A senior Russian officer dubbed the ‘Butcher of Bucha’ after overseeing the atrocities in the Ukrainian town has been promoted by Putin.
Commander Azatbek Omurbekov has been promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to full Colonel despite men under his command being accused of gang rape, torture, and mass civilian executions.
The Russian officer, who led the 64th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade, was identified as Putin’s senior commander in Bucha when the barbarism unfolded.
The revelation from news outlet Agentstvo comes soon after the 64th brigade were honoured by Putin for ‘mass heroism, bravery, fortitude, and courage’.
Ukraine specifically identified members of his brigade as responsible for murders in Bucha where the Russian forces were also accused of weaponising rape.
His elevation was acknowledged in a new report from the newspaper Red Star.
The ostensible reason for this promotion to full colonel is not clear.
But the report hailed his perceived success in Ukraine.
‘The separate motorised rifle brigade under the command of Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov carried out the task of occupying a defensive line,’ said the newspaper.
‘In the course of capturing the designated boundary, the enemy numbering up to a battalion was defeated, and more than 40 pieces of equipment destroyed.
‘The Nationalist unit lost all combat capability and was no longer involved in combat operations.
‘Within three weeks, under the leadership of Colonel Omurbekov, brigade units at the occupied line repelled more than 50 attacks by the enemy using tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and heavy artillery.’
He and his men are now fighting in the Donbas, say reports.
Ukrainian reporter Evgeny Spirin said of the scenes in Bucha: ‘Some of the killed children had their arms tied up.
‘Children…. They were tying up children. There were shooting dogs. Killed women. Girls younger than ten with their vaginas torn apart….
‘How to live with this, and is it worth living at all? How do I explain this to myself, how? They must cease to exist.
‘They must all be destroyed, each and every one of them, turned into dust, into mud, into clay, all of them.’
Omurbekov and his unit are from Khabarovsk, in the far east of Russia.
A UN mission to Bucha documented ‘the unlawful killing, including by summary execution, of some 50 civilians there’, it was revealed today.
The body’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Russian forces had ‘indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes’.
The UN mission was sent on April 9, a week after an AFP team found bodies of people dressed in civilian clothing lining the streets of Bucha, after the town had been under Russian occupation for over a month.
US satellite imagery company Maxar released photos that it said showed a ‘mass grave’ on the northwestern edge of Manhush, west of Mariupol.
UK police said they had received ‘around 50’ referrals relating to alleged war crimes in Ukraine, in support of an investigation by the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Ukrainian officials say the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been retrieved from areas around Kyiv, and they are working with French investigators to document alleged war crimes.
Forensic experts are now examining the bodies, Oleksandr Pavliuk, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, told reporters.
‘But what we saw was hands tied behind the back, their legs tied and shot through the limbs and in the back of the head,’ he said.
Russian officials have denied that their soldiers killed any civilians in Bucha and other towns around Kyiv from which they retreated three weeks ago, and accused Ukraine of staging the atrocities.
Source: Daily Mail
