ZDVYZHIVKA, Ukraine (AP) 鈥 Even by the standards of the important military officers who came and went in this tiny village, the man walking behind the Kamaz truck stood out.
Soldiers providing security peered from behind fences, their guns bristling in every direction. Two Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters circled overhead, providing additional cover for Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko as he escorted an aid convoy in March from the schoolhouse on Tsentralna street that Russian officers commandeered as a headquarters.
Fifteen minutes away, in the village of Ozera, the lives of three men were about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. While Chaiko was directing Russia鈥檚 attack on Kyiv from Zdvyzhivka, the men were brought to the village by Russian troops, who and then shot them in the garden of a large house about a kilometer (less than a mile) from where the general now stood.
The deaths of these men were part of a pattern of violence that left hundreds of civilians beaten, tortured and executed in territory under Chaiko鈥檚 command.
This wasn鈥檛 the work of rogue soldiers, an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series 鈥淔rontline鈥 shows. It was strategic and organized brutality, perpetrated in areas that were under tight Russian control where military officers 鈥 including Chaiko himself 鈥 were present.
War crimes prosecutors in Ukraine are trying to gather evidence against Chaiko, who earned a global reputation for brutality as leader of Russia鈥檚 forces in Syria. And international human rights lawyers said evidence gathered by AP and 鈥淔rontline鈥 was enough to merit an investigation of Chaiko at the International Criminal Court.
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This story is part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that includes the interactive experience and the documentary 鈥淧utin鈥檚 Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes,鈥 on PBS.
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鈥榃E DO NOT TAKE PRISONERS鈥
The map seized by Ukrainian forces is almost as tall as a man. It鈥檚 frayed, creased and deeply outdated 鈥 describing towns as they no longer exist. A single red line snakes down from Belarus, along the western flank of the Dnieper River, through Chernobyl and toward Zhuliany airport, in Kyiv.
On the back are a scrawled date 鈥 Feb. 22, 2022 鈥 and the stamp of a Russian military unit 鈥 No. 07264, Russia鈥檚 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division.
At 7 a.m. on Feb. 24, the commander of that division, Maj. Gen. Sergei Chubarykin, ordered his troops to cross into Ukraine from Belarus and fight their way to Kyiv, Ukrainian prosecutors say. Chubarykin reported to Chaiko during the initial phase of the war, two Ukrainian officials told the AP and Frontline.
Boyish soldiers 鈥 some not much bigger than their guns 鈥 perched on top of their tanks, shouting: 鈥淣ow we will take Kyiv! Kyiv is ours!鈥 witnesses said.
The troops moving toward the capitol had been ordered to block and destroy 鈥渘ationalist resistance,鈥 according to the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank that has reviewed copies of Russia鈥檚 battle plans. Soldiers used lists compiled by Russian intelligence and conducted 鈥渮achistki鈥 鈥 cleansing operations 鈥 sweeping neighborhoods to identify and neutralize anyone who might pose a threat.
鈥淭hose orders were written at Chaiko鈥檚 level. So he would have seen them and signed up for them,鈥 said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at RUSI who shared the battle plans with the AP.
While there is nothing necessarily illegal about that order, it was often implemented with flagrant disregard for the laws of war as Russian troops seized territories across Ukraine.
Witnesses and survivors in , as well as Ozera, Babyntsi and Zdvyzhivka 鈥 all areas under Chaiko鈥檚 command 鈥 told the AP and 鈥淔rontline鈥 that Russian soldiers people on the slightest suspicion they might be helping the Ukrainian military. Sweeps intensified after Russian positions were hit with precision, interviews and video show, and soldiers, in intercepted phone calls obtained by the AP, told their loved ones that they鈥檇 been ordered to take a no-mercy approach to suspected informants.
Soldiers told their mothers, wives and friends back in Russia that they had killed people simply for being out on the street when 鈥渞eal鈥 civilians would have been in the basement, calls the Ukrainian government intercepted near Kyiv show.
On March 21, a soldier named Vadim called his mother: 鈥淲e have the order to take phones from everyone and those who resist 鈥 in short 鈥 to hell with the f------.鈥
鈥淲e have the order: It does not matter whether they鈥檙e civilians or not. Kill everyone.鈥
The slightest movement of a curtain in a window 鈥 a possible sign of a spotter or a gunman 鈥 justified slamming an apartment block with lethal artillery. Ukrainians who confessed to passing along Russian troop coordinates were summarily executed, including teenagers, soldiers said.
鈥淲e have the order not to take prisoners of war but to shoot them all dead directly,鈥 a soldier nicknamed Lyonya said in a March 14 phone call.
