At the beginning of July 2024, Russian media reported on the trial of a Czech citizen who was accused of committing war crimes in Bucha. We checked whether it is correct to use his testimony as evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the murders and rapes of residents of the Kyiv region.
July 3, 2024 in Prague started the trial of Philip Seaman, who fought on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kyiv region in 2022. Russian media, which wrote about the trial, published notes with loud headlines: “Czech mercenary of the Ukrainian Armed Forces admitted to shooting people in Bucha” (“Arguments and facts"), "He committed atrocities in Bucha, mocked the dead: a mercenary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is being tried in the Czech Republic for looting in Ukraine" ("Moskovsky Komsomolets"), "A former Czech mercenary admitted in court that he was an executioner in Ukraine" ("Channel One"). In the Russian-language Telegram, messages about the trial of Siman, according to TGStat, received more than 11 million views. In particular, posts about this were published by the channels “Tsargrad-TV"(1.8 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "The world today with "Yuri Podolyak"" (1.7 million), "Operation Z: military correspondents of the Russian spring"(432,000), "Pozdnyakov 3.0"(364,000), "Newsach / Dvach" (260,000) and "RT in Russian"(176,000).
Blogger Anatoly Shariy was one of the first to draw a connection between Siman’s confessions and killings of civilians in Bucha in March 2022, in which Kyiv accuses Russian military. July 5 in his Telegram channel (955,000 views) Shariy quoted statement made by a volunteer in court (“We were the police, we were the court, we were the firing squad, for that matter”), and added: “Isn’t this about corpses in basements?” In the video that Shariy published four days later on YouTube (1.3 million views), he suggested, that, in addition to Russian prisoners of war, Siman’s detachment shot civilians whom the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters considered to be Russian collaborators. Shariy commented and Siman’s words that in the war zone he “saw rape for the first time”: “Who could he see raped? Rape of a civilian by Russian soldiers? How could he see this? Most likely, Siman was present when Ukrainian servicemen raped someone. Whom? A Russian prisoner or a Ukrainian civilian? Do you understand what is being revealed behind this?” Russian edition Deita also saw in Siman’s words an indirect admission of guilt in committing rapes of Buchi residents: “Moreover, [Siman] also said that he witnessed the rapes. <…> It is unlikely that these were Russian citizens.”
Bucha, a small town northwest of Kyiv, was occupied by Russian troops shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022. Occupation of this suburb of the Ukrainian capital continued more than a month. When Ukrainian troops entered Bucha on March 31 and hit journalists from different countries, they saw bodies of killed civilians who found along roads, in the courtyards of private houses, basements, mass graves and cars. Some dead their hands were tied behind their backs, and the corpses showed signs of torture and rape. By data local authorities, 458 civilians died in Bucha and the surrounding area during the occupation, including 419 who were killed. UN representatives in December 2022 reported, which has documented the violent deaths of 73 people and is investigating another 105 suspected murders in the Kiev suburbs.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky visited in Bucha a few days after her release. Speaking with journalists and local residents, the Ukrainian leader accused Russia in committing war crimes and genocide. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense named photo and video evidence from Bucha staged and provocative. This point of view has been consistently express Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin. In 2022 "Verified" sorted it out some statements authorities of the Russian Federation, who tried prove the non-involvement of the Russian armed forces in the murder of civilians in Bucha.
Since 2023 in the Czech Republic in custody located citizen of this country Philip Seaman. He is accused of illegal service in the army of a foreign state and looting in a combat zone. How should from the case materials, in March 2022, Siman, as part of the Ukrainian volunteer battalion “Carpathian Sich”, went to Bucha and another Kiev suburb of Irpen, where he was instructed to carry out sweeps when Russian military personnel were detected. In April, the man was detained by the Ukrainian military and handed over to the Kyiv police, who, in turn, did not press charges due to lack of evidence. After this, the volunteer returned to his homeland, and the Czech police request representatives of the “Carpathian Sich” began an investigation into the fact of mercenarism and looting. According to Czech laws, citizens of the country who wish to participate in an armed conflict on the side of another state must obtain a special permission President of the Czech Republic. Seaman did not have such permission. The man is also suspected of stealing jewelry, precious bars, money and weapons, which he took from dead soldiers and killed civilians. By words defendant, he “did not realize that he was acting illegally” because other soldiers allegedly did the same, following the instructions of the commander. “They were looking for everything: electronics, documents, handwritten diaries, military insignia,” Siman said in court, citing the goal of collecting as much intelligence information as possible. And some things, for example Gucci glasses, the Czech volunteer, as he himself claims, took in memory of a murdered friend. According to the totality of charges against him threatens up to 35 years in prison.
During the trial, Siman said a phrase that was later widely quoted by Russian media and pro-Russian Telegram channels: “We were the police, we were the court, we were the firing squad, for that matter.” But the defendant did not directly indicate who exactly was shot (or should have been shot) by the members of the “Carpathian Sich” battalion. When asked by the judge whether they shot detained Russians, he was evasive replied: “Their subsequent fate was the result of the fate they prepared for their victims. I will further exercise my right to remain silent [on this matter].” In other words, there is no reason to perceive Siman’s testimony as his confession in the execution of civilians in Bucha, whose bodies were found by the Ukrainian military after the retreat of the Russian army. Media And independent researchers published many evidence that the people found dead in the basements and on the streets of Bucha were killed during occupation cities by the Russian army from the end of February to the end of March 2022, that is, before the Ukrainian Armed Forces units entered the city.
Based on Siman’s testimony, one can also judge under what circumstances he saw rape during his participation in the war in Ukraine. Czech edition New in a court report he says that, according to the defendant, a video was found on the phone of a captured soldier of the Russian Armed Forces in which six Russian soldiers raped a woman in front of her children. That is, contrary to Shariy’s version, Siman’s confessions do not mean that the Czech volunteer witnessed how Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers raped Russian prisoners or civilians in the Kyiv region.
The evidence available to the court against Siman concerns only the charges of mercenaryism and looting, on which he is being tried. The defendant's statement that he was part of the firing squad coincides chronologically with publications Ukrainian security forces about the cleansing of liberated cities, where in April 2022 they were looking for saboteurs and collaborators. In such operations it is true took participation of the "Carpathian Sich" battalion. If its members shot prisoners of war, then they thereby violated international humanitarian law, having committed a war crime. But as for corpses in basements, which Shariy mentioned, the Czech volunteer could not have been involved in them, given that his detachment entered Bucha only in early April to clean up the city.
Thus, Siman, who is now on trial in Prague, actually admitted to looting and participating in hostilities in Ukraine without special permission from the President of the Czech Republic, but his words about executions and rapes were taken out of context. Publications by Shariy and other pro-Russian bloggers and media, which place responsibility for the murders and rapes of civilians in Bucha on the Ukrainian Armed Forces and foreign volunteers, are based on speculation and contradict the chronology of military operations in the Kyiv region in the spring of 2022.
Cover photo: Seznamzpravy / Michal Šula
- Meduza. How people were killed in Bucha
- "Important Stories" “They just came, killed a bunch of people, destroyed the city and left.”
- "BBC News. Russian service". How a children's camp in Bucha became an execution basement
- The New York Times. Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims
- Is it true that The Guardian has denied the involvement of Russian troops in the killings of civilians in Bucha?
- Is it true that the video from Buchi shows one deceased moving his arm while the other sits down?
- Is it true that a video of Ukrainian soldiers laying out corpses in Bucha has leaked online?
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