Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the media have been publishing eyewitness accounts of military operations in Ukraine about cases of looting by soldiers of the Russian army. [1] International organizations such as Human Rights Watch, as well as Ukrainian, European and Russian independent media and NGOs document and investigate cases of looting and transportation of stolen personal items and industrial equipment to the territory of Russia and Belarus. [2]
On the third day of the invasion of Konotop, food stores were looted, there was a video on the Internet in which Russian soldiers took out a safe from a bank in the Kherson region. [3] [4]
In March, farmers from Kherson, Cherkasy and Kyiv regions testified that their cars and products were taken from them. [5] From the outskirts of the captured Melitopol, 27 John Deere farming vehicles were stolen - tractors, seeders, combines - each of which costs at least 300 thousand US dollars. Since all the equipment is equipped with GPS navigation systems, the owners managed to track its movement - at the end of April, the cars ended up in the Chechenya village of Zakan-Yurt, however, inoperative, since the anti-theft system allows for remote blocking. According to CNN, Russian military trucks transport wheat to Crimea from Zaporozhye warehouses and Melitopol. [6] [7]
In early June, The Washington Post, citing the head of the State Agency of Ukraine for the management of the exclusion zone, Yevgeny Kramarenko, reported that the Russian military caused damage to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that cost Ukraine an amount of more than 135 million US dollars. [8] 698 computers, 344 cars, 1500 dosimeters were stolen or destroyed, as well as almost all fire fighting equipment needed to fight forest fires in the exclusion zone. Part of the equipment, according to GPS sensors, was located on the territory of Belarus. [9]
After returning to their homes, residents of the village of Novy Bykov, Chernihiv region, found that their apartments were looted, household appliances, women's perfumes, electronics, and upholstered furniture were stolen. Residents who remained in the village during the days of the occupation saw how things were loaded into the Ural army trucks. Computers and projectors disappeared from the village school. It was also reported about the looting of the village of Stary Bykov. [10] Mass robberies were recorded in Irpin. One of the local families told The Guardian that all clothes and shoes were stolen from their house, including women's underwear and dresses. [11] Citizens testify that cash, jewelry and simple household items were stolen from their homes, provided by residents of the villages of Grebelki, Velyka Dymerka, Vilkhivki. [12] [13] Human Rights Watch staff also documented Ukrainian testimonies of robberies, for example, in the city of Dymer, Kyiv region. [14] Shaun Walker, a journalist of The Guardian, received numerous testimonies from local residents in the city of Trostyanets about the facts of murders and robberies committed during the period of control of the city by Russian troops. For example, the owner of a beauty salon, Daria Sasina, said that her salon was looted, taking all cosmetics, furniture and paintings from the walls. [15] A resident of the Chernihiv region in an interview said that during the retreat, Russian soldiers took the toilet bowl from her house. [16]
The Ukrainian news published recordings of "interceptions" of telephone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families, in which thefts from shops and abandoned apartments are discussed. From one of the recordings, the soldier says that his colleagues “draged bags” of the loot, on the other recording, he receives a list of things that he is asked to bring. The media noted that it is impossible to establish the authenticity of the recordings in wartime, but territoriality, they coincide with the zones that were under Russian occupation. [11] [17]
According to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, a market was opened in the Belarusian city of Narovlya selling items stolen in Ukraine, these include: motorcycles, bicycles, household appliances, toys, furniture, carpets, etc. were sold there. Columns of trucks in the direction of Narovlya were moving from Buryn. [18] Data on the movement of devices lead to robberies - this is available for most Apple gadgets and accessories. Their Ukrainian owners saw by geolocation that things from their apartments were in Russia. [19] In other cases, the geolocation of stolen AirPods was used to track the movement of Russian army units. [20] On April 18, 2022, on the VKontakte social network, user Yuri Zverev posted a question on how to legalize a BMW SUV brought to the Tver region from Ukraine. On April 20, the group was blocked at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. Later, denying appeared on the Internet from members of the Zverev family, who claimed that his account was hacked and the message was not posted by him. [21]
On May 1, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that ventilators and other equipment provided since 2014 by international donors and the government of Ukraine had been removed from a hospital in Starobilsk. [22] [23]
In May 2022, a refugee from Ukraine, Alina Koreynyuk, identified her property in a photograph circulating on the Internet with a tank filmed in the Popasna area were loaded with civilian belongings. According to Koreynyuk, the photo was taken five minutes away from her house, and the tank recently brought children's sheets with Disney prints, a blanket and tablecloth from a country house, a sealed heating tank, which she recently bought and did not have time to install in the apartment. [24] [25] [26]
In November 2022, during the Russian withdrawal from Kherson, Russian zookeeper Oleg Zubkov stole numerous animals from the Kherson Zoo, including a raccoon that would become known as the Raccoon of Kherson due to its unusual prominence in Russian propaganda. The raccoon was subject to numerous internet memes mocking Russian forces and their looting. [27]
In June 2023 Russian media reported complaints of residents of Belgorod oblast in Russia sent to its governor about Russian troops looting their houses and property in the area after they were dispatched there to reinforce the border protection. [28]
In October 2024 Russian-Chechen general Apti Alaudinov gave an interview in which he openly stated that "everyone was taking them", speaking of theft of farming equipment from the occupied territories. Russian military blogger Mikhail Kalashnikov asked him about reports of "Akhmat" looting but Alaudinov said his unit did not steal anything, because "nobody has stopped us", meaning Russian law enforcement. Both also confirmed widespread looting from the territories of DPR and LPR. [29]