鈥淭here was a boy, 18 years old, taken prisoner. First, they shot through his leg with a machine gun, then he got his ears cut off. He admitted to everything and was shot dead,鈥 Lyonya told his mom. 鈥淲e do not take prisoners. Meaning, we don鈥檛 leave anyone alive.鈥
, a London-based investigative group funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, verified the identity of the soldiers who made those calls by cross-referencing Russian phone numbers, linked social media accounts, public reporting and information in leaked Russian databases.
鈥楾HAT鈥橲 WHERE PEOPLE WERE KILLED鈥
Fierce Ukrainian resistance and poor planning pushed Russian troops off their planned line of attack. Some of them ended up in Bucha, where Ukrainian prosecutors say the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division participated in a lethal cleansing operation on March 4 along Yablunska street, the deadliest road in occupied Bucha and the site of an important Russian command center.
Others settled with thousands of other troops in Zdvyzhivka, a tiny village half an hour north of Bucha that became a major forward operating base for the assault on the capitol, according to Ukrainian military intelligence and audio intercepts obtained by AP.
Russian troops dug into the woods around Zdvyzhivka, building virtual cities that stretched for several kilometers beneath the tall pines and poplar trees. They left gaping trenches sized for tanks, semi-permanent bunkers reinforced with logs and sandbags, rough-hewn tables and benches. There was even a field sauna, photographs and intercepts show.
The Russians set up their most sensitive infrastructure along Tsentralna street, the main north-south artery in town. They took over the village council building, a cultural center and a school and set up headquarters in the large white kindergarten. At the main intersection, near the pond, Russians turned a Baptist church into a field hospital, took over a forestry administration building and commandeered a large ostrich farm for their vehicles and supplies. In the fields behind the church, locals watched helicopters ferry in supplies and evacuate the wounded.
Checkpoints faced in every direction. It was so difficult to cross the checkpoint going south on Tsentralna that locals tried to bypass it, wending their way along a footpath that skirted the pond instead. One woman told AP she tried three times before she was allowed to pass and get back to her own home.
Tania, who was afraid to give her last name, lives on this southern stretch of Tsentralna street. She stayed in Zdvyzhivka with her children during the occupation, hemmed in by Russian checkpoints on both sides.
It seemed like tanks were parked in every yard, Tania said. Troops took over dozens of abandoned homes.
There is one house on Tania鈥檚 stretch of Tsentralna, between the checkpoints, that stands out. It is the biggest, ritziest compound around. Beyond its high brick wall, an elegant circular driveway leads to a large pinkish house. A stone path winds through the back garden, an oasis of fenced-in green with manicured hedges, thick trees, two gazebos, a basketball court, banks of garden planters. At the far back fence, a small door opens onto the woods beyond.
The soldiers who came and went from that compound were older, professional, spoke like educated men, Tania and other neighbors said. They had cars with drivers. They told people what to do. Everyone figured they were officers.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 where people were killed,鈥 Tania said, squinting down the street and pointing to the compound.
WHAT THEY FOUND IN THE GARDEN
Life under the occupation of Chaiko鈥檚 forces was tense and terrifying, local residents told AP and Frontline.
Andrii Shkoliar lives on Tsentralna street with his extended family, a few houses down from the luxurious compound. On March 18, Shkoliar and his wife were walking nearby to a relative鈥檚 house when a dark-colored UAZ Patriot sped past, stopped abruptly and drove back to them.
A tall, blond soldier with a beard who appeared to be of higher rank stepped out of the Russian-made SUV, demanding to know why they鈥檇 broken curfew.
鈥淚 give you one hour to go and come back or you鈥檒l be like this one in the car,鈥 the Russian told him.
Shkoliar peered through the back window of the SUV at a man slumped against the window, eyes bound with tape, his hands behind his back.
On their way back, Shkoliar and his wife saw the same UAZ Patriot parked in front of the officers鈥 compound.
The next day, March 19, Ukrainians launched a precision strike, knocking out a Russian storehouse at the ostrich farm on Tsentralna, according to village head Raisa Kozyr. Russian troops sprang into action, searching door to door and checking documents.
The same blond officer and driver of the UAZ Patriot, along with a third man, appeared at Shkoliar鈥檚 front door and pulled everyone out of the house to search for weapons. They said they鈥檇 kill everyone if they found anything.
鈥淲e were saying goodbye to our lives,鈥 Shkoliar recalled. 鈥淲hat else could we do?鈥
The sweeps consumed the whole village.
Vitalii Chernysh was picked up that afternoon as he rode his bike through a field. Chernysh said soldiers found a photo of Russian military vehicles someone had sent him on the messaging app Viber on Feb. 25 and hauled him off with three other people, bound and blindfolded, to a nearby barn. It was below freezing, and none of the prisoners was dressed for the cold.
As night deepened, they chatted with the Russian guarding them. 鈥淗e said more captured people were brought over,鈥 Chernysh recalled. 鈥淔rom Bucha, from Ozera, from Blystavytsia and somewhere else. ... In short, they gathered people.鈥
The next day, Chernysh was taken, blindfolded, to a field and accused of being a spotter.
