‘What, like I directly pressed the fucking button?’ Journalists contacted the men Ukraine says are responsible for Russia’s Dnipro strike
On January 14, the Russian military launched a missile attack on Dnipro, Ukraine, which caused two sections of a nine-story residential building to collapse. According to Ukrainian authorities, the strike killed at least 45 people, including six children, and injured at least 79. After the Ukrainian Security Service revealed the names of six Russian military servicemen it said were responsible for the attack, journalists from the investigative Russian news outlet iStories reached out to the men for comment.
On January 16, the Ukrainian Security Service announced it had identified six Russian servicemen who were personally involved in the missile strike on a residential building in Dnipro, Ukraine, which killed at least 45 people, including six children.
Ukrainian authorities have initiated criminal proceedings against the six men for violating the laws and customs of war. They are:
- Colonel Oleg Timoshin
- Major Alexey Ivanenko
- Dmitry Golenkov, the chief of staff of an air squadron
- Denis Grigoryev, a pilot
- Dinar Nazyrov, a pilot
- Yevgeny Potseluyev, an aviation weapons engineer
All six reportedly serve in the 52nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Reporters from the independent Russian outlet iStories found the six men’s contact information and reached out to them.
Alexey Ivanenko, the commander of an aviation detachment, told journalists that he doesn’t keep up with the news and hadn’t heard about what happened in Dnipro. “I left the army three years ago, after I got a head injury. Now I work in sewage disposal,” he said. When asked about the criminal case opened against him by the Ukrainian Security Service, Ivanenko responded, “Great, am I going to have to surrender now?”
Dinar Nazyrov, a navigation pilot, introduced himself to iStories as a “woodsman from a forestry enterprise.” “Don’t walk in my forest and don’t scare the squirrels,” he said, before hanging up the receiver.
Dmitry Golenkov initially admitted to being a part of the 52nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment before launching into a tirade about Russia’s right to control Crimea and other occupied Ukrainian territories:
I said that the four [Russian-annexed Ukrainian] subjects and Crimea are ours. What does this have to do with Ukraine? I haven’t laid a finger on Ukraine. Ukraine is a separate independent state… It’s shelling our territory, the Russian Federation, the Donetsk region, the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region, it’s shelling Crimea. Why are you asking me about this? [...] You, young lady, are probably from Ukraine. In Russia, journalists don’t ask these kinds of questions. Journalists don’t ask questions at all.
What, like I directly pressed the fucking button or rode in the plane? […] Crimea is still ours, and so is all the rest. What do you want from us?
As Golenkov spoke, another voice could periodically be heard in the background saying phrases such as, “Just say, ‘Why is this whore talking to me in Russian? If you’re a Ukrainian whore, then speak to us in Ukrainian!’”
None of the other Russian servicemen responded to journalists’ requests.
Interviews by Irina Dolinina from iStories