The 15th ‘peacekeeping’ brigade from Samara, is perhaps the most ‘distinguished’ military unit of the Russian Armed Forces, which is associated with the annexation of the Crimea and with the initial stage of the Russian aggression in the eastern Ukraine. The InformNapalm international volunteer community have more than once presented a convincing evidence of the involvement of ‘peacekeepers’ from Samara in the war in Donbas. However, InformNapalm’s archives store dozens of other evidence of the military crimes of ‘peacekeepers’ that have not been published yet.

Almost two years have already passed since the Russian military and political leadership unleashed an undeclared war against Ukraine. The provocative actions of the ‘facade’ separatists from the ‘Novorossiya’ were ensured not only by the sabotage-reconnaissance special operations units of the Russian Military Intelligence and Special Operations Forces, but also by the powerful shock troops of the Russian Armed Forces deployed on the Russian-Ukrainian border. After the vile ‘blitzkrieg’ in Crimea, Russia immediately began to concentrate troops in the areas bordering Ukraine – in Rostov, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts. By the end of spring of 2014 the powerful formation of battalion and company task groups from the ground forces of four military districts (Southern, West, Central and East Military Districts), the Airborne Forces and the coastal defense troops (marine brigades and other coast forces of the Russian Navy) had been already grouped. The greatest number of combat tactical groups were concentrated in the regions of Rostov Oblast directly adjacent to Donbas, from where the Ukrainian territory was attacked at the early stage of the hidden invasion. Involvement of the Russian Armed Forces into the fighting in Donbas was carried out on regular basis in order to resolve the specific combat missions on various directions and turn situation in favor of the separatists. The Russian tactical groups acted with lighting speed using the ‘raid – setback’ principle: after performing a combat mission in Donbas and turning the situation in favor of the separatists, they immediately pull back troops ‘over-the-border’.

The battalion tactical groups of the 15th brigade, with the cynical name ‘Peacekeeping’ (military unit No. 90600, Roshchinsky garrison in Volzhsky Raion of Samara Oblast), of the Russian Central Military District, staffed by the contract soldiers having the greatest experience in combat training were in the vanguard of the Russian invasion forces. After the Crimean events in the spring of 2014, ‘peacekeepers’ from Samara were aimed at the Kharkiv direction and transferred to Belgorod and Voronezh Oblasts. The ‘peacekeepers’ waited for the order to invade Ukraine for two months, the reason for which would be the appearance of a new flash-point of separatism in the form of the so-called ‘Kharkiv People’s Republic’. Since the ‘KPR’ project failed miserably, and the whole burden of the military confrontation took place in Donbas, the Samara’s ‘peacekeepers’ were transferred to the base camp of the Rostov formation in the early summer of 2014. This camp was deployed on the border with Ukraine, in the Kamensky Raion of Rostov Oblast, which ensured their operational use on both Luhansk and Donetsk directions.

After the series of the loud revelations concerning participation of the Samara ‘peacekeepers’ in the war in Donbas, the Russian military command and intelligence agencies ‘cleaned up’ the leaking information sources in the social networks, where the brave ‘peacekeepers’ left many traces of their participation in the military adventure in Ukraine. Most of the pages of the Russian war criminals were deleted, many pages were cleaned and renamed, but InformNapalm archives store dozens of evidence of their participation in the war in Donbas, which we present you in this article.

• Pavel Sokolov (born in Samara Oblast on July 25, 1988) is a soldier under contract of the 15th ‘peacekeeping’ separate motorized rifle brigade. He tried to clean up the traces of his participation in the war in Donbas and deleted the incriminating photos, renamed himself to Vasya Morozov (archived profile of Pavel Sokolov, archived profile Vasya Morozov and contacts archive).

Despite the fact that a new ‘Morozov’ profile represents him as a respectable family man, our archives store a series of pictures, which prove his participation in the combat operations against Ukraine during the summer-autumn of 2014. They were uploaded to his photo album in autumn of 2014 – spring of 2015. There is a photo with Farik, his killed comrade-in-arms, who was apparently killed in Ukraine (the photos were deleted afterwards).

• Nikolay Tumanov (born on February 18, 1984) is also a soldier under contract of the 15th ‘peacekeeping’ separate motorized rifle brigade, and originally hails from Serov town. He partially edited his photo album (archived profile, photo album and contacts).