鈥淲here are the nationalists?鈥 the soldiers demanded. They poured gasoline on him and pretended to set him on fire. They ordered him to run through what they said was a minefield. Still blindfolded, Chernysh struggled to his feet and tried to follow the soldiers鈥 commands: 鈥淕o right. Go straight. Go faster.鈥 Then they beat his legs again, with what felt like a wooden plank.
Chernysh began to wish they鈥檇 just kill him.
Finally, a man Chernysh thought was of higher rank came over, examined his phone and told the soldiers to take Chernysh home.
Photos taken shortly after his ordeal show large, livid bruises on the back of his swollen legs. Days later, Russia鈥檚 Ministry of Defense released a video of Chaiko pinning medals on soldiers near Zdvyzhivka.
鈥淎ll units, all divisions are acting the way they were taught,鈥 he said in the March 24 video. 鈥淭hey are doing everything right. I am proud of them.鈥
When Russian forces retreated a week later, the bodies began to surface.
Bucha, a pleasant town outside Kyiv, quickly became a global symbol of Russia鈥檚 wartime atrocities and case No. 1 for Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors. Retreating soldiers left behind the bodies of over 450 men, women and children 鈥 almost all bore signs of violent death.
But the slaughter wasn鈥檛 limited to Bucha. It was repeated in town after town, village after village. Including in Zdvyzhivka.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 know what was happening around us,鈥 said Kozyr, the village head. 鈥淲hat was happening in the woods. And we knew people were missing.鈥
On March 30, Yevhen Pohranychnyi went to the luxurious home Russian officers had used. Now that they were gone, he wanted to check on his neighbor鈥檚 cat and see how badly the house had been looted.
The house was trashed, photographs show. Drawers had been ripped from desks and dressers. Clothes, books and papers were strewn all over the floor. What the Russians hadn鈥檛 stolen, they鈥檇 smashed.
Pohranychnyi made his way out the back, to the far end of the long garden. There, as night was falling, he found something far worse: the bodies of two men 鈥 one with a crushed skull curled up like a child, his joints at strange angles; the other with red marks around his neck, who had bled out from his head and face onto a pink cloth.
The next morning, he brought the village head, the village priest and others to the site. Three more bodies had appeared overnight. The blood was fresh. Some of them had their eyes and hands bound. Two seemed to be dressed in clothes that weren鈥檛 their own.
Three of those men 鈥 Mykola 鈥淜olia鈥 Moroz, Andrii Voznenko and Mykhailo Honchar 鈥 were picked up from nearby Ozera between March 15 and March 22 on suspicion of acting as spotters for the Ukrainian military, eyewitnesses told AP and 鈥淔rontline.鈥 Moroz was captured the day after a precision strike on a Russian position hidden in the woods outside Ozera, a drone video analyzed by the , a London-based nonprofit that specializes in digital investigations, shows.
AP and 鈥淔rontline鈥 visited that garden in July and found bullet casings and a zip tie on the ground and bullet holes in the fence where the men were found 鈥 indications that they had been killed on the premises of the house frequented by Russian officers in one of the most tightly guarded sections of Zdvyzhivka in late March.
All told, 17 people have been found dead in Zdvyzhivka 鈥 a village of 1,000 before the war.
CHAIKO IN CHARGE
Chaiko has been sanctioned by the U.K. for his actions in Syria and Human Rights Watch says Chaiko may bear command responsibility for widespread attacks on hospitals and schools and the use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas during a notorious campaign in Idlib province in 2019 and 2020. At least 1,600 civilians were killed; some 1.4 million were displaced, according to the group.
In Ukraine, prosecutors say they don鈥檛 have proof Chaiko ordered specific crimes, but it is clear that atrocities were committed under his watch.
In June, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Russia鈥檚 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division and its 234th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, as well as the 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, for atrocities in Bucha.
Those units were all under the ultimate command of Chaiko, Ukrainian authorities told AP.
But Chaiko鈥檚 responsibility extended beyond Bucha.
To try to understand who might have been involved in the deaths of the men from Ozera, the AP obtained data about their cell phone activity from the Ukrainian government. On March 21, the day Russian soldiers captured Voznenko, his cell phone pinged the same cell tower as 40 Russian phone numbers 鈥 an indication of who was nearby when he was abducted.
The Dossier Center found explicit references to specific Russian military units in recent work history databases for 14 of those phone numbers. Nine came from units Ukrainian authorities told the AP were under Chaiko鈥檚 command. The formal wartime command structures for the rest are unclear, but four are from unit 62295, an airborne regiment based in Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow. That unit was in Ozera, along Chaiko鈥檚 front in the war, according to Russian phone numbers left behind on scraps of paper in Ozera that the Dossier Center traced to specific soldiers.
