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The Kremlin and Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to questions about Serdiuk's account or that of others Reuters spoke to in Kherson. 'PURE SADISM'Grim recollections of life under occupation in Kherson have followed the unbridled joy and relief when Ukrainian soldiers retook the city on Friday after Russian troops withdrew across the Dnipro River. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said two days later that investigators had uncovered more than 400 Russian war crimes and found the bodies of both servicemen and civilians in areas of Kherson region freed from Russian occupation. Vitaliy had been an underground resistance fighter since Russian troops seized Kherson on March 2, according to Lapchuk, and she became worried when he did not answer her phone calls. The soldiers, who identified themselves as Russian troops, threatened to smash out her teeth when she tried to berate them.

A Ukrainian soldier, Oleh, was one of the first to enter Kherson and went straight to his grandmother’s house. Ukrainian prosecutors have evidence of more than 400 separate Russian war crimes, he said. Ukrainian officials and international allies say mass graves in Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel are just some examples of Russian war crimes. Ukraine's immediate concern is to supply the city with water, power, food and medicine, all of which are in short supply. The ongoing conflict nearby — Russia still controls about 70% of the broader region — could make this task a real challenge.

☆ Bansky reveals new mural in Ukrainian village left devastated by Russian forces
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Mirna Alsharif | Mirna Alsharif Is A Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Bansky revealed a mural in Ukranian village Borodyanka Friday, which was left devastated by Russian forces early on in the invasion. The artist unveiled the mural of a female gymnast on Instagram with three pictures and the caption "Borodyanka, Ukraine." Borodyanka, located about 30 miles north of capital Kyiv, was hit hard early on in the invasion by Russian forces, and occupied quickly. Russian forces retreated early April, leaving behind destroyed buildings and rubble. Another resident told NBC News that after one apartment building was bombed, they could hear screams for days from people asking for help.

☆ Russia's elite fear for their safety after a Putin ally advocated punishing those who don't support the war, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has been an influential player during Russia's war in Ukraine. He said that tycoons who don't show enough support for the war should face "Stalinist repressions." Prigozhin's comments have worried Russian elites, who told Bloomberg they fear for their safety. The officials told Bloomberg they were concerned for their own safety, and that they were checking in with each other regularly to see if their family members are safe. Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Bloomberg that Prigozhin is "behaving like a parallel government."

☆ Russian soldier spoke of drunkenly killing civilians in phone call near Bucha: 'I think I'm going crazy'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Intercepted phone calls detail a Russian "cleansing" operation in Bucha, the AP reported. "I've already killed so many civilians," one soldier told his wife. Survivors told Insider that Russian soldiers initially acted as if they believed themselves liberators, their government having convinced them that Ukraine is run by Nazis. In a March 14 phone call, another soldier, going by the name Lyona, told his mother about a child who was stopped at a Russian checkpoint. On the boy's phone, soldiers found information about the "location and logistics" of Russian forces, the AP reported.

☆ Russian billionaire behind mercenary army in Ukraine confronted Putin about botching the war, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russian tycoon Yevgeniy Prigozhin met with Putin in private this month, The Washington Post said. It said Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, criticized the handling of the Ukraine war. In a statement to The Post, Prigozhin denied that he spoke to Putin and said he has no right to criticize Russia's army. "I did not criticize the management of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the conflict in Ukraine. Prighozin is not the only Putin loyalist to voice criticism of the Russian military amid the ongoing conflict.

☆ Russia kept Ukrainian prisoners in open-air cages and used mock executions to extract information, witnesses tell NYT
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A witness told NYT of open-air cages; another spoke of being put through a mock execution. Serhii was reported as living in Balakliya, a town south of Kharkiv city that was recaptured on September 8. Serhii described being out with his brother and a friend when Russian soldiers detained them, the paper reported. The soldiers stripped them, beat them and subjected them to interrogation to try to extract information on the positions of Russian forces, he told the paper. The three were held in a basement and released two weeks later, the paper reported him as saying.

☆ U.S. Defense secretary speaks with Russian counterpart as war in Ukraine enters ninth month
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Amanda Macias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks at a news briefing at the Pentagon on July 20, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. The call comes as the war enters its ninth month and as Ukraine continues a stunning counteroffensive to retake more of Russian-occupied territory in the east and south. "Secretary Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid the ongoing war against Ukraine," according to the Pentagon. WASHINGTON – Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart Friday morning, the second known call since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traded barbs last month with his Russian counterpart during a U.N. Security Council meeting.

☆ People in Kyiv describe how, in a barrage of missiles, Russia shattered the hope of life returning to normal
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Kyiv went months without missile strikes, and people rebuilt a little despite war with Russia. She said life in Kyiv was closer to normal. She said people in Kyiv got "normal life" for a few months, which ended with the shock of Monday's attack. Trying to live regular livesTereshchenko said moving to Kyiv meant se could "try to pretend I have a normal life," despite the reminders of war and worry for her family in Kharkiv. Liubov TsybulskaShe said people in Kyiv had become "much more resilient" than when the war started, and life had changed.

