
The trial of Viktor Ageev, who was captured in summer by the Ukrainian forces in Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine, is going on in Novoaydar. The military prosecutor’s office ignored strong evidence confirming that the Russian citizen Ageev is a career Russian serviceman. The prosecution also did not file in the case some facts of extreme importance. This is the impression one gets after reading the material of the human rights activist Olga Reshetilova on the New West Media website.
The publication cites the comments of the prosecutor Oleksiy Mokhort made to the journalists at the Novoyaydar Court of Lugansk Oblast on November 24. According to Mokhort, Ageev allegedly “resigned” from the Russian army after the conscript service.
The prosecutor also stated that the pretrial investigation had not established that the Russian citizen Ageev captured in a combat operation in Ukrainian Donbas was an active contract serviceman of the Russian Armed Forces.
He echoed the position of the Russian Ministry of Defense, whose representatives on June 28 also stressed that Ageev had been dismissed in 2016 and no longer was a regular soldier.
Nevertheless, these statements contrast sharply with the information previously voiced not only by the representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), journalists and volunteers in the field, but also by Ageev himself, as well as his mother.
For example, that is how Vasyl Gritsak, the head of the SBU commented on the arrival of Ageev’s mother in Ukraine:
“We do hope that the mother of the Russian contract soldier Ageev and Russian journalists will reveal to the citizens of the Russian Federation the whole truth about the direct participation of the regular troops, career and contract servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces in the war in Donbas. This is in the best interest of the Russians themselves to stop the traffic of zinc coffins of the Russian mercenaries.”
Ageev also confirmed that he was an active serviceman of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation:
“I am a soldier. Military unit 65246 (the communications regiment and training center of the Russian Air Force, Novocherkassk).
The mother of Ageev, his friends and former colleagues also confirmed to BBC Russian that after a mandatory draft Ageev continued his military service and signed a contract in March 2017.
InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community made its own investigation into the case of Ageev, and has a its disposal photo and video evidence from the this Russian serviceman’s social profile. Russian intelligence agencies started to hastily clean up Ageev’s social media presence after he had been captured near the village of Zholobok in Luhansk Oblast on June 24, 2017. They immediately changed the name on his VK account from Viktor Ageev to Vitaly Popov as well as his e-mail and phone number settings. They also changed the date of birth from September 13, 1995 to August 13, 1980, deleted several photos. Luckily, InformNapalm volunteers managed to make a video record of the original information recovered from the cache memory of the Russian search engine Yandex.
Read more in this feature.
Ageev has been kept in the custody in Ukraine since the summer of 2017. He was captured during the neutralization of a reconnaissance group near the village of Zholobok, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. There were 6 terrorists in that group. Two were killed in action and four were taken POW. Ukrainian citizens Bohdan Venger, Danylo Gladkov and Andriy Stoyanov were captured together with Ageev. Andriy Stoyanov signed a plea agreement with the investigation and was sentenced to 6 years of prison according to the Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that the commander of this group Alexander Shcherba also was a Russian citizen and a career officer of the Russian Army. He was killed in action.
InformNapalm volunteers analyzed photos of the weapons of the reconnaissance group and discovered that Shcherba’s standard-issue Dragunov sniper rifle had been manufactured in Russia after 2000. This conclusion is based on the serial number of the rifle (0061272) which was correlated with the data posted on the Russian specialized forum guns.ru.
Despite the whole range of direct and indirect evidence, the prosecution reiterates the position of the defense stating that Ageev is a common citizen of the Russian Federation.
This publication was prepared by Roman Burko specially for InformNapalm international intelligence community web site. An active link to the authors and our project is obligatory for any reprint or further public use of the material.
(Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0)
Repost and share with friends.
For notifications about InformNapalm investigations follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram.
No Responses to “Sabotage or negligence: Ukrainian prosecution ignores testimonies and evidence proving that Ageev is a Russian military man”