The Mediazona project published an investigation in which it tracked an unusual surge in the growth of parcels from the cities of Armiansk, Boguchar, Valuyka, Dzhankoy, Zheleznogorsk, Klimovo, Klintsy, Mozyr, Novozybkov, Pokrovskoe, Rossosh, Rylskv and Unecha to Russia through the delivery service SDEK coinciding with the start of the war. According to the publication, in three months the military could redirect 58 tons of things in this way. Numerous footage from surveillance cameras inside delivery points, in which people in military uniform brought backpacks with things into the departments and wrapped them in packaging film, got onto the Internet. The largest number of parcels was sent to the Russian cities of Rubtsovsk, Yurga, Chebarkul, Miass, Kyzyl, Chita, Biysk and Borzya. [30] On April 29, 2022, a video was published in which a Russian officer allegedly sent the Orlan-10 drone, which is in service with the Russian army, from the SDEK point in Valuyki. [30] [31] The Belarusian Gayun reported that Russian soldiers bought a lot of goods in the shops of the Belarusian Mozyr and also sent them to Russia also with the help of the SDEK service, but this can it only explains part of the parcels. [17] Against the backdrop of the scandal that arose, SDEK turned off broadcasts from its branches located on the border with Ukraine. [32]
On June 2, the Ukrainian police announced that they had opened criminal cases of looting against ten Russian soldiers from the National Guard unit No. 6720 stationed in Rubtsovsk. The soldiers face up to 12 years in prison. [33]
Representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry have repeatedly accused the Ukrainian side of filming staged videos of looting by Russian soldiers. [24]
Henichesk is a port city along the Sea of Azov in Kherson Oblast, southern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Henichesk Raion. Since 9 November 2022, it has served as the temporary administrative centre of the Russian occupation administration in the region. Henichesk also hosts the administration of Henichesk urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. In January 2022, Henichesk had an estimated population of 18,889.
Popasna is a city in Sievierodonetsk Raion, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Popasna urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. In 2018, it was estimated that it had a population of 20,600 people.
Stanislav Pyatrasovich "Stas" Piekha, is a Russian popular singer and actor, and the grandson of Edita Piekha.
The Sparta Battalion or 80th Separate Guards Reconnaissance Battalion "Sparta" named after A. S. Pavlov is a special purpose unit of the Russian Armed Forces. Until 2023, unit was part of Russian people's militia military unit of the Russian republic of Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine. The unit has been fighting against the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbas war and the 2022 Russian invasion. Formed in 2014, it was initially led by the Russian-born Arsen Pavlov until his death in October 2016, and then by Vladimir Zhoga, from Sloviansk, until his death in March 2022.
Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin is a Russian army general who serves as head of the Coordinating Committee for Air Defence under the Council of Defence Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) since September 2023.
Casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War include six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the War in Donbas, and up to 1,000,000 estimated casualties during the Russian invasion of Ukraine till mid-September 2024.
Russia began an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. It is the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. During the fighting, many pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage were either destroyed, damaged, or put at risk due to the widespread destruction across the country. This deliberate destruction and looting of over 500 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites is considered a war crime and has been described by Ukraine's Minister of Culture as cultural genocide.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is extensively covered on Wikipedia across many languages. This coverage includes articles on and related to the invasion itself, and updates of previously existing articles to take the invasion into account. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects' coverage of the conflict – and how the volunteer editing community achieved that coverage – has received significant media and government attention.
"Where have you been for eight years?", "Where have you been for the last eight years?", or "Why have you been silent during the past eight years?" is a rhetorical question widely used by Russian propaganda in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in support of Russia, mainly pointing out what Ukraine has been doing to the Donbas during the war in Donbas (2014–2022), and that the Russo-Ukrainian War has been ongoing since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. It has been described as Russian pro-war propaganda.
The ongoing military occupation of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast by Russian forces began on 24 February 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of the southern Ukraine campaign. It was administrated under a Russian-controlled military-civilian administration until 30 September 2022, when it was illegally annexed to become an unrecognized federal subject of Russia.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine there has been military and political collaborationism between Ukrainian citizens and officials and the Russian military.
Filtration camps, also referred to as concentration camps, are camps used by Russian forces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine to register, interrogate, and detain Ukrainian citizens in regions under Russian occupation before transferring them into Russia, sometimes as part of forced population transfers. Filtration camp detainees undergo a system of security checks and personal data collection. Detainees are subject to widespread torture, killings, rape, starvation and other grave human rights violations.
The Russian occupation of Mykolaiv Oblast is an ongoing military occupation of Ukraine's Mykolaiv Oblast by Russian forces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of the southern Ukraine campaign. The Russian-installed occupation regime was called the "Nikolaev military-civilian administration".
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Kherson is the name given to one of two raccoons stolen from Kherson by Russian zookeeper Oleg Zubkov during the Russian retreat from the city during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The animal became a subject of memes following the theft, referred to as the raccoon of Kherson. A pro-Russian Telegram channel is dedicated to the animal.
The Russian Winter Offensive of 2022–2023 was a military campaign executed by Russian troops during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 22 December 2022, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov announced that the Russian army would focus on capturing the Donetsk Oblast. In early February 2023, Russian troops began their winter offensive on the western section of the front in the Donetsk Oblast and on the Kupiansk–Svatove–Kreminna–Lyman line. According to military experts, Russia wanted to quickly break through Ukrainian defenses and seize the Donetsk Oblast. However, the Russian offensive was slow, and according to American and British intelligence estimates, in the winter of 2023 the Russian army managed to achieve only minor progress at the cost of huge losses of its own. However, western analysts noted that Ukraine also suffered significant losses among military personnel and equipment.
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