A military man involved in atrocities in the Ukrainian Bucha is suspected of fraud on an especially large scale.
Military counterintelligence officers of the FSB of the Russian Federation the commander of the 83rd Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade, Artem Gorodilov, was detained on suspicion of fraud on an especially large scale.
This is stated in the report of the Institute for the Study of War.
The detention took place in Ryazan, after which Gorodilova was taken to Moscow and handed over to the Main Military Investigation Department of the Investigative Directorate of the Russian Federation, which is investigating the case. In the criminal case, Gorodilov is being charged as the commander of an air assault regiment. It is unknown what kind of theft and for what amount the officer is charged (according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, “especially large amount” starts from 1 million rubles/11.3 thousand dollars).
“If Gorodilov was indeed the commander of the 83rd Airborne Brigade at the time of his arrest, then the Russian high command gave him enhanced responsibilities as the commander of a separate brigade, rather than a regiment subordinate to the division between the Russian atrocities in Bucha and the Russian President. Russia's Vladimir Putin and the Russian military command may be punishing Gorodilov for what Putin perceives as gross incompetence that failed to achieve his military goals, leading to the death of a significant number of “elite” Russian military personnel in the Kharkov direction,” experts write.
Analysts also recalled that Russian authorities recently arrested a number of Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and military officials on criminal charges that appear to be unrelated to their positions.
Gorodilov was the chief of staff, and in 2019 he became the commander of the 234th airborne assault regiment. According to an investigation by The New York Times, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this particular regiment was located in the city of Bucha near Kiev. In particular, as the publication claimed, military personnel from this unit were involved in the killings of civilians on Yablonskaya Street.
The NYT investigation identified the names of at least 22 servicemen from the 234th Regiment who were stationed in Bucha. Regimental commander Gorodilov appeared under the call sign “Uran”.
In 2023, the United States imposed personal sanctions against Gorodilov, banning him from entering the country.
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