Global in Ukraine: Russian commander gave order to ‘shoot the civilians,’ captured soldier says – National

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Throughout his videotaped interrogation with Ukraine’s state safety bureau, the injured Russian soldier seemed nervous.

Respiratory closely as he responded to questions, the younger prisoner defined his commander’s orders on the primary day of the Russian invasion.

After crossing the border that morning in an armoured column, his unit was on the ring street that encircles Kharkiv metropolis when a site visitors jam fashioned, he mentioned.

“The political officer acquired uninterested in it, and he mentioned to us, ‘Shoot the civilians,’” the prisoner mentioned in a video of his interrogation, obtained by World Information.

The commander’s lethal order initiated a sequence of occasions that defies easy narratives concerning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Unwilling to kill innocents, two Russian troopers disobeyed and tried to avoid wasting a lady and her daughter. When Russian troops opened fireplace, the lady was killed.

So was one of many insubordinate troopers. The opposite was badly wounded and it will take one other act of humanity to avoid wasting his life.

The girl who got here to his rescue was a Kharkiv lawyer named Karolina Perlifon, the passenger within the automobile whom the defiant Russians tried to avoid wasting.

In an interview on the residence she shares with the canine she inherited from her mom Iryna, she recalled her ethical dilemma.

“It was my selection to avoid wasting him or to not save him,” she mentioned. “And I mentioned to him that he’ll be capable to reside, and I’ll save him.”

“He’s a human who was only a hostage of the scenario,” she defined. “He instantly didn’t do something unhealthy, and for me personally it was a pity for him.”

On Feb. 24, she and her mom woke early in Bobrivka, their village northeast of Kharkiv, to the sound of explosions and information of the Russian invasions.

Unsure what the longer term held, they drove into Kharkiv to top off on pet food and provides.

They have been heading again to Bobrivka once they stumbled on Russian tanks blocking the ring street.

After which the Russians began taking pictures at automobiles.

Terrified, Iryna turned her automobile round and stopped. She switched off the automobile and two Russian troopers got here operating over.

“They instructed us it’s not secure to be within the automobile, so we must always get out of the automobile. We ran out of the automobile and we have been hiding with them,” Perlifon mentioned.

The 4 of them hid whereas the Russian troops on the street shot on the automobiles. Perlifon phoned her father to inform him what was occurring.

“The bullets have been flying throughout us,” she mentioned.

Her mom was the primary of the 4 to get hit. One of many disobedient Russian troopers threw Perlifon to the bottom.

He stood to inform his colleagues to cease taking pictures, that they have been Russians too.

However then he fell. He had been shot. He tried to attract his gun to fireside again however was shot once more and died.

Perlifon tried to shake her mom awake till she realized she had been shot within the head and was lifeless. The second Russian soldier was not shifting both.

Satisfied this was the top, Perlifon hid behind a wall and recorded a video during which she thanked her mother and father for the life they’d given her.

Forty minutes handed, possibly an hour. She realized she wanted to get away so she went to the automobile however the Russian soldier woke. He had been shot in each legs.

She understood the tough resolution she needed to make: To depart a person to die or to spare a soldier who had simply invaded her nation.

He crawled to the automobile. She helped him lie down within the backseat. She realized her mom had the keys. She discovered them in Iryna’s hand and mentioned her goodbyes.

“I simply hugged her and kissed her,” Perlifon mentioned. “I mentioned to her that I like her, and I ran to the automobile to drive out of there.”

She drove quick, her fingers shaking, and phoned her father to inform him she had escaped.

“And I mentioned to him, ‘I’ve a Russian soldier in my automobile who’s wounded,’” she recalled.

The soldier was out and in of consciousness. There was blood everywhere in the again seat. He was affected by delusions.

“He requested me to drive him residence, however I mentioned to him, ‘I can’t drive you residence,’” she mentioned.

He instructed her he wanted a drink. She stopped for water and known as an ambulance. It arrived 5 to 10 minutes later.

She by no means noticed him once more, the Russian soldier who owes his life to her, and to whom she owes hers.

Perlifon has watched his videotaped confession and mentioned it was correct.

“The lieutenant colonel gave the order to shoot civilians,” the captured soldier mentioned within the recording.

Within the five-minute model of the video obtained by World Information, he mentioned that when the taking pictures started, he and his lieutenant, Ivan Minkov, decided “to avoid wasting civilians.”

“The lieutenant ran to them, began pulling them out of the automobile and shouting, ‘Come right here.’” he recalled within the video.

He recounted that he joined his colleague and so they hid with the 2 ladies. However their commander, a lieutenant colonel, “managed to see that we’re saving civilians and he gave an order to shoot us.”

“We have been seated, with the daughter behind the storage till all the pieces was calm,” he mentioned. “The daughter proposed to drive me from there and name the ambulance.”

“Then she walked to her mom,” he mentioned. “She took the important thing. She was crawling to the automobile. She pushed me within the automobile within the again seat, turned on the automobile.”

The commander who gave the order to shoot has been recognized as Lt. Col. Yevgeny Alexandrovic Zelenov, Commander of the 74th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade.

Kharkiv warfare crimes prosecutors mentioned this was the primary case to carry a Russian commander liable for ordering the killing of civilians.

“That’s our purpose, to go to the highest of the commanders,” Andrii Kravchenko of the Kharkiv area prosecution service instructed World Information.

A web site that tracks the killings of senior Russian officers in Ukraine lists him as lifeless on March 17. World Information was unable to substantiate that.

Zolonov was honoured by Russia for supposed “heroic actions” in March. The quotation mentioned regardless of being badly injured, he destroyed an armored personnel provider and captured 11 “nationalists.”

Following the lack of her mom, Perlifon returned residence to Bobrivka to take care of the canine. She survived a month beneath Russian occupation.

With out warmth or electrical energy, she ate porridge cooked over the fireplace and slept at evening with the canine on her mattress to maintain her heat.

Her mom liked canine a lot that after learning music and aviation, she opened a breeding kennel in Bobrivka.

“My mother for me was all the pieces,” Perlifon mentioned. “And when she was killed, it was like they killed me in actuality.

“I need individuals to know the way she died and how much individual she was, and I don’t need her demise to be in useless.”

She helps Ukraine’s try and prosecute the commander who gave the order to shoot.

However she doesn’t consider the soldier who helped her must be charged. For the second, prosecutors assume in any other case. He stays a prisoner of warfare.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca