Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers fleeing after allegedly raping two Ukrainians during their deployment northwest of Kiev in March.
“I saw them running, then I found out they were fast. They raped a mother and a daughter,” he said. Their commanders, Chibrin said, shrugged their shoulders when they learned of the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes.
“They never went to jail. He just got fired. Just like that: “Go!” They were simply dismissed from the war. This is.”
Tsybrin is a former soldier from the Russian city of Yakutsk who says he served in the 64th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, the notorious Russian military unit accused of war crimes during their assault on Bukha, Borodyanka and other towns and villages north of Kiev.
He deserted the Russian army in September and fled to Europe via Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The troops of Chybrin’s brigade were branded war criminals by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and corpses were discovered in the streets after the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kiev region.
Chibrin’s military documents, seen by CNN, show his commanding officer was Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in charge of the 64th separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov, known as the “Butcher of Bukha” is under sanctions from the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States has sanctioned the entire brigade.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while repeating baseless claims that the images of civilian corpses were fake.
In a move that sparked outrage around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions”.
Chibrin said he saw none of the alleged heroics, but many of the crimes.
Speaking to CNN in a European country where he has sought asylum, he described some of the crimes he says he witnessed and heard testimony from, and said he would be prepared to testify against his unit in an international criminal court. He maintains that he did not commit any crime.
“I didn’t see murders, but I saw rapists running away, being chased (by high-ranking members of the unit) for committing rape,” he said.
He also said the unit had “direct orders to assassinate” anyone who shared information about the unit’s positions, whether military or civilian.
“If someone had a phone – we were allowed to shoot them,” he said. He claims there is no doubt that some of the men of the 64th separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade were capable of killing unarmed civilians.
“There are maniacs who enjoy killing a person. Such maniacs appeared there,” he said.
Chibrin also described widespread looting, with Russian soldiers taking computers, jewelry and anything else they liked.
“They didn’t hide that at all. Many of my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka at the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he said. “The mentality is, if you steal something, you’re good. If no one catches you, good! If you see something that’s expensive and steal it and don’t get caught, you’re good.”
As for the unit’s commanders, he said they were well aware of the alleged rapes and murders and looting, but showed no interest in seeking justice.
“They reacted like, ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ In fact, there was no reaction at all,” he said. “Discipline goes [down the drain]there is no discipline.”
CNN reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment on the allegations, but did not receive a response.
Chybrin has no doubt that Russia will eventually lose the war against Ukraine, but not before many more lives are lost.
“Because Russia will not stop until great blood is shed, until all are dead. Soldiers are cannon fodder. They don’t respect them,” he said.
Having seen the fighting firsthand, he said the equipment Russian soldiers have is no match for the weapons Ukraine has access to. He says that while Ukraine receives some of the most advanced weapons available from its Western allies, the Russian military relies on Soviet-era equipment used during the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“Of course Russia will lose. Because the whole world supports Ukraine. To think that they (the Russians) will win is foolish,” he said. “They thought they would take Kiev in three days. What day is it now? [of the war]? 260th? They thought they would come to Ukraine and be met with flowers. But they told them to get off and threw Molotov cocktails.”
The men in his unit were also extremely ill-prepared for combat, according to Chibrin. He said the training his unit received consisted of commanders giving them a gun, a target and 5,000 rounds of ammunition.
“Keep shooting and then you’re free to go. Nobody did anything. There was no real education. I was working on a computer, in the office, I was working as a lawnmower…” he said.
The lack of education once became apparent in Ukraine. The same men who bragged about being “like Rambo” before they were deployed came back broken, he said. “Those who said they would easily shoot Ukrainians when they returned from the front line… they couldn’t even talk to me. They saw the war, they saw the defeat, they saw their own [fellow] fighters killed, dead bodies seen. They realized it – but they couldn’t run away.”
He said many of the men were poorly trained and most had no idea where they were headed.
“It was a big lie. It was a military training with the Belarusian army. And they lied to us. On February 24 they just said that everyone will go to war,” Chibrin said, adding that he initially refused to go.
“The first thing I said was, ‘Commander, you, I don’t want to go to war,’ and he said, ‘Hey, you’re going to be in big trouble, you’re going to jail, and your family is going to be in big trouble’ … and he attacked me and he put me in a special vehicle and closed the door and I couldn’t open [it] from the inside. So, that’s how I went to Ukraine.”
Chybrin spent months in Ukraine, on and off. When the 64th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade withdrew in late March from the area northwest of Kiev after the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus.
He said he suffered a back injury and went to a military hospital in Russia, but was forced to return to Ukraine in May. This time he was sent to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine and then spent time in the forests around Izyum.
That’s when he finally got the chance to escape, he said. He noticed commanders of other units leaving the area for Russia in a truck and jumped in.
“I’m jumping in [the bed of the truck] and I see, wow, other kids, too, leaving Ukraine. And they say we don’t want it [fight the] war, we paid money to the commander (to drive). And I wait and wait and then we’re near the Russian border and the car has stopped and the kids are jumping and I’m jumping too. And I go to the Russian border and say I need medical help,” he said.
Once back in Russia, Chibrin said he spent nearly a month in the hospital, most of which was bedridden with excruciating back pain. But he said he was unable to get proper treatment. “They said if I wanted to go to a special sanatorium, I had to sign a paper saying I was going back to the war,” he said.
Refusing to sign, Tsybrin said he was preparing to submit documents to cancel his military contract when the Russian government announced a partial mobilization in September.
“And my friends told me I should hide. “You have to find a place and hide, your contract will not be canceled because of the mobilization,” he said. Knowing he needed to get as far as possible from the eastern city of Khabarovsk where he was, Chibrin first fled Russia to St. Petersburg and then took a train to Belarus. Once there he was able to find an intermediary who helped him reach Kazakhstan from where he eventually traveled to his current location.
Now he is determined to speak out about the events he saw in Ukraine, even writing an anti-war song. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of childless mothers,” says the chorus.
