Sergeant Pokhvalennyi got the Medal of Suvorov from Putin for the Donbas and our gratitude – in the form of this publication – for disclosing the names of other war criminals from the 8th Motorized Rifle Brigade who took part in the aggression against Ukraine.

One of the activities of InformNapalm international intelligence community is the search for and identification of Russian servicemen who have been awarded state and departmental awards in recent years. Such medals mostly belong to Russian war criminals who participated in the undeclared war against Ukraine. To date, about 80 awards have been identified. Sources of information, as a rule, are the Russian military men themselves or members of their families, who like to boast of awards to their loved ones. A special publication from October 3, 2016, based on our exclusive investigations was dedicated to this topic, presenting the recipients of a number of medals and awards: Award stigma of war criminals from the Russian Army, database and video overview.

One of the latest identified recipients is the Russian contract service sergeant Nikolay Pokhvalennyi. One of the photos uploaded by the sergeant helped us to identify two more “militant miners” from the Russian army.

Established information

 Nikolay Pokhvalennyi. Date of birth: August 28, 1988. Originally from the town of Mineralnye Vody. Currently: a serviceman of the 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 74814, Budennovsk, Stavropol Krai) of the 49th Field Army of the Southern Military District. As of summer and autumn 2014 – a serviceman of the Gvozdika 122-mm self-propelled howitzer battalion of the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 16544, based in Chechnya, in the village of Borzoi) of the 58th Field Army of the Southern Military District. On social media: VK (archives of the profile, photo album, contacts).

In Nikolay Pokhvalennyi’s photo album, we noticed a series of photographs with the Medal of Suvorov posted in August 2015. Despite the fact that Pokhvalennyi was smart enough not to post the insert from the award certificate to the medal, one of the photographs still shows the medal number: 41851, and an extract from the decree with the words: “for courage and dedication in fulfilling a military duty.”

• Other photos with the Medal of Suvorov

  

  

An examination of Pokhvalennyi’s photo album proves that over the past two years he has been on multiple Rostov-Ukraine deployments. We mainly saw photographs from the Russian forces’ base camp located near Novocherkassk in Rostov Oblast, at the border with Ukraine.

To support the assumptions that Pokhvalennyi received a state military medal for participating in the war in the Donbas in the summer and autumn of 2014, let us draw your attention to a group photo from his album, uploaded on August 12, 2015, with the comment “Khankala” (a suburb of the city of Grozny in Chechnya).

Judging by the photo, the equipment, the appearance of the four soldiers and the location of the shooting – the point of loading onto the railway transport in Khankala – the photo was taken when they were being sent on a combat mission. The only confusing thing about it is the publication date: 08/12/2015.

With a little effort and some tricks, we found the same photo on the page of another Russian serviceman, but there it was uploaded earlier – on August 16, 2014. Moreover, we managed to identify two more servicemen of the self-propelled howitzer artillery battalion of the 8th Motorized Rifle Brigade from Chechnya before they were sent on a Rostov-Ukrainian deployment in August 2014.

Established information

Maxim Konstantinovsky. Date of birth: June 17, 1992. Originally from Volgograd. He did his conscript military service in the Northern Fleet in 2011-2012. Since 2014, he has been a contract soldier of the artillery battalion of the self-propelled Gvozdika howitzers of the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 16544, based in Chechnya, the town of Borzoi) of the 58th Field Army of the Southern Military District, as evidenced by both the Konstantinovsky’s friends contacts and the tactical mark of this brigade painted on the self-propelled gun. On social networks: VK (archives of the profile, photo album, contacts). Other abandoned accounts are on VK (under the name Orlov) and on OK.

Unlike his former colleague Pokhvalennyi who only boasted of the Medal of Suvorov, Konstantinovsky has an impressive collection of photographs reflecting both the chronology and geography of the 2014 military mission. We found a number of August photographs from Chechnya and along the route of the train to Rostov Oblast, as well as the actual photographs from the Rostov-Ukrainian deployment in September with the already familiar masquerade: soldiers disguised as local miners and MT-LB’s of the same brigade with the informal flag of military reconnaissance.

Established information

Victor Evdokimov. Date of birth: September 17, 1984. Originally from Samara. Contract soldier of the artillery battalion of the Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers of the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade (military unit 1654 based in Chechnya, the town of Borzoi) of the 58th Field Army of the Southern Military District. In social media: VK (abandoned account). There is only one photograph uploaded in Evdokimov’s photo album in October 2014 – in front of a self-propelled gun with a tactical marking of the 8th Motorized Rifle Brigade and side number 421. Although Evdokimov was cautious on social media, his pictures could be found in the photo albums of his comrades – the aforementioned Nikolay Pokhvalennyi and Maxim Konstantinovsky.

As a reminder, the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade was previously mentioned in the following episodes of OSINT investigations by InformNapalm in the context of Ukrainian deployments:

Reconnaissance unit of 8th Mountain Brigade on Ukrainian border

Show Must Go On, or The Foreplay

How does a Russian Soldier get a Medal “For Courage”?

The Russian 8th Brigade’s Servicemen Return From Donbas as Cargo ‘200’ or Disabled

Russia Gathers Fresh Forces for Deployment in Donbas

Path of Russian 8th Brigade: from Departure to Donbas to Rewards for War Crimes

The price of silence: a medal, a war vet ID and Kia Rio

By Irakli Komaxidze . Translated by Svitlana Kemblowski, edited by Artem Velichko. Distribution and reprint with reference to the source is welcome! (Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0) InformNapalm social media pages: Facebook / Twitter / Telegram

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