- A secretive Ukrainian unit says its focus includes killing Russian officers, according to CNN.
- Their goal is to erode Russian morale and bring chaos and mistrust into Russian ranks, it said.
- It’s not clear how many officers they’ve killed, but many senior Russians have died in the conflict.
A group of ex Ukrainian soldiers who formed a secretive fighting group say they are focused on killing Russian officers in order to destroy Russian morale, a new report says.
CNN spoke with members of the group, who it said are all former soldiers with specialist skills.
The group, which was not named in the report, was formed in the early days of Russia’s invasion, which started in February 2022, and operates under Ukraine’s intelligence organizations, CNN reported.
Its assignments have included killing Russian officers, with the aim of creating fear, chaos, and mistrust in Russia’s ranks, CNN said.
One member, with the call sign Brabus, described a killing in early March, when he said the group was near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after intelligence suggested Russia was swapping over units there.
This change meant an increase in the number of officers in the area, including ones not familiar with the terrain who were more likely to make mistakes.
Brabus, who showed CNN video footage from the fighting there, said he eliminated paratroopers “from the left flank.”
He said he killed seven Russians that day, though it is not clear what their rank was.
He also said that “I kill a lot of Russians, a lot” with a modified 12.7 Soviet-era heavy machine gun.
Russian officers have suffered an unusually high death toll in the conflict.
While the exact number is unclear, experts said last year that the number of kills confirmed by Russia, Ukraine, or Western intelligence is at levels not seen since World War II.
And those deaths are continuing.
Russia’s defense ministry said in May that two senior Russian commanders were killed near Bakhmut, while a Russian occupation official said this month that a top Russian general had been killed by Ukrainian missile strikes near Zaporizhzhia.
CNN described Brabus’ group as “part of a shadowy tapestry of units falling under various Ukrainian intelligence organizations.”
Other such groups include Russians who oppose President Vladimir Putin and have claimed responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.
The group CNN interviewed started from “small bands of men in pickups” who worked as reconnaissance units with anti-tank rockets, it said, and who “ambushed, trapped, and picked off invading Russian columns down main arteries running in from the north.”
Many died, CNN reported.
Some of the units were formally absorbed into Ukraine’s military structures, it said. It’s not clear what the exact relationship is between Brabus’ group and Ukraine’s military.
Brabus’ commander told CNN that there was a “big role for small groups” at the start of the war, because they could “fight covertly against the Russians” in the forested regions where much of the fighting was taking place.
“So, the role of small groups was important and grew fast,” he said.
