The special forces brigade of the 2nd army corps of the so-called ‘LPR’ became the subject of our new investigation. The deep study of the open sources (social profiles, etc.) resulted in finding interesting information. Analysis of this data solved the weapon supply puzzle. Also we identified the detachment, its home base and equipment/weaponry with clear signs of involvement of the Russian ‘military stores’ logistics.  

Our story starts with terrorist Sergey Tupitsyn (profile, albums), a gunner of a howitzer division of the separate special forces brigade of the 2nd army corps of ‘LPR’.

Sergey does not give much information on his VK social account, but the pictures from his album and the list of his friends is of great value for the InformNapalm’s volunteers.

Detachment’s disposition

Identification of the Sergey’s unit location became possible thanks to the photo he made, and the photo taken by his comrade-in-arms Vitaliy Demchuk (profile, album).

This picture shows Tupitsyn at a building (to be identified later):

Demchuk stands on the balcony:

As it can be seen in the picture, the building where the terrorist live has 4 storeys, brown colored glass envelopes, the territory around it has a lot of firs and the balcony parapet is made of green facias. This description fits the building of a health resort in the Zelenyi Hai village to the North of Krasnyi Luch town along the N21 road (Luhansk Oblast). These are the coordinates and the pictures of the resort for comparison:

This satellite photo by Yandex.maps proves that the resort building is used as the barracks for the terrorists of the illegal armed formations in Luhansk Oblast. The parked military equipment can be clearly seen here.

Below are several photos from a little barbeque party held at the lake shore near Zelenyi Hai. Please pay attention to the gob pile which lets us identify the coordinates. This place is 2.5 km from the resort – and this also justifies our assumptions.

Shooting site on the Google.maps.

Identification of the unit

Photos taken by Stas Priymak (profile, album) and Aleksandr Zubkovich (profile, album), Tupitsyn’s brothers-in-arms, helped us to identify the detachment where they served in.

The photos from the militants’ albums show equipment with tactical signs of the separate special forces brigade of the 2nd army corps of ‘LPR’ – ’10 in a square’. Here you can find detailed information about the tactical signs of ‘DLPR’.

Weaponry and equipment of the unit

If we take a closer look at the photos made in the period between the summer of 2015 and the winter of 2016, then we can see that the detachment is split into several parts – towed artillery (‘Msta-B’ 152mm howitzers), self-propelled artillery (2S1 ‘Gvozdika’ 122mm guns) and rocket artillery (BM-21 ‘Grad’ units). Deployment of the ammunition is done using ‘Ural’ army trucks. Let’s add one more militant here – Roman Merinkov (profile, album), he likes making selfies in front of the military equipment:

These are pictures from his albums with the mentioned above equipment:

Subtleties of the howitzer division’s weaponry

It is noteworthy that one of the photos by Stas Primak shows a routine remark about a technical inspection of the 2A65 ‘Msta-B’ howitzer. The same kind of notes are made at the equipment storage and maintenance bases in the Russian army. Presumably it indicates the gun’s serial No. ‘В9536‘, category II, ‘PTK’ (presumably, planned technical checkup) 10 h, muzzle velocity deviation – 1%.

As they say, “for the first time – an accident, the second – a match, the third – a pattern”. It appeared that an accident becomes the match thanks to terrorist Vladimir Kluchak (profile, album), who uploaded a selfie with an alike inscription on other ‘Msta-B’ gun:

Presumably it indicates the gun’s serial No. ‘В8495‘, category II, ‘PTK’ (presumably, planned technical checkup) 10 h.

In their turn, terrorists from the same howitzer division proved that the ‘technical checkup markings’ make the pattern. Aleksandr Prishliak (profile, album) and Artem Nuriev (profile, album) have uploaded the following photos to their profiles – 1 and 2:

Let’s make sure that all four guns have different inscriprions:

Probing questions:

1. Where did the ‘former coal miners’ get 4 ‘Msta-B’ howitzers?
2. Who and why did make those routine notes?
3. Who and using what kind of equipment has carried out those ‘technical checkups’?

Bonus from the team

As it turned out, one of the figurants, Aleksandr Zubkovich, took part in the siege of the SBU regional directorate in Luhansk Oblast in 2014. He boasted with it in his album. And this is a photo of Zubkovich from 2013 for comparison.

(CC BY)

Original article by Mikhail Kuznetsov, translated by Stepan Grishin