Despite blanket denials of war crimes from the Kremlin, a Russian soldier has revealed details of looting, torture and killings that took place in the Kiev suburb of Andriivka in March. The soldier’s confession came in an interview with iStories, an organization of freelance Russian journalists who have fled their country for their own safety. The interview is part of a documentary investigation into alleged war crimes by The Fifth Estate in collaboration with iStories and Swiss public broadcaster RTS. The Russian soldiers were tracked down after they left pictures of themselves on mobile phones they stole from residents of Andriivka, some of whom they killed. Survivors in the town later found the phones and photos.

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When invading Russian soldiers arrived in the Kiev suburb of Andriivka in the early hours of the February invasion of Ukraine, the first things they wanted from residents were cellphones. They didn’t like being photographed with cell phone cameras. “People were taking a lot of videos,” said resident Anatoly Boyko, “and that was the first thing the Russians were looking for. If you walk around with a phone, you might be tortured and then executed. They’re looking through Facebook because it might incriminate you , and then they know more about you.” WATCHES | What did the invading Russian soldiers do first after they arrived: Andriivka resident Anatoly Boyko recalls how Russian soldiers collected cellphones from residents, who “could be tortured and then executed.” As word spread, residents quickly deleted videos and social media links. Boyko managed to survive, but several other residents of Andriivka were not so lucky. Mayor Anatoly Kibukevic lost three of his relatives. “All three of my cousins ​​were executed on the same day. Vitalik, Vadym Hanuk and Ruslan Yaremchuk, all hands behind their backs. I don’t know why, maybe there was something on their mobile phones, maybe they took pictures of the tanks them, I don’t know.” Yaremchuk’s body was found next to his house with several mobile phones scattered around.
Russian soldier Daniil Frolkin of the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade finally confessed in an iStories interview to the execution of a civilian in Andriivka. It turns out that his victim was Ruslan Yaremchuk, a father of three young girls.
Frolkin said he paraded Yaremchuk through town to his front yard. “I told him, ‘Go ahead.’ Go ahead. I said to him: “On your knees.” And I just put a bullet in his brain.” Ruslan Yaremchuk with his three daughters. (Ekaterina Fomina/iStories) Frolkin said he was ordered to shoot civilians by his commander.
“The commander said, ‘Drop them.’ So I went and threw them. They had a bunch of money, with money and stuff. This lieutenant colonel took the money for himself. And he gave us the rest, like documents and phones. And he said: “Bring them there, shoot them and destroy the phones and the documents too.” According to Frolkin, the Russians suspected that Yaremchuk was filming them and reporting their positions on the Ukrainian side. There are no valid data. His family says Yaremchuk had a hobby of collecting photos and old cellphones. Residents of Andriivka buried their loved ones after they were killed by the Russian army. (Ekaterina Fomina/iStories) As Frolkin and his unit withdrew from the suburbs of Kiev weeks later, they left hundreds of civilians dead in Andriivka and the neighboring town of Bucha. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime has suggested that evidence of these crimes was forged. Frolkin confirmed the looting, torture and killings, and said he was wracked with guilt after the execution and his seven-month tour of Ukraine. “For the record: I, a soldier of the military base, Daniil Andreyevich Frolkin, confess to all the crimes I committed in Andriivka: shooting civilians, looting citizens, taking away their phones and the fact that our commanders do not accept. – and for our fighters, the entire infantry fighting on the front lines,” he said in his confession to iStories’ Ekaterina Fomina. WATCHES | A soldier’s confession of crimes against civilians:

Russian soldier confessed to killing and looting

Russian soldier Daniil Frolkin tells journalist Ekaterina Fomina about the crimes he committed during the invasion of his unit in Andriivka. “Yes, I was shaking for a long time. I survived it, but… I realized that if I killed at least one more person, I would shoot myself. My conscience couldn’t take any more people’s deaths.” Frolkin was tracked down after returning to his hometown near Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East by Fomina. He figured out who it was from photos on a discarded cellphone stolen from a resident of Andriivka. He forgot to destroy the phone and left behind a military uniform with his name stamped on it. Frolkin agreed to speak to Fomina. Daniil Frolkin of the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade stands inside an Andriivka house. The medals on his chest belonged to the homeowner’s father-in-law, a World War II veteran. When the Russian troops left, the medals disappeared from the house, the family said. (Ekaterina Fomina/iStories) “I think the main motivation for him to talk to me was his psychological and physical condition,” said Fomina. “At that time, he was completely exhausted. He spent seven months away from home. He witnessed all these crimes, and he was also a criminal, and yes, he couldn’t… keep all these feelings inside. That’s why he shared it.” . Ekaterina Fomina, a Russian freelance journalist with iStories, tracked down Frolkin in Russia. He agreed to talk to her and confessed to shooting a civilian in the head. (Alex Shprintsen/CBC) Frolkin was approached by war crimes investigators but refused to cooperate. He is now out of the military and hopes to become a police officer in his hometown in the Russian Far East. British lawyer Wayne Jordash, one of several international war crimes experts in Kyiv assisting Ukrainian prosecutors, said Frolkin could be tried in absentia. “I think the biggest challenge is going after his commander and his commander’s commander.” Jordash said the complicated part of war crimes investigations is establishing a criminal enterprise. “If you’re talking about an ordinary crime like a robbery, you’re talking about a limited number of people who are likely to be responsible, including for example the head of the criminal gang, whereas in a war, you have the potential for a huge number of people to be responsible for whatever what’s happening on the ground, in this case up to Putin.” Wayne Jordash, a British lawyer, investigates alleged war crimes in Ukraine. (Volodymyr Cheppel) Unlike other wartime leaders, Putin has not distanced himself from allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. He has awarded medals and special commendations to Frolkin’s unit, the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, for their “heroism” in the battles around Bucha and Andriivka. Jordash said he implicated Putin in these crimes. “Putin giving them medals showing his approval will come together in due course along with other signs that he approves of the crimes that were committed and other signs of his control over the military. I think a solid picture of his involvement is building day by day. “ A decree of the president of the Russian Federation issued on April 18, 2022, praises the 64th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade “for the massive heroism and bravery, fortitude and courage shown by the personnel of the brigade in combat operations for the protection of the motherland and state interests in armed conflict”, and promotes them to the rank of “guards”. (Official website of the Russian Federation) Many observers believe Putin or his commanders could never be brought to justice because Russia does not recognize the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, and will not cooperate with the investigation. Jordash is more optimistic, pointing to the Serbian leaders who were finally tried in The Hague long after the Bosnian war in the early to mid-1990s. “I think that international criminal law, there are a lot of problems with it. It’s slow, it’s expensive and sometimes it’s quite frustrating, but it actually has a very good track record of conquering such [Slobodan] Milosevic and [Radovan] Karadzic, [Gen. Ratko] Mladic from former Yugoslavia”. Jordash said this was also true to some extent of World War II. “I mean in 1942, who would have thought Hermann Göring would be sitting in a courtroom? Three years later he’s on trial at Nuremberg,” Jordas said. “I have no doubt that we will be disappointed in how many trials there will be, but I also have no doubt that there will be trials of high-ranking Kremlin officials.”