☆ Russian soldier says his comrades took armor off Ukrainian corpses because 'NATO armor is better than ours', according to audio obtained by The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russian soldiers were frustrated by unsuitable military equipment as early as March. Recordings obtained by The New York Times reveal phone calls made by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. One man told his girlfriend how his comrades stole NATO armor off dead Ukrainian soldiers. The Russian military has resorted to pulling obsolete equipment out of storage, including Soviet-era equipment such as T-62 tanks. Prior to the Ukraine war, the Russian military was widely regarded as one of the most powerful in the world.

After Ukrainian forces stage ambushes and cut off the key access route to the capital, Russian soldiers tell their relatives that the military strategy is failing. … That’s what we’re fucking going to do, it seems. “Frankly speaking, nobody understands why we have to fight this war," Sergey tells his girlfriend. Replay‘I’ll quit at once.’Frustrated by continuous setbacks and fearing for their lives, Russian soldiers say they are fed up with the military. As quickly as they came, the Russian soldiers in northern Kyiv withdrew, regrouped and pivoted east, where Russian-backed separatists have been waging war for over eight years.

☆ A Russian soldier was recorded saying he was told to 'kill everyone we see' in Ukraine, including civilians, which is a war crime, according to audio obtained by The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Lloyd Lee | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

More than 4,000 recordings of Russian soldiers making calls from Kyiv were obtained by The New York Times. One Russian soldier told his girlfriend that he received orders to "kill everyone we see." UN investigators previously accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The calls reveal the bleak reality Russian soldiers faced in the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, which began in late February. Russian forces, who have repeatedly targeted civilians since the war began, have been widely accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine — including by world leaders and top human rights groups.

☆ Meta shuts down covert influence campaigns it says were run from China and Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN Business —Facebook parent company Meta announced Tuesday it had detected and shut down two separate networks of fake accounts engaged in covert influence operations run from China and Russia. Meta publicly detailed the takedown as it remains on high alert for foreign interference in the US midterm elections, a Meta spokesperson told CNN. The company has shared details of the Chinese accounts with the FBI, a Meta spokesperson said. More than 2,000 Facebook accounts and pages were part of the effort to push pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, Meta said. “This was the first Chinese network we disrupted that focused on US domestic politics ahead of the midterm elections,” Meta said.

☆ Putin ally admits he created the Wagner mercenary group linked to wartime atrocities: 'I cleaned old weapons myself'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted to founding the Wagner mercenary firm in 2014. "I cleaned old weapons myself," the billionaire, known as "Putin's chef," said in a statement. Prigozhin previously denied founding the group and sued those who reported on his Wagner ties. "From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later acquired the name PMC Wagner." Timothy Lay, a coauthor of the report, told Insider that Wagner's actions — including widespread looting — were akin to "criminal violence."

☆ A Russian crime boss was killed in Ukraine after being recruited from prison to fight in the war, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The boss of a Russian crime gang was serving a 23-year jail term when he requested to fight in Ukraine. He went to the frontline by the shadowy Wagner Group, who had been recruiting prisoners to fight. A representative from the paramilitary Wagner Group came to get him, and she said he was sent to the front line on July 25. Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, shows Russian President Vladimir Putin his factory outside Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2010. The Wagner group is variously described as a mercenary outfit, a private military contractor, and Putin's private army.

☆ Exclusive: Ukraine will never forgive Russia, Russian Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Dmitry Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and editor-in-chief of the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, attends an interview with Reuters in Moscow, Russia September 22, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia NovozheninaSept 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine will never forgive Russia for a shameful conflict which has thrown back Russia's development by half a century to Soviet times predating Mikhail Gorbachev, journalist and Nobel Peace laureate Dmitry Muratov told Reuters. Muratov, the long-time editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent media outlets in Russia, said Ukraine would never agree to peace or to the annexation of any of its territory. RUSSIA BACKWARDSThe war, Muratov said, was a "huge national shame" that was wiping out not just half a century of development but also extinguishing hope, love and confidence in the future among Russians. read more The newspaper Novaya Gazeta is no longer published in paper form in Russia, though it has a limited online version and has a magazine.

☆ Mass graves in Izium, Ukraine, may be 'worse' than those found in Bucha, Biden adviser says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Emma Kinery | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Ukrainian soldiers patrol at the streets of Izium city after Russian Forces withdrawal as Russia-Ukraine war continues in, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine on September 14, 2022. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said his Ukranian counterparts tell him the mass graves discovered in Izium, Ukraine, after Russian forces were pushed out, are in some ways "worse" than those discovered in Bucha in April. More than 440 bodies, including those of civilians and children, have been found in Izium since Russian troops withdrew from the city earlier this month. Police found a mass grave Friday with the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. The mayor of Mariupol said thousands of bodies were discovered in a mass grave discovered after Russian soldiers withdrew from that city in April.

