Identified: Russian contract soldier of 291st Artillery Brigade in Novorossia illegal armed groups

Within the ongoing operation code-named Vacancy, InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community identified another contract serviceman of the 291st Artillery Brigade of the Russian Army, who was seconded to illegal armed groups (IAG) of Novorossia.

On June 9, 2017 InformNapalm published a feature titled 81 artillerymen of the 291st Brigade carrying out Kremlin’s criminal orders in Ukraine (Infographics). In that story we identified 40 Russian artillerymen, the newly detected “veterans of Donbas 2014”. But its publication also pursued other goals:

Infographics

We thought it was time to summarize all the information about the 291st Artillery Brigade collected over the past 3 years and to put it together into single infographics, which would clearly showcase the data on the participants of the Rostov-Ukraine and Syria deployments and the artillery brigade itself – its structure, armament, commanders.

Vacancy operation

Attentive readers must have noticed “vacant” positions on the infographics – they were put there on purpose. A few days after the publication of that piece, we managed to provoke one of the servicemen of the 291st Brigade, who involuntarily provided us with undeniable evidence of his current deployment to the territory of the occupied Donbas.

Infographics

In view of the new data, the updated infographics contain data on 82 artillerymen of the 291st Artillery Brigade. In the personal data block we have marked the servicemen, who have been decorated with awards (listing the relevant departmental and state decorations), as well as servicemen, seconded to the IAGs of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), marking them with the flag of Novorossia.

Bait and catch

As a result of comprehensive HUMINT and OSINT effort, InformNapalm volunteers managed to detect another serviceman of the 291st Artillery Brigade (military unit 64670, Ingushetia, Troitskaya village) of the 58th Field Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, who is currently on a military deployment in the occupied Donbas.

Vladimir Alekseenko

Born November 17, 1996 in Taganrog, Russia. Before entering his conscript service, Alekseenko enrolled in one of the military patriotic clubs in his native Taganrog to receive initial military training. He did his conscript military service from autumn 2014 to autumn 2015. The first half-year he served in the city of Yeisk (Center for Combat Training and Retraining of the Naval Air Force and Air Defense), then he was transferred to the Far East, to the naval aviation unit of the Pacific Fleet. This fact is supported by a series of photographs, some geotagged to Artem airfield (Tsentralnaya Uglovaya air base near Vladivostok).

After his discharge from the navy and a six-month pause, he signed a 3-year contract for service with the 291st Artillery Brigade stationed in Ingushetia (presumably in an anti-tank battery of MT-12 anti-tank guns), as evidenced by a series of photographs, including some geotagged to Troitskaya village. Since June 2017, he has been spotted on the territory of the occupied Donbas as an artillery instructor in the DPR IAGs.

Accounts on social networks: VK1 (archived profile, photos, contacts) active, VK2 (archived profile, photos, contacts) inactive since 2016, VK3 inactive since 2013, ОK (archived profile, photos, contacts).

One of the main proofs of Alekseenko’s Ukrainian deployment is the group photo of the “riverside quartet” posted on June 11, 2017. Read below the analysis of the rest of the identified servicemen.

His album contains a number of other photos from the period of June 4-13, 2017, among which

there is a selfie with a view of Zuevska Thermal Power Plant in Zuhres, Donetsk Oblast;
a selfie with a 100-mm Rapira anti-tank gun (MT-12, 2A29);
a selfie with ammunition boxes.

In all these photos, Alekseenko poses in a non-statutory gorka uniform often worn by the personnel of the Russian hybrid forces in Donbas. We could roughly locate the photo shoot to a training range near the Krynka river between the villages of Shyroke and Pokrovka in the Donetsk Oblast.

In addition to Alekseenko, we managed to identify the remaining members of the “riverside quartet”.

Vladimir Kalgan

Born December 9, 1981 in Krasnodar, Russia.

A mercenary with Novorossia IAGs. The album contains a photo of the “quartet” uploaded on June 10, 2017.

Accounts on social networks: VK (archived profile, photos, contacts).

Alexander Knyazev

Originally from Donetsk, Ukraine.

A mercenary with Novorossia IAGs. The album contains a photo of the “quartet” uploaded on June 10, 2017.

Accounts on social networks: VK (archived profile, photos, contacts).

Vladimir Grek

Born on August 20, 1989, presumably in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, Russia.

A mercenary with Novorossia IAGs. The album contains a photo of the “quartet” uploaded on June 10, 2017.

Accounts on social networks: VK (archived profile, photos, contacts).

Another photo from the same location is also noteworthy: Alekseenko is posing with another trio on it, whom we also managed to identify.

Vladislav Gizbrecht

Born March 4, 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

A mercenary with Novorossia IAGs. The album has a series of interesting photos, including joint images with the objects of this investigation, including the Russian contract serviceman Alekseenko and the MT-12 gun mentioned above.

Accounts on social networks: VK1 (archived profile, photos, contacts) active, VK2 and VK3 inactive profiles.

Aleksey Uvarov

Born March 2, 1988 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Accounts on social networks: VK1 (archived profile, photos, contacts), VK2 inactive profile.

Nikolay Nikolaevich

(surname not available)

Born May 13, 1984. Supposedly from St. Petersburg (or from Tyumen). Judging by the underworld-style tattoos, recently released from jail.

A mercenary with Novorossia IAGs. He is cautious with posting Novorossia photos, however in his album he has a series of pictures from Donetsk. He was identified in the albums of other investigation objects, including in joint pictures with others connected to this investigation, including the Russian contract soldier Alekseenko and the MT-12 gun mentioned above.

Accounts on social networks: VK (archived profile, photos, contacts).

Hybrid service in the Russian Army

The latest investigation proves again our point that a part of Russian contract servicemen are doing hybrid service.. Remaining on the Russian Army rosters, they are assigned to so-called “Novorossia militia” as instructors, artillerymen, snipers or military specialists, responsible for communication and coordination with main forces, deployed on the ongoing alert mission across the Russian border.

InformNapalm has already presented dozens of similar facts about several Russian military units:
from Southern Military District – 291st Artillery Brigade (military unit 64670, Troitskaya, Republic of Ingushetia), 7th Military Base (military unit 09332, occupied Abkhazia, Georgia), 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 16544, Borzoi, Republic of Chechnya), 17th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 65384, Shali, Chechnya), 18th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 27777, Kalinovskaya village, Chechnya), 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 63354, Buynaksk, Dagestan),205th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 74814, Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Krai), 19th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 20634, Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia), 33rd Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 22179, Maykop, Adygea), 34th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 01485, Storozhevaya, Karachay-Cherkess Republic);
from Central Military District — 23rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 65349, Samara), 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade of peacekeeping forces (military unit 90600, Roshchinsky training range, Volzhsky District, Samara Oblast),21st Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 12128, Totskoye, Orenburg Oblast),28th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 61423, Yekaterinburg),31st Air Assault Brigade (military unit 73612, Ulyanovsk). Some units of the Russian Guard and other Russian law enforcement agencies have been involved in manning the IAGs too.

Background information

The 291st Artillery Brigade

Military unit 64670, permanent station in Ingushetia, Troitskaya village. In the first half of 2011, the brigade was redeployed from Maykop (Adygea) to Ingushetia.

The unit is part of the 58th Field Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. Presumed strength: 6 artillery battalions: a self-propelled gun battalion, a self-propelled mortar battalion, a howitzer battalion, a rocket artillery battalion, an anti-tank battalion, a reconnaissance battalion, as well as a control battery, a logistics company, a maintenance company, 2 separate platoons (an engineer platoon and a NBC platoon). Equipment in service: 18 pcs of Msta-B howitzers, 8 pcs of Uragan MLRS, 6 pcs of Rapira guns, 18 pcs of Khrizantema-S self-propelled ATGW system, as well as 2 AZK 7 automatic acoustic detecting systems. As of 2016 the brigade received for operation powerful artillery systems – 12 pcs 2S7M Malka self-propelled guns and 3 pcs 2S4 Tyulpan heavy 240-mm self-propelled mortars. Total personnel strength – about 600 persons.

Personnel of the 291st Artillery Brigade has been repeatedly spotted on Ukrainian and Syrian deployments, – this unit appears in 14 OSINT investigations of InformNapalm:

Databases of identified active Russian military personnel and evidence of their involvement in the fighting in Ukraine as part of the Russian hybrid forces are available here: https://informnapalm.org/en/category/top-investigations/

This publication was prepared by Irakli Komaxidze on the basis of his own OSINT investigation specially for InformNapalm.

Translated by Andrii Gryganski, edited by Artem Velichko

Infographics Alex Alexidze Locations identification Mikhail Kuznetsov and Victory Krm.
(Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0)
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