Days before the bodies of Voznenko and the others were found mutilated in the garden in Zdvyzhivka, two eyewitnesses spotted Chaiko again, about a kilometer (less than a mile) down the road at his headquarters in the village.
Both men independently identified him as Chaiko when AP and 鈥淔rontline鈥 showed them a photograph of the colonel general in July.
鈥淚t鈥檚 him,鈥 said Mykola Skrynnyk, 58, who served in the Soviet army in the 1980s, and says he exchanged a few words with the general. 鈥淣ow I understand why there was so much security.鈥
鈥淲hen you look at everything that was happening in Zdvyzhivka, it becomes evident that this is not just a singular case, this is their policy for the territory they capture,鈥 said Taras Semkiv, a war crimes prosecutor in the office of Ukraine鈥檚 prosecutor general.
As top commander, Chaiko obviously 鈥渨ould have to be aware of what was happening near his headquarters located in the same village,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 only logical.鈥
But, he added, 鈥淭his has to be proven. And I think we will do it.鈥
There鈥檚 no concept of command responsibility in Ukrainian law, but if prosecutors can demonstrate that Chaiko played a key role in implementing illegal policies of the Russian Federation, or should have known what his troops were doing and was in a position to stop, or punish, their behavior, he could be , crimes against humanity or genocide in an international court.
Toby Cadman, an international human rights lawyer in London who is working to hold Russia legally accountable for atrocities in Syria, said the evidence AP and 鈥淔rontline鈥 collected was enough to merit an investigation of Chaiko at the International Criminal Court.
鈥淪ignificant events like this can then fall through the cracks, they don鈥檛 get properly investigated,鈥 he said. 鈥淎 case file could be taken to the ICC, because half the job is done.鈥
鈥淚t is a significant case. It is a strategically important area. It is a strategically important individual,鈥 he said. 鈥淓verything about it makes it a significant matter to look at,鈥 he said.
The ICC declined to comment, citing confidentiality.
NEVER AGAIN?
While they seek more specific evidence, Ukrainian prosecutors have indicted Chaiko for the crime of aggression, a broad charge that seeks to hold him responsible for helping to plan and execute an illegal war in Ukraine.
They say he was in Zdvyzhivka from March 20 until March 31, directing the assault on Kyiv 鈥 that is, at the same time the three men from Ozera were killed and Chernysh was tortured.
Chaiko鈥檚 trial is expected to begin soon in Ukraine. But the dock will almost certainly be empty.
The International Criminal Court has a better chance than Ukraine of extraditing, or capturing, Chaiko one day. It is currently the only international forum that can hold leaders criminally responsible for wartime atrocities. But it is not a simple task.
The ICC doesn鈥檛 have jurisdiction over Russians for the broad crime of aggression because Russia 鈥 like the U.S. 鈥 never agreed to give it authority to do so. Instead, prosecutors must link commanders with specific crimes.
That makes it hard to build cases against leaders like Chaiko 鈥 and Vladimir Putin.
A growing number of people are calling for the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression in Ukraine 鈥 similar to those set up for conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia 鈥 to address this gap in international law. They say it would be the best way to make Putin pay.
鈥淭he crime of aggression is called the mother of all crimes,鈥 Ukraine鈥檚 foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told the AP and Frontline. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have war crimes if you don鈥檛 have the crime of aggression. So the best way to prosecute personally President Putin is to have a special ad hoc tribunal for the crime of aggression.鈥
It鈥檚 not clear whether Kuleba and his allies will succeed. They face political opposition from powerful nations who don鈥檛 want to see their own leaders in the dock and from the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, who said his court can handle prosecutions on its own.
鈥淲e have clear jurisdiction,鈥 he said in an interview in July. 鈥淰ictims don鈥檛 have much tolerance in my view for vanity projects or distractions.鈥
The Kremlin did not respond to AP鈥檚 requests for comment.
But there is no sign Moscow has sanctioned Chaiko for the very public atrocities committed on his watch. Instead, Putin praised Chaiko for his actions in Syria, awarding him the title 鈥淗ero of Russia鈥 in 2020 and promoting him to colonel general in June 2021.
Cadman, the international human rights lawyer in London, watched with dismay as Russian atrocities in Syria 鈥 under the leadership of some of the same men, including Chaiko 鈥 went unanswered.
鈥淚f we do not act decisively now,鈥 he said, 鈥渋t will not end in Ukraine.鈥
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鈥淔rontline鈥 producers Tom Jennings and Annie Wong, co-producer Taras Lazer and AP reporters James LaPorta, Oleksandr Stashevskyi, Richard Lardner, Janine Graham and Solomiia Hera contributed to this report.
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To contact AP’s investigations team, email investigative@ap.org
