‘It’s Not A War Crime If It Was Enjoyable.’ 3 Years Of Gory Messages By A Russian General

On October 18, 2022, roughly eight months after Russia’s launched its all-out conflict on Ukraine, a high-ranking Russian officer texted a number of messages to his spouse, and several other acquaintances, again residence in Russia.

The officer, then-Colonel Roman Demurchiev, commander of the forty second Guards Motor Rifle Division, bragged about how his troopers had simply stormed a “strongpoint” in Ukraine, and had captured 4 prisoners-of-war.

In a message to his spouse, Aleksandra, he despatched {a photograph} that seemed to be a number of human ears, blackened and hanging from a steel pipe.

“What do you do with them afterward?” Aleksandra wrote.

“I’ll make a garland and give it as a gift,” Demurchiev, who was promoted to main normal the next 12 months, responded.

“Like pig ears for beer,” she wrote.

“Yeah,” he replied

The gory banter, and proof of doable conflict crimes by a senior Russian army officer, are among the many revelations contained in three years of communications — textual content and audio messages, images, movies — purportedly despatched and acquired by Demurchiev.

The supplies — dozens of messages and different associated supplies — had been supplied to reporters from Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, by an individual serving within the Ukrainian army. RFE/RL agreed to not disclose the individual’s id or how they obtained the recordsdata.

Schemes verified the authenticity of the communications, working with forensics laboratories within the United States and information researchers in Germany.

The full Schemes video report, in Ukrainian, will be seen here.

RFE/RL reporters additionally corroborated lots of the dates and occasions listed within the information utilizing particulars supplied by troopers from Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, whose models fought, and proceed to battle, towards troopers underneath Demurchiev’s command.

Contacted by RFE/RL by telephone, Demurchiev, 49, hung up upon being requested in regards to the remedy of prisoners of conflict.

The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t reply to RFE/RL’s emails concerning its insurance policies on remedy of prisoners of conflict.

‘You Didn’t Touch The Ears?’

Throughout Russia’s conflict on Ukraine, which hits its fourth anniversary on February 24, there have been widespread allegations of, and ample proof pointing to, conflict crimes being dedicated by Russian models.

Among the best-known examples was from Bucha, a city north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that was occupied by Russian forces for simply over a month.

After the Russian troops withdrew, residents found dozens of lifeless our bodies, overwhelmingly civilians that appeared to have been summarily executed, or tortured, with corpses mendacity on streets or piled in basements.

With the assistance of army information left behind in Bucha and cross-referenced with social media profiles, RFE/RL recognized a number of members of the one specific unit — the 234th Pskov Regiment — that was immediately concerned within the killings of civilians.

In the correspondence obtained by RFE/RL, the dialog in regards to the mutilated ears started when Demurchiev wrote to a different military officer who was a longtime acquaintance: Major General Igor Timofeev, the primary deputy commander of the thirty sixth Army.

“You didn’t touch the ears? Like when we were kids?” Timofeev replied in response.

It’s unclear precisely what Timofeev was referring to.

However, each he and Demurchiev fought in Chechnya within the 2000s, throughout the battle that ravaged the Russian area.

An picture of Roman Demurchiev, taken from a documentary movie, when he was serving as a youthful soldier throughout the conflict in Chechnya.

Demurchiev then began a separate chat on the identical topic along with his spouse, Aleksandra. In one among her responses, she additionally appeared to check with Chechnya when reacting to the ear photograph:

“I thought those were tales from Chechnya times,” she wrote. “Turns out it’s true.”

Aleksandra couldn’t be reached for remark.

Russian forces have been accused of amputating ears of prisoners previously.

During the First Chechen War, within the Nineties, journalists and human rights activists documented a number of stories of reported mutilations by Russian troops. In 2000-2001, throughout the second battle within the area, Human Rights Watch and the Russian rights group Memorial described our bodies with extreme mutilations, together with scalping, damaged limbs, and cut-off fingers and ears.

Russian media have described related practices by Chechen fighters.

Before Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Came The First Chechen War

In 2022, Schemes obtained one other collection of recordings of calls from Russian troopers, intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. In one, a soldier might be heard saying of a prisoner: “He wouldn’t talk. They cut off his ear.”

