{"id":11694,"date":"2017-08-28T03:37:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T03:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/?p=11694"},"modified":"2017-08-28T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T09:52:41","slug":"invasion-timeline-artillery-unit-of-russian-136th-mrb-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/invasion-timeline-artillery-unit-of-russian-136th-mrb-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Invasion timeline: artillery unit of Russian 136th MRB in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this feature, InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community will make an attempt to present a coherent account of the invasion of the artillerymen of the 136th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (MRB) of the Russian Armed Forces into Ukraine in August 2014. This is a synthetic project which involved open-source intelligence (OSINT), hacktivism and IT. We have collected, aggregated and analyzed data from open sources, we used special software to build social graphs of the identified Russian soldiers, we also received and used the materials retrieved by the hacktivists of the Ukrainian Cyber-Alliance (UCA). This investigation proves that Russian soldiers were deployed for combat duty at the Ukrainian border in several stages on the orders of the Russian Army’s command. Later the same soldiers were detected in the occupied territory of Ukraine. Dozens of soldiers’ and officers’ last names previously detected by InformNapalm and individual bloggers through OSINT were authenticated.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Full-scale invasion of Russian military units into Donbas in summer 2014<\/h2>\n

The so-called Anti-Terror Operation or the ATO in Ukraine could have been successfully completed in summer 2014, but Russian Federation made a number of cross-border artillery strikes and then deployed to the territory of Ukraine three battalion tactical groups, reinforced with armored and artillery units. This move thwarted the advance of the Ukrainian troops towards the border and enabled the counter-offensive of the Russian hybrid army. The most significant were the battles of the Luhansk airport and of \u200b\u200bIlovaisk.<\/p>\n

The InformNapalm database<\/strong><\/a> of identified Russian military personnel and regular units contains information on at least 28 (twenty-eight) Russian military units whose servicemen participated in the aggression against Ukraine during this period of time.<\/p>\n

The lists of the servicemen of the 136th MRB (military unit #63354, Buinaksk, Dagestan, Russian Federation) sent by combat order<\/strong> of the headquarters of the Southern Military District (SMD) of Russian Federation to the borderline area with Ukraine proves that the aggression was sanctioned at the top governmental level and was centrally coordinated. The military men who took part in it were no volunteers or even mercenaries, they were soldiers and officers of the Russian Army on active duty and carrying out the order of their command.<\/p>\n

The analysis of the personal email of the Russian Captain Oleg Doroshenko<\/strong><\/a> helped us identify almost 500 conscript and contract soldiers of this military unit who were sent to Rostov oblast as part of the Southern Group of Forces.\u00a0Since 2013, Colonel Mikhail Lebedko<\/strong> has been in command of the military unit #63354.<\/p>\n

The Rostov deployment of the 136th MRB (which was called in the orders “fulfilling tasks within the Southern Group of Forces”)<\/strong> started with a phased redeployment of the units from Buinaksk. The soldiers of the logistics battalion<\/strong> were the first to come. They were sent to the borderline area on July 25, 2014 by the telegrams from the Southern Military District headquarters. Drivers of the company responsible for delivering fuel, ammunition, food, clothing and military equipment were among the first to leave the home station. The signallers<\/strong> were transferred on July 28, 2014, self-propelled artillery battalion and evacuation platoon<\/strong> followed on August 16, 2014, armored battalion<\/strong> – on August 17, 2014, servicemen of the reconnaissance battalion – on August 25, 2014.<\/p>\n

The order of the military unit 63354 commander #211 from September 4, 2014\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The first investigation on the invasion of the 136th MRB appeared on InformNapalm website in October 2014. Back then, we established that the unit from Dagestan was transferred to the area of Malaya Kamenka, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky district, Rostov Oblast<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This very settlement (coordinates 48 \u00b0 19\u201910.8 \u201cN 40 \u00b0 05\u201943.3\u201d E<\/strong><\/a>) was specified in the orders, it is located on the other side of the A-260 route from Popovka village in Rostov Oblast, Russia. Unlike other border-straddling camps, this camp stood empty until August 2014. Then InformNapalm volunteers noticed the presence of T-90 main battle tanks (MBT) and 152-mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers. Read more in our investigation:\u00a0\u0422-90 tanks and Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers of 136th MRB from Dagestan at the border with Ukraine<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The deployment of the armored battalion was described in the previous part of this investigation series The Hague tribunal awaits tankmen of Russian Army\u2019s 136th Brigade: lists, documents, orders. OSINT+HUMINT.<\/strong>
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Let us have a closer look at the servicemen of the artillery battalion who became subjects in this investigation. The orders from the hacked computer of Capt. Doroshenko provided the lists of soldiers from 136 MRB who were deployed to the borderline areas with Ukraine. A total of 82 artillerymen were identified<\/strong>, 12 of them had been previously mentioned in the investigations of the blogger sled-vza\u0443t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Going through the orders presented in the previous InformNapalm investigation Russian Artillery of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade Identified in Ukraine<\/strong><\/a>, we found Sergey Shekhovtsov<\/strong> mentioned in this investigation. He is notorious for his t-shirt with the inscription “Airport Luhansk”<\/em> and a photo in the ruined Ukrainian village of Novosvitlivka, Luhansk Oblast. In that investigation, Yegor Winkler<\/strong> is also mentioned. He appears on the orders as a senior gunner of the 5th gun of the 2nd fire platoon of the 5th battery of the 2nd self-propelled howitzer artillery battalion (2nd SPHAB). Sergey Shekhovtsov, according to the backdated order #233 of Sept. 29, 2014 was assigned to the position of gunner-assistant into one of the companies of the mechanized infantry battalion in the military unit #63354 as of Jul. 22, 2014.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Data of the 136th MRB artillerymen\u2019s deployed by the combat order of SMD headquarters (The list is in translation)<\/h2>\n