Russian authorities have arrested a senior military colonel and charged him with massive fraud. According to Russian news agency TASS Thursday. The colonel was the commander of the 2022 massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.
Authorities arrested Colonel Artyom Gorodilov on July 3 and charged him with fraud of at least 1 million rubles ($11,236), TASS reported. A military court ordered him to be held in pretrial detention until August 19, and he faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, TASS reported. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Colonel Gorodilov currently commands the 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade, based in the Russian Far East and currently operating in eastern Ukraine. Previously, he commanded the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment, based in the Russian city of Pskov.
The New York Times investigation In 2022, the Russian military determined that members of the 234th Regiment carried out a massacre of civilians in the area when Moscow troops occupied Bukha, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, in the early stages of the war.
The unit, led by Colonel Gorodilov, was stationed in the town at the time, and hundreds of civilians died there, some as a result of brutal executions, The Times reported. Russian troops withdrew from the area in early 2022.
US government imposes sanctions on Colonel Gorodilov Last year, he was charged with “participation in gross human rights violations, namely extrajudicial killings”.
He was promoted to colonel days after horrific photos of the Bucha suburb were publicly released, making the suburb a global symbol of the Russian army’s reign of terror in Ukrainian towns it occupied.
Moscow has denied involvement in the Bucha massacres, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has called them a “provocation.” However, The New York Times confirmed that two dozen members of the 234th Regiment were in Bucha at the time of the massacre, in part by tracking calls made by the troops to Russian phone numbers from the Ukrainian victims’ cell phones.
