to comment the discovered facts. The SBU confirmed that the Karpaty group existed and almost 40 Wagner mercenaries out of nearly 2,000 known by the agency were identified as Ukrainian citizens, members of the Karpaty.
Later in May, SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak told at a press briefing that the agency had established the identity of Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Demyanenko who was responsible for the training of the Karpaty team. Meanwhile, the bulk of the detachment’s personnel were members of illegal armed groups (IAGs) from the Ukrainian Donbas, according to Hrytsak.
Russian professional militaries in command, rank-and-file personnel from Donbas IAGs
The team of the IHTAMNET_M0209 project jointly with the activists of InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community used methods of human (HUMINT) and open-source (OSINT) intelligence to identify 50-plus members of the Karpaty mercenary group. They found out that the detachment has been under command of at least eight Russian nationals, former professional militaries. Around 40 other mercenaries were pro-Russian Ukrainians who fought against Ukraine in the Donbas and then went on to make a pretty penny out of the Syrian war.
The activists identified eight Russian citizens as commanders of the Karpaty group:
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- Aleksey Dmitriev , a company commander, Russian national, call sign Vesna (Spring)
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- Russian national Sergey Ryabihin (L), a platoon commander in the “Karpaty” group of PMC Wagner, in the foreground of the monument to a Soviet junior political officer (Politruk) urging Soviet troops forward against German positions. Slovianoserbsk area, Luhansk Oblast, 2014 or 2015. Photo: Social media
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- Andrey Shuvarikov, a platoon (squad) commander, citizen of the Russian Federation.
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- Karim Sherimatov, sniper-scout, citizen of the Russian Federation
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- Yury Busygin, rifleman, citizen of the Russia, who has photos from military operations in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria on his social profile.
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- Eduard Kirpichev, rifleman, citizen of the Russian Federation, born on May 04, 1970 (listed in Karpaty task force, social media profiles not yet found).
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- Vladimir Pogrebnoy, rifleman, citizen of the Russian Federation.
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- Georgy Fabrikov , rifleman, citizen of the Russian Federation.
The rest of the identified personnel are local residents who lived in Ukraine before the war and later became Russian mercenaries in the Donbas and Syria. The investigators revealed that 40 Ukrainian citizens were the members of the Karpaty group. Here are some of them:
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- Donetsk resident Oleksiy Bogdanov (in the middle, in black hat) in the foreground of a residential house in Vuhlehirsk, which was destroyed by the Russian artillery amid the Battle for Debaltseve.
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- A photograph from a social profile by Oleksandr Motynga, who was a resident of Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast.
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- Volodymyr Boychenko (R) from Odesa Oblast.
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- Oleksiy Vereschagin resident of Kharkiv near a Strela-10 air defense system in Luhansk at one of the Russian-hybrid forces 09 May parades in 2018
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- Volodymyr Gudko, former resident of Odessa Oblast.
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- Oleksandr Shumilov from Kharkiv Oblast (R) at the Debaltseve railway station.
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- Donetsker Mykola Molchanov’s profile photo from Syria.
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- Donetsker Oleksiy Bogdanov in Syria.
One of the Karpaty group members, Andriy Kozyrenko from the city of Torez, Donetsk Oblast was captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine back in 2015, then exchanged as a POW. Later he enlisted in the Wagner PMC. InformNapalm published footage of Kozyrenko’s interrogation in 2015:
The investigators have not identified the citizenship of seven more Wagner mercenaries designated to the Karpaty task force.
Read the full detailed report in English on the InformNapalm website.
More finds on PMC Wagner
Returning downed vehicles to Russia in 2015
In mid-May, the Security Service of Ukraine published an intercepted conversation dated as 12 February 2015 between the head of PMC Wagner, Dmitry Utkin, and his subordinate, Russian national Sergey Kovalyov, according to SBU. The call was made amid the Debaltseve Battle in which the Wagner mercenaries took an active part.
One of the BPM-97 Dozor/Vystrel vehicles destroyed near Sanzharivka amid the Debaltseve battle. Source: censor.net.ua
Utkin and Kovalyov talked about the urgent backload of Russian-made Kamaz-43269 Dozor vehicles, downee near Debaltseve by the ATO forces. This equipment has been in service only in the Russian Armed Forces and if the Ukrainian Army would have captured a Dozor, this could be another evidence of the Russian direct involvement in the aggression against Ukraine in the eastern provinces.
Read also: What we know about Russian troops in eastern Ukraine
Two Russian Nazis in PMC Wagner
The InformNapalm volunteers have identified two Russian Neo-Nazi brothers as PMC Wagner mercenaries who fought in Syria.
Vladislav Krasnolutsky was the first of them to join the Wagner private army. Deployed to Syria, he was killed in Deir ez-Zor province on 10 October 2017.
Sentenced by a court to 11 years in prison for kidnapping, his brother Artem Krasnolutsky escaped and fled to Wagner’s training base in Molkino to join the PMC and was sent to Syria in March.
PMC Wagner’s boot camp outside Molkino farm, some 30 kilometers south of Krasnodar. Photograph: znak.com
The accusation of Nazism is one of the favorite techniques of pro-Kremlin outlets and Ukraine is the most “targeted” country in this respect. Meanwhile, the Nazis can be found among the Russian mercenaries.
Read more:
- Identical statues to Russia’s “Wagner” mercenaries erected in Syria, occupied Donbas
- Putin comes up with another way to hide Russian combat losses
- Moscow’s private military companies continue to be a serious threat in Ukraine
- Wagner mercenaries: what we know about Putin’s private army in Donbas
- Putin’s Cook and other indictments
- Moscow preparing to replace its forces in Donbas with ‘private’ military ones
- Russia’s “ghost” armies and the “heroes of the Russian spring” in Ukraine
- Russian participation in the war in Donbas: evidence from 2017
- Ukraine names over 150 mercenaries from “Putin’s private army” fighting in Ukraine and Syria
- Russia recruited over 5,000 mercenaries to fight in its wars abroad, SBU says
- How Russia recruits Serbian mercenaries into the ranks of its fighters in Donbas
Tags: Karpaty, PMC Wagner, Russia's occupation of Donbas, Russo-Ukrainian War (2014-present), Syria