Information about the war criminal Nikolay Tumanov is also present in the ‘Purgatory’ database of the ‘Myrotvorets’ center.

His photo album still keeps the evidence of his ‘Ukrainian assignment 2014’, including the photos where he was awarded the Medal ‘For the Return of Crimea’ and a series of pictures with a geolocation in the Krasnodon Raion of Ukraine. Among the new additions to the photo album of the Russian war criminal, we should highlight a shocking picture of the fallen defenders of Ukraine in front of the national flag.

• Denis Shigapov (born on December 17, 1983) is a soldier under contract of the 15th ‘peacekeeping’ separate motorized rifle brigade, and originally hails from the Yoshkar-Ola city (archived profile, photo album and contacts).

His photo album also keeps the evidence of his ‘Ukrainian assignment 2014’, including the pictures with the destroyed tanks from the battle zone.

• Vladimir Strelnikov (born on December 3, 1991) is another soldier under contract of the 15th ‘peacekeeping’ separate motorized rifle brigade, and originally hails from Samara city (archived profile, photo album and contacts).

Despite the fact that the album of Vladimir Strelnikov is less informative, it still contains the evidence of his ‘Ukrainian assignment 2014’ (the first photo has a misrepresented date – it shows the year 2013).

• Akhmed known as ‘Tatarin’ (born on November 17, 1989) is a soldier under contract of the 15th ‘peacekeeping’ separate motorized rifle brigade, and originally hails from the Aznakayevo town (archived profile, photo album and contacts).

He did conscript military service in 2013 at the Russian 4th occupational military base in the Samachablo region (so-called South Ossetia) in Georgia. Then he joined the Samara’s ‘peacekeeping’ brigade as a contract soldier.

His photo album contains a set of interesting pictures, which testify about his ‘Ukrainian assignment 2014’, including the Medal ‘For the Return of Crimea’, a geotagged photo in the Voronezh Oblast in May 2014 and the photo with the subsequent redeployment to the Rostov Oblast in June this year. The most notable pictures are the ones with the reincarnation of ‘peacekeepers’ in the militants of ‘Novorossiya’ in June of 2014 (the same photo as that of the first figurant Sokolov). In addition, there is a snapshot in his album with the rest break of the ‘peacekeepers’, which was uploaded in March of 2015 and with allegedly Luhansk geotag. Presumably, this is a photo of an earlier period with a false geotag, because the Russian soldiers are not disguised as a militants of the illegal armed groups, as they used to do before the crossing the state border of Ukraine.

The InformNapalm’s archives store a considerable evidence of involvement of the Russian Armed Forces in the war in Donbas. Many social pages of the Russian invaders and photographic evidence have been archived, some profiles of occupants have been taken under the special control and have not been made public in our interests. The time will come when all the Russian war criminals are named, sooner or later they will have to answer for the execution of the criminal orders and participation in the undeclared war. And now nothing else remains for the reader but to observe the commotion caused by these OSINT-investigations, following which the Russian special services urgently begin to ‘clean up’ the traces in the Internet of its military crimes.

We would like to remind you that this is not the first fact of documenting the ’Rostov-Ukrainian assignments’ of the 15-th separate motorized rifle brigade. The InformNapalm community tracked ‘The tour of duty’ of the Samara’s ‘peacekeepers’ and it have been mentioned at least in several publications:

• 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade deployed to the Ukrainian border as an intelligence unit and “peacekeepers” at the same time
• Back to Basics: Russian Mercenaries Pretend to Be Peacekeepers
• Back to Basics-2: Another Evidence of Reincarnation of the Russian Mercenaries in the ‘Peacekeepers’ (RU)
• Mourning ‘Peacekeepers’ of the 15th Brigade
• The Unit of the 15th Samara ‘Peacekeeping’ Brigade in the Millerovo (RU)
• The 15th Brigade Contract Soldier Is Noticed in Krasnodon
• Russian 15th Brigade Mimics ‘Donbas Miners’

Let us remind that the database, which contains the InformNapalm investigations, which prove participation of more than 60 military units of the Russian Armed Forces in the fighting in Ukraine, is available via this link.

(CC BY 4.0) Original article prepared by Irakli Komaxidze, translated by Bogdan Belka, edited by Stepan Grishin.

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