InformNapalm volunteers gathered new evidence against the Russian military men who participated in the aggression against Ukraine in Crimea. It was established that R-60 missile boat from the 41st Brigade of Missile Boats of the Russian Black Sea Fleet participated in blocking the ships of the Ukrainian Navy in Donuzlav Bay during a special operation to seize Crimea. The crew and the commander of the boat received awards for participating in the aggression against Ukraine. Interestingly, R-60 missile boat commander had been also previously awarded for the aggression against Georgia.
The commander of the ship is not on the list of Russian military commanders and Russian officials indicted by the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine. R-60 missile boat is also not listed among the ships involved in the aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, InformNapalm volunteers have collected new materials, and publicly call on the competent authorities of Ukraine to carry out all necessary legal proceedings regarding the commander and crew members of the R-60 missile boat of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.
Two squadrons of the 41st Brigade of Missile Boats
The 41st Brigade of Missile Boats of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation (military unit 72165, permanent station in temporarily occupied Crimea, Sevastopol) includes two squadrons: The 166th Novorossiysk Small Missile Ship Squadron (166th SMSS) and the 295th Sulino Missile Boat Squadron.
Ships of both squadrons participated in a special operation to seize Crimea. InformNapalm wrote earlier about the participation of the 166th SMSS in the war against Ukraine. In this feature, we publish the data of the Russian aggressors from the 295th Missile Boat Squadron, specifically of the crew members of R-60 missile boat (tail number 955).
Background details
Pictured in the photo are Russian sailors Konstantin Tyazhko (left) and Oleg Lyovochkin (right) with medals for the occupation of Crimea. Both posted this photo in their social media albums.
Oleg Lyovochkin, born on October 15, 1990, in Stavropol city, Russia.
He did his conscript service on the R-60 missile boat. The caption under the photo of the boat says: “Here he is, our handsome r-60 boat”
In Lyovochkin’s album, there is a photo on board. We compared this photo with the photo of R-60 boat published on the Russian VTS Bastion military website.
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Archived social media pages and photos of Lyovochkin
Konstantin Tyazhko, born on November 10, 1990, city of Izobilny, Stavropol Krai, Russian Federation.
In his social network profile, he indicated the brigade in which he served from 2013 to 2014.
A photo of R-60 missile boat captioned: “My little boat”:
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Archived social media pages and photos of Tyazhko
R-60 missile boat commander
In March 2014, R-60 missile boat took part in the operation of blocking Ukrainian Navy ships in Donuzlav Bay.
Previously, InformNapalm also wrote that Moskva missile cruiser took part in the operation of blocking Ukrainian ships.
At the time of the Crimea invasion operation captain of the 3rd rank Evgeny Kuzmin was in command of R-60 boat. A photo of Kuzmin and detailed information about him can be found in the article of October 30, 2015 in the newspaper of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Flag Rodiny (Russian for the “Flag of the Motherland”, pdf version was saved on our website in case of removal from a Russian source).
The article says that Kuzmin graduated from the Popov Naval Institute of Radio Electronics in 2003. His first position was the commander of the combat services 4&7 (communications and signals) of the missile boat R-71, then later he became an executive officer on the same boat. After a senior officer course, he was appointed executive officer of Samum missile corvette (or “small missile ship” according to the Russian naval classification), and in September 2012 he became commander of the R-60 missile boat. He was awarded medal class II of the Order For Merit to the Fatherland (the award was granted for participating in the aggression against Georgia), a medal class II For Military Valor (for the military service of the missile boat in the Mediterranean Sea), and Medal of Ushakov.
As a commander of R-60 missile boat, Kuzmin was also spotted after the annexation of Crimea.
We found the lists of Russians awarded for participating in the war against Georgia, and Evgeny Yuryevich Kuzmin was among them. Thus we reliably established his full name.
InformNapalm found a photo of Kuzmin with awards mentioned above. Kuzmin also has a photo with a medal For the Return of Crimea.
Conclusions
Kuzmin is not on the list (1, 2) of the Russian military commanders and Russian officials indicted by the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine. R-60 missile boat is also not listed among the ships involved in the aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, we appeal to the relevant authorities of Ukraine and urge them to carry out all the necessary legal proceedings.
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Translated by Andrii Gryga, edited by Artem Velichko.
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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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