The Russian soldier suspected of ‘castrating a Ukrainian prisoner’ in a sickening video has been named after a detailed investigation by independent Russian journalists.
Respected independent Russian media The Insider named the alleged perpetrator Ochur-Suge Mongush, born in 1993.
Although Mongush denied the accusation when confronted with The Insider, they claim he “betrayed himself by getting confused in his own testimony.”
On July 28, a sickening video of the war crime surfaced, showing a soldier using a knife to remove the victim’s genitals and then holding them in front of the camera. The victim is later shot in the head.
The images were located at the Pryvillya Sanatorium in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, which fell under Russian control in early July.
Mongush told investigators from the British open source unit Bellingcat, which also tracked him down, that the FSB held him for two days while studying the videos, but concluded they were fake.
Respected independent Russian media The Insider named the alleged perpetrator of the castration of a Ukrainian prisoner of war as Ochur-Suge Mongush, born in 1993
Mongush claimed that he had never held a gun in his hands, but on his Vkontakte page (now deleted) he posted pictures with weapons
The insider said that “sadist” Mongush fought with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat battalion – something he denied, although he is present in the photos with the “Akhmat” fighters, including those in Chechnya.
He was identified by his signature cowboy hat and distinctive armband he wore in the offending video as well as in other clips that clearly show his face, which he admitted it was.
“When I was with them on the second day, they realized it wasn’t me and explained that Ukrainian soldiers did this themselves because the mutilated person raped a 10-year-old girl,” Mongosh explains by phone.
“They found him, punished him, and then someone found this…” [spliced-together] video and led to all this nonsense. (…) The FSB officers suddenly understood everything and let me go after two days.’
At the same time, he told The Insider – who was forced into exile by Putin’s government at the start of the war – that he had not tortured anyone and had never held a gun in his hands, but was simply accompanying Russian journalists.
However, both respected research firms claim to have conclusively proven that Mongush is the person who performed the castration.
He was identified by his signature cowboy hat and distinctive armband he wore in the offending video as well as in other clips that clearly show his face, which he has admitted to be him.
The Insider also said the man was identified through video analysis and modern facial recognition technology that had cleared any last doubts about his identity.
The “castrator” in Russian military uniform comes from the remote Republic of Tuva on the border with Outer Mongolia, the same region of Siberia as Putin’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
He also served in the Russian Ministry of Emergencies, once headed by Shoigu, which has overall responsibility for the Russian armed forces.
The insider said that “sadist” Mongush fought with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat battalion – something he denied, although he is present in the photos with the “Akhmat” fighters, including those in Chechnya.
He claimed that he had never held a gun in his hands, but on his Vkontakte page (now deleted) he posted photos with weapons.
Mongush admitted to being this man in the cowboy hat. The Insider also said the man was identified through video analysis and modern facial recognition technology that had cleared any last doubts about his identity.
Several other names of pro-Putin fighters had been previously identified by Ukrainian sources but were incorrect, both The Insider and Bellingcat say.
“The sadist who tortured the Ukrainian prisoner of war turned out to be a mercenary from the Akhmat battalion, Ochur-Suge Mongush,” The Insider said in a detailed report.
The grotesque images — showing no signs of manipulation — were initially approvingly posted by pro-Kremlin groups.
Later, as the scandal swirled around the scene, Russian groups dismissed them as fake, but now it seems the castration was real.
Image recognition led researchers to find social media accounts and phone numbers for Mongush.
The suspect told Bellingcat that he had returned from the war “more than a month ago” after serving with Kadyrov’s forces in Ukraine.
Russian journalists he met in Ukraine had sent him the violent castration videos shortly after they were widely published.
They said to him, “Look at the nonsense filmed about you.”
They urged him to make a statement to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which he did. The FSB seems to have given him a cover then.
Officers told him that the violent incident in the videos involved Ukrainian soldiers, not Russian soldiers, and that it was filmed after he left Ukraine.
Photos of the Azot plant used by researchers “are 100 percent mine, but the others aren’t…
“I’m not willing to do that kind of crap, I didn’t even fire a shot with the guns they gave me,” he said.
The “castrator” in Russian military uniform comes from the remote Republic of Tuva on the border with Outer Mongolia, the same region of Siberia as Putin’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (pictured)
Bellingcat said: “If it was Ukrainian soldiers in the video, as he says the FSB told him, he has not provided an explanation as to how these soldiers wore a strikingly similar hat, bracelet, ribbon and uniform when he was seen.” wear in other videos.
He also claimed that he never saw a white car, nor did Akhmat use the one filmed in the execution footage, despite being right next to it in [one] video.’
The insider also said Mongush’s denial was not credible.
‘If you believe Mongush, it turns out that the AFU [Ukrainian] fighters found a video of a certain rapist mocking a Ukrainian soldier, then edited for some reason to make the rapist look like Mongush, and with all the little details, including patterns on the hat and bracelets.”
It was unlikely that the Ukrainians “really wanted to discredit an unknown Tuvan for some reason.”
Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun, who tweeted the sickening images, said the war crime should be punished.
“Russia has to pay for it,” she said.
“Give Ukraine the weapons we need to end this nightmare once and for all. The world can’t pretend this isn’t happening.’