According to a source who spoke to iStories, staged photo reporting was used to fabricate fake reports for soldiers' superiors. Soldiers were instructed to take photographs to substantiate false claims of combat successes, even when doing so put their lives at risk.
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District Commander wounded as infantry follows ordered charge
22/ "So, he, the District Commander and the Army Commander were given rifles and the infantry was told: 'These men will go first and you are to follow.' And that’s when [Omurbekov] was wounded."
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Evacuation of two scouts after brutal injuries
19/ "I evacuated a scout guy [sic]. There were 2 of them. One had his leg completely crushed and a shell fragment in his breastbone. The other only had the torso and half a head left. So, they loaded him in a bag into the vehicle and told me to go."
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Limited medical support left troops without medics amidst casualties.
18/ There was little medical support available to the troops. "Two medical platoons were destroyed completely. So, some were killed, some wounded. There were no medics left in our 2nd or 3rd battalion. But the wounded had to be evacuated." pic.twitter.com/EYYbVCw4vr
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) 26 août 202218/ There was little medical support available to the troops. "Two medical platoons were destroyed completely. So, some were killed, some wounded. There were no medics left in our 2nd or 3rd battalion. But the wounded had to be evacuated."
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Driver-mechanic claims to have saved 86 people
12/ "So, I agreed to everything, like being a medic." As a driver-mechanic, he was assigned an armoured vehicle to evacuate wounded personnel and remove damaged equipment to repair depots. He claims to have "saved 86 people and killed one."
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Three men killed on lieutenant colonel’s orders
The three captured men were all killed on the orders of Guards Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Prokurat. "We brought them [to him] and he said: 'Take them outside the village, let them show [you] the houses and waste them.'"
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Unreadable photos during a search
We opened his [phone] gallery and most of the photos and videos were unreadable. We were ordered to go with them so they could show us their homes. They claimed to be locals. We found photos in the houses. In one house, there were just pictures of an old couple.
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Frolkin involved in arrest of three suspects
7/ Frolkin was involved in rounding up three suspects. "We caught and delivered them to our commander …. We checked [a suspect's] phone and he had messages from the [Ukrainian] Emergency Service, saying like they’ll get the money when they provide coordinates of columns."
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Targeted execution and ‘zachistka’ in Ukraine (Azatbek Omurbekov)
6/ The brigade's commander, Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov, ordered soldiers to fire at civilian vehicles, as well as to kill “anyone you find who has a phone.” According to a combat diary found in the village, the Russians carried out a 'zachistka' or 'cleansing' operation.
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Maimed soldier refuses care in despair
"We [had] 18 wounded men … one was severely wounded, with his testicles shot off by a fragment. He was screaming: 'Give me a rifle, guys! I will shoot myself! Don’t deliver me! I don’t want to come to my wife like that!' He had 6 kids."