IZYUM, Ukraine — The stench of death hangs over a small forest in northeastern Ukraine. Already, hundreds of bodies have been retrieved, including those of children, Ukrainian forensic technicians here say. Some of the graves bear wooden crosses, inscribed with the names of the dead and sometimes floral tributes. A forensic technician closes a body bag in a forest on the outskirts of Izyum, Ukraine, on Friday. During a video address late Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said investigators had discovered new evidence of torture.

☆ Kremlin says Ukrainian war crimes claims are a lie
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a news conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022. Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS/File PhotoSummary This content was produced in Russia, where the law restricts coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine. MOSCOW, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Monday rejected allegations that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine's Kharkiv province as a "lie". Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said investigators at the site had found evidence of torture, including bodies with hands tied, and accused Russian troops of committing war crimes. read moreAsked on Monday about Zelenskiy's statements, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "It's the same scenario as in Bucha.

☆ Russian mercenaries want felons to go fight Putin's war in Ukraine, but many are refusing, US official says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Kremlin-linked mercenaries are trying to convince prisoners to fight Putin's war in Ukraine. A recent video showed the head of the Wagner Group offer inmates freedom if they take up arms. But many convicted felons are refusing, a senior US defense official told reporters on Monday. Wagner's efforts have been recently "reinvigorated" by Prigozhin's pitch asking the Russian prisoners to serve as "fighters for assault units," the ministry said. Throughout the nearly seven-month-long war, Russian forces — who failed to capture Ukraine's capital city Kyiv early and who now struggle to defend against a punishing Ukrainian counteroffensive — have fought alongside Wagner personnel.

☆ Legendary Russian pop star condemns the invasion of Ukraine, saying it is making Russia a 'pariah'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Iconic Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has condemned the war in Ukraine. She asked to be designated a "foreign agent," like her husband, a comedian who has also spoken out. Russian singer Alla Pugacheva in 1987. Galkin was named a foreign agent under Russian law on Friday, according to independent Russian news site Meduza. Russia's "foreign agent" law was introduced in 2012.

The scale of the Russian military’s and political leadership’s setbacks in Ukraine have become too vast for even state media and pro-war activists to ignore. With Russian forces on the retreat, more and more they are accusing the leadership of betraying the troops. As Ukraine retakes territory, videos are appearing online appearing to show massive amounts of equipment abandoned by retreating Russian soldiers. Radical right-wing bloggers calling for Putin to take the gloves off in Ukraine are not a direct threat to the regime, Stanovaya said. The Russian elite is used to seeing Putin as a strong man, someone who deals with challenges and always knows where he’s taking the country.

☆ Ukrainian ambassador says mass graves show 'war crimes of massive proportion' where Russians are 'targeting all Ukrainians'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( Sarah Al-Arshani | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Officials said they found mass graves and bodies that showed signs of torture in the city. Ukraine's ambassador to the US said the atrocities were "war crimes of massive proportions." "It's tortures, rapes, killings — war crimes of massive proportions. Last week, Ukraine's defense ministry said that mass graves were discovered in Izium after the city was retaken by Ukrainian forces. The largest burial site found has 440 unmarked graves.

☆ Canada's Trudeau says Ukraine mass graves are part of Russian war crimes
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Sept 18 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday that mass graves found in Ukraine were evidence of Russia's war crimes and that full accountability for its actions was needed. "Obviously the UK and Canada have been two of the strongest countries in standing up in support of Ukraine and pushing back against Russia's illegal actions," Trudeau said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with local youth to plant a tree at Area Conservation area in Milton, Ontario, Canada on September 2, 2022. "There needs to be a proper investigation and transparency and Vladimir Putin, his supporters and the Russian military need to be held to account for the atrocities they have and are continuing to commit in Ukraine," Trudeau said. Trudeau, who was due to meet Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Sunday evening, said Canada strongly supported Ukraine and would continue to provide aid.

☆ Zelenskyy says Russian chambers containing 'tools for electric torture' were found in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine along with mass graves containing at least 450 bodies
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said "torture chambers" had been found in the Kharkiv region. The 10 chambers contained "tools for electric torture," Euronews reported Zelenskyy said. In Izium, identification of about 450 bodies found in mass graves has begun, the Kyiv Independent reported. "More than 10 torture chambers have already been found in the liberated areas of Kharkiv region, in various cities and towns," Zelenskyy said in a video address late Saturday, CNN reported. Similar graves were found in Bucha in March, when the bodies of 116 people were recovered after the city was liberated from Russian occupation.

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