Earlier, volunteers of the InformNapalm international intelligence community have already recorded the participation of the personnel of the 66th Signals and Control Brigade of the Russian Army (military unit 41600) in the war against Ukraine (Crimea, the Donbas) and in the hostilities in Syria. However, as of 2016, this brigade was not on the list of the Military Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, whereas we have found no updates of the list. Today we publish new data on 6 more servicemen of this unit who participated in the special operation to seize Crimea. We call on the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to carry out all necessary legal proceedings regarding the identified persons.
The identification of Russian servicemen, who participated in the seizure of Crimea in 2014, wearing masks and no insignia, is an important stage to deliver justice for war crimes against the sovereign state of Ukraine, which have no time limitation and for which citizens of the Russian Federation should be held accountable. These individuals participated in Russian hybrid military operations abroad; therefore, they can pose a threat not only to Ukraine, but also to other countries.
Identified participants in the aggression against Ukraine
1. Maksim Gorpenchenko (Russian: Максим Горпенченко)
Monitoring of social media accounts of Russian servicemen revealed a group photo of soldiers with medals for the occupation of Crimea. It was found in Gorpenchenko’s photo album. Caption: “Crimea…”
Screenshot:
Photo by:
In the photo, Gorpenchenko is rightmost.
According to Gorpenchenko’s profile, he was born on December 11, lives in Stavropol.
The next individual with the social media account named “Mr E” helped us identify the military unit, in which Gorpenchenko served during the special operation to seize Crimea.
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Gorpenchenko's social media accounts and archives
2. “Mr E” identified: Dmitry Efimov (Russian: Дмитрий Ефимов)
The serviceman, who is leftmost in the group photo of the medalists, is also seen in the photo album of Stanislav Zhelokov (an individual involved in our previous investigation).
In the comments, “Mr E” writes: “How reluctant was I to be on duty then.” “I do remember,” Zhelokov replies. Zhelokov and “Mr E” met after demobilization, and Zhelokov compares a photo taken during the military service to a later picture.
The “Mr E”‘s account is closed.
However, a group photo with the names of the soldiers in it was found in the album of another serviceman named Sergey Demidov.
Caption: “Vaska Makhnev (RIP), Stas Zhelokov, Dima Efimov and Sergey Demidov.”
In the profile of Tatyana Efimova, Dmitry Efimov’s mother, there is a photo of her son, and his account is identified as “Mr E”.
There are also photographs of her son during the period of service in the Russian Army in the photo album of Tatyana Efimova. In particular, a photo taken at the gates of the military unit. At the background, there is a stand with the inscription “Military unit No 41600” on it.
Military unit 41600 is the 66th Signals and Control Brigade, a part of the 49th Field Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, permanent station in Stavropol.
This very photo is also present in the profile of Vyacheslav Litvinov, Tatyana Efimova’s husband. It is he who is in the photo next to Dmitry.
Litvinov captioned the photo: “Stavropol, at Dima’s unit.”
There is also a photo of Dmitry on the dock in front of a ship in Efimova’s profile. Dmitry is armed and without insignia. It is dated March 14, 2014:
On June 3, 2014, Efimova published a photo of her son on the ship.
According to Efimov’s and his relatives’ accounts, his date of birth is August 10, 1991.
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Efimov's social media accounts and archives
3. Vasily Makhnev (Russian: Василий Махнёв)
Vasily Makhnev, shown in the aforementioned photograph, posted his photo with a medal for the occupation of Crimea. According to his social media profile, his date of birth is April 16, 1994, he lived in the city of Belorechensk. Died in a car accident in October 2015.
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Makhnev's social media accounts and archives
Among the friends of Vasily Makhnev, we found several more of his fellow soldiers who participated in the special operation to seize the Crimea. Information on them follows:
4. Anatoly Pustovetov (Russian: Анатолий Вячеславович Пустоветов)
Born on August 13, 1986, in Tikhoretsk city, Krasnodar Krai. Pustovetov tried to clean up his accounts. He deleted his OK account, renamed the VK account and changed the data in it. But we had archived his accounts before the clean-up.
The comment under the photo from his father’s photo album (the photo features Pustovetov with his father and grandfather) confirms that he served in the communications subunit in Stavropol.
Pustovetov himself wrote about this in the notes on his OK account.
There are group army photos with Makhnev in the Pustovetov’s album.
On March 12, 2014 Pustovetov wrote a note: “I can’t answer, I’m not there.” On April 29, 2014, he wrote: “I’ve returned to Russia.”
In response to friends’ questions about where he was, he replies “… freed the civilian population from the invaders.”
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Pustovetov's social media accounts and archives
5. Identified “94 l”: Alexey Gunkin (Russian: Алексей Гунькин)
Makhnev marked the owner of the account nicknamed “94 l” as a fellow soldier. The user under the “94 l” alias designated Galina Shadrina (Gunkina) as his mother in the list of relatives.
In turn, the mother indicated the accounts of her sons in her list of relatives:
She captioned the photographs with the names of her sons, which made it possible to determine the exact name of the investigated individual.
So, “94 l” is Alexey Gunkin, born on April 11, 1994. His mother lives in the village of Ladozhskaya, Ust-Labinsky Raion, Krasnodar Krai.
Gunkin’s album contains group army photographs with Pustovetov and Makhnev.
With Dmitry Efimov:
Efimov is leftmost, Gunkin is in the center
Gunkin and Makhnev with medals for the occupation of Crimea:
Gunkin identified Makhnev, Efimov and Pavel Golovinsky, who will be discussed below, as his fellow soldiers.
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Gunkin's social media accounts and archives
6. Pavel Golovinsky (Russian: Павел Юрьевич Головинский)
Pavel Golovinsky closed his social media pages, but we archived evidence of his participation in the aggression against Ukraine several years ago.
According to the data in the social media accounts, Golovinsky was born on March 9, 1993, in the city of Belorechensk (Krasnodar Krai). Served in Stavropol (1, 2). Golovinsky commented a friend’s photo on March 13, 2014: “… we will be in Ukraine today.”
He posted a photo with the medal for the occupation of Crimea in his album.
Photo with Pustovetov:
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Golovinsky's social media accounts and archives
Colonel Vladimir Probchenkov (1, 2) was the commander of the 66th Signals and Control Brigade in 2014. As of 2021, he was a head of the information systems section of the information and communication systems department of the National Center for Defense Management of the Russian Federation.
InformNapalm collected the OSINT findings about other units of the Russian 49th Army which participated in the aggression against Ukraine in Crimea and in the Donbas in an interactive Russian Aggression database.
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Translated by Julia Ponomarenko, edited by Artem Velichko. InformNapalm does not receive any financial support from any country’s government or large donors. InformNapalm.org website is supported solely by the community volunteers and our readers. You can also volunteer or support the development of the unique volunteer intelligence resource InformNapalm with your donations through Patreon.
Translated by Julia Ponomarenko, edited by Artem Velichko. InformNapalm does not receive any financial support from any country’s government or large donors. InformNapalm.org website is supported solely by the community volunteers and our readers. You can also volunteer or support the development of the unique volunteer intelligence resource InformNapalm with your donations
Read the latest book “Donbas in Flames. Guide to the Conflict Zone” published by Prometheus Center. This guide will be useful to journalists, researchers, war experts, diplomats and general readers seeking information on the war in Donbas.
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