Demurchiev talked about amputating ears once more in late 2024 in a voice message despatched to a contact recognized as Valery Nepop.

RFE/RL was capable of decide that Nepop was possible an officer with the Federal Security Service, Russia’s foremost home intelligence company.

“You’re the boss of a super organization, that’s my dream,” Demurchiev will be heard saying. “Damn, and you even cut off the ears. But at our age they don’t do that anymore; we just give out the orders.”

Of Mice And Generals

Some of the supplies despatched or acquired by Demurchiev showcased darkish, juvenile, and sometimes sadistic humor amongst his colleagues or acquaintances, lots of whom are Russian officers.

In one acquired by Demurchiev in December 2023, a reside mouse is proven tied up by its legs — spread-eagled, as if it had been being crucified — as a Russian voice pretends to interrogate the mouse, providing it a cigarette.

Demurchiev replied with a smiley-face emoji to the video, despatched by Lieutenant General Mikhail Kosobokov, commander of the forty ninth Combined Arms Army.

In a separate message despatched to Kosobokov, Demurchiev despatched a Russian language meme that mentioned: “It’s not a war crime if it was fun.”

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In one other collection of messages with an individual who seemed to be a army intelligence officer connected to the FSB named Roman, Demurchiev requested Roman what to do a couple of Ukrainian prisoner in his custody.

“I’ve got one prisoner… I can gift him to you,” he wrote within the October 2023 messages. “He’s sitting in a pit… What should I do with him — dispose of him or give him to you?”

“We didn’t have time to torture him, so the info was friendly,” Demurchiev wrote. “But you’ve got plenty of time — you can use tools that make people tell the truth.”

RFE/RL recognized the prisoner in query: a 42-year-old man from the southern metropolis of Zaporizhzhya who spent almost two years in Russian captivity, together with a facility in Altai, a Russian area removed from Ukraine.

In the summer time 2025, the person was returned to Ukraine, as a part of a prisoner trade.

RFE/RL reporters contacted the soldier by way of kin. The man declined to talk intimately, saying he was in poor bodily and psychological well being. He solely mentioned that he had been severely overwhelmed and subjected to electrical shock.

‘Are They Dismembering Them?’

Other messages exchanged by Demurchiev level to his doable complicity not solely in blatant conflict crimes — but in addition presumably outright homicide.

In December 2024, Demurchiev acquired a video message that seems to have been taken by drone, utilizing a thermal imaging digital camera. A voice talking in Russian off-camera asks: “Are they dismembering them?”

Yeah, with a shovel,” one other voice responds.

“Are they ours?” the primary voice says, asking if the individuals wielding the shovels are Russian troopers.

Yeah,” the second voice replies.

Holy shit!” the primary exclaims.

Ukrainian Rape Survivor Says Her Voice Is A Weapon Against War Crimes

Other messages despatched by Demurchiev clarify that the troopers proven within the video had been former jail inmate and that they’d hacked three surrendering Ukrainians to demise utilizing sapper shovels.

“Well, I reported this to you. Two of the cons made it into the stronghold. There were three Ukrainians,” he wrote to his commanding officer, General Oleg Mityaev, utilizing a derisive insult to explain them. “They took them prisoner and then chopped them up with shovels. Shit. Beasts. But look, shit, they executed them with sapper shovels. Shit.”

RFE/RL recognized the Ukrainian army unit whose troopers had been taken prisoner after which killed by Russian troops. The unit mentioned the incident occurred in japanese Ukraine. The unit additionally requested RFE/RL to not disclose its id or the names of the deceased, saying that would traumatize kin or survivors.

Intelligence information supplied by the unit recognized the previous jail inmates who had been talked about by Demurchiev within the video: members of the “Black Mamba” unit of the 252nd Motorized Rifle Regiment, a part of the Third Division of Russia’s twentieth Combined Arms Army.

In later correspondence, Demurchiev reported the small print of the incident to Mityaev, who commanded the Russia’s twentieth Army. Mityaev responded with reward.

“The ‘cons’ who took that location and chopped them up with shovels, God willing they’ll survive,” he said. “They should definitely be nominated for an award. Keep pushing, little by little. Well done…Good job, keep pushing, keep pushing, crush the bastards, shit.”