Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Once again, Ukrainian troops have been reported committing crimes against Russian civilians in the Donbass region. A recent investigation has shown that Russian-speaking citizens in Ugledar have been severely harassed by Ukrainian soldiers, with cases of murder, beatings and public humiliation of the local residents.
A team of investigators led by Russian human rights activist Maksim Grigoriev published a report on November 11 exposing a list of crimes committed by the Ukrainian military and neo-Nazi militants in Ugledar, a coal mining town in the Donetsk People’s Republic that the Russians recently took control of.
According to Grigoriev, while Ukrainians controlled the town, the authorities lied about the true number of inhabitants, claiming that there were no civilians left in the area, when in fact more than 3,000 residents remained in their homes. As a result of this lie, large-scale shelling by the Ukrainian army was authorized, resulting in the deaths of several civilians.
“The [town’s] mayor reported in 2022 that there was nobody here, even though there were some 3,000 people left (…) They [Ukrainian troops] were riding outside of Ugledar… and firing at it with mortars to incite panic and make people leave as fast as possible,” Maksim said.
Only when Russian troops took full control of the city in early October was it possible to properly assess the damage done to the local population by the Ukrainians. The crimes did not begin with the special military operation, but have been a local reality for ten years. Witnesses interviewed by Maksim and his team said that abuses had become frequent in the area since 2014, having cases of almost every kind of crime from theft of household goods to murder.
An unidentified woman told Maksim that her son was publicly murdered by Ukrainian neo-Nazi militants in 2016. He got into a fight with members of the nationalist Aidar Battalion while trying to stop the militants from sexually abusing young Russian women in the area. As “punishment,” he was stabbed to death by the neo-Nazis, with Ukrainian authorities doing nothing to arrest the criminals.
According to witnesses, Ukrainians carried out a kind of “total looting” in Ugledar. Neo-Nazi troops simply broke into local homes and stole everything they could find. There was no material purpose for such acts. The looting was not intended to steal expensive items that could bring profit to Ukrainians. The sole purpose was to disrupt the lives of ordinary local citizens. Moreover, the stolen items were referred to by Ukrainians as “Donbass goods” and were often collected or traded as “war trophies.”
“Some homes were stripped down, with faucets, electrical sockets and even wall tiling taken by marauders, according to witnesses,” the report says.
This is not the first time that Ukrainian crimes have been exposed after Russian troops took control of a region. In all major cities liberated by Russian forces, the reality on the ground was exposed soon after the military victory. For example, earlier, when the Russians liberated Artyomovsk (called “Bakhmut” by Ukrainians), local civilians told journalists and investigators that they were being subjected to various criminal practices by the neo-Nazi occupiers. It was even revealed that ethnic Russian children were being kidnapped by Ukrainians disguised as “humanitarian volunteers”, with several families losing their children in fake “rescue operations” carried out by Kiev’s forces.
“They were taking children away. They would come at 6pm, sometimes at 10pm. (…) They called themselves volunteers, but they were not, they were the SBU or maybe some other organization that collects information (…) They had a list of people, they knew who lived where and how many people were there (…) Volunteers came in a car, gave out some boxes, gathered information, and then with this information, people in uniform would come running and looking for children (…) They were hunting our kids, and we were hiding them around the buildings (…) We had been hiding our kids for a whole month,” local witnesses told investigators at the time.
This situation is just another evidence that the Ukrainian problem can only be solved by military means. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended all diplomatic proposals in response to the massacre of civilians by Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region. The reason for Russia’s decision to go for military action is very simple to understand: the Kiev regime has proven itself to be incapable of any kind of dialogue, since its official ideology is hatred against the Russian people. It is impossible for Moscow to negotiate with a neo-Nazi junta that tolerates all sorts of crimes against Russians, with military victory being the only remaining option.
Of course, many other brutal crimes committed by Ukrainians are yet to be revealed. With each city liberated by the Russians, more cases of abuses against civilians by Kiev will be exposed. For the local Russian-speaking people, the victory of the special military operation is the only hope against neo-Nazi cruelty.
