Bellingcat identified the Russian invader who tortured and executed the Ukrainian soldier

Investigators identified the Russian man captured on video while torturing a Ukrainian prisoner in the Luhansk region.

Bellingcat reports about this.

Bellingcat was able to geolocate that the abuse of a prisoner of war took place on the territory of the Pryvillya Sanatorium near Lysychansk, Luhansk region of Ukraine. This territory came under the control of the Russian invaders at the beginning of July.

According to the investigators, militants from the ‘Akhmat’ battalion, a Chechen paramilitary formation serving with the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, participated in the torture.

The Insider claims that the main torture participant was a Tuvan resident named Ochur-Suge Mongush (born in 1993). He was a man wearing a cowboy hat in the footage.

The media representatives spoke with the man. Journalists discovered Mongush’s phone number on one of the social media pages and contacted him.

He reportedly tried to deny his involvement but gave himself up after getting confused in his testimony. In a conversation with the researchers, he stated that he did not torture anyone and never held a weapon in his hands but simply accompanied Russian journalists.

He also confirmed that he was the man wearing the hat in the video from the Azot plant. However, he claimed that he was not involved in the torture and murder. According to Mongush, the video featuring his participation in torture was fabricated. The researchers found a photo of him together with the soldiers of this battalion, including in the territory of Chechnya. His “Vkontakte” page also had pictures of Mongush holding a weapon in his hands.

After the footage appeared on social media, Mongush claimed that his “journalist friends” called him and advised him to come to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, where he was allegedly “held for two days to ensure that the video was fabricated.” The FSB allegedly told him that “the video was released by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fell into the hands of Ukrainians.”

“Mongush’s confessions are very important: prior to a conversation with him, it was definitely established that the person in the video of the ‘Akhmat’ group from the Azot plant is the same person who appears in the torture video, as well as the fact that a person from last name Mongush fought in ‘Akhmat’. Yet there remained a hypothetical possibility that two very similar people of mongoloid appearance were fighting in ‘Akhmat’, but Mongush’s recognition that the man in the hat in the video from the territory of the Azot plant is him excludes all doubts,” The Insider writes.

At the end of July, a series of horrifying videos circulated on the pro-Russian Telegram channels. Those videos depicted people in military uniforms marked with the Russian army symbols. The men were torturing a bound Ukrainian prisoner of war. The man in the hat was directly involved in the torture and murder.

After the release of the video, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine opened a criminal case under the article on violations of the laws and customs of war.