Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) has charged Davor Savičić with war crimes committed during the spring 2022 occupation of Kyiv Oblast. The 46-year-old Bosnian Serb who lives in Khimki, Russia, and serves as a colonel in the Russian Redut private military company.
Savičić commanded the "Wolves" (Volki) sabotage and reconnaissance unit operating under Russia's Vostok troop grouping.
Savičic fought with Arkan's Serbian Volunteer Guard during the 1990s Yugoslav wars under the call sign Elvis, joined Wagner in Syria in 2014 under the call sign Vuk (Wolf), and was spotted with Russian-led forces in Donbas in 2014-2015.
He sits on INTERPOL's radar, on Bosnia and Herzegovina's law-enforcement watchlist, and under UK and Ukrainian sanctions since April 2025, according to Jamestown Foundation.
Man in pit for seven days, woman tied up in van
In Fedorivka village of Vyshhorod district, Savičić personally beat a 39-year-old civilian with a rifle butt to extract testimony for Russian propagandists, the SBU said. When the man refused to cooperate, his captors tied him to a tree with a grenade with the pin pulled.
They then forced him to dig a pit where he was held for seven days in sub-zero temperatures with his hands bound and almost no food or water. A second episode involves the wife of a Ukrainian soldier who has fought in Donbas since 2014.
On 5 March 2022, Russian forces broke into her apartment in Ivankiv, tied her hands, and took her to a forest near the village of Shybene
She was held in a van for several days without light, heat, food, or a place to sleep, threatened with reprisal, and interrogated for information about Ukrainian military personnel.
After Kyiv Oblast was de-occupied, her husband's body was found in the forest where Russian units had been deployed. Investigators are still working to identify those who killed him.
From Arkan's Tigers to Russia's "Wolves"
Savičić's path through three decades of paramilitary violence is documented across multiple outlets. In the 1990s, he served in Arkan's Tigers, the Serbian Volunteer Guard responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Bosnian and Croatian wars.
In 2014, he commanded a Serbian platoon within Wagner in Syria, according to Russian outlet Fontanka, cited by the Counter Extremism Project. He fought with Russian-led forces in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014-2015.
In late 2021, he joined Redut, a Russian PMC with personnel overlapping with Wagner. When the Wolves unit was reconfigured between November 2022 and January 2023, Savičić transitioned to Russia's 1st Volunteer Reconnaissance and Assault Brigade, where he now recruits foreign fighters under the supervision of Russia's military intelligence (GRU).
