On March 5, the Trostianets District Court of the Sumy region issued a guilty verdict against the Russian “commandant of Boromlia,” who in 2022 staged a mock execution of a civilian woman — the mother of a Ukrainian soldier. This was reported by the project “The Book of Executioners of the Ukrainian People,” according to the Prompolitinform portal.
What is known about the perpetrator
Mykhailo Anatoliiovych Bakhmanov (born June 3, 1982) — a native of Donetsk who voluntarily joined the armed forces of the Russian Federation. At the time of the crime, he served as the commander of a rifle battalion of a mobilization reserve regiment within the 1st Army Corps of the 8th Army of the Russian Armed Forces. He introduced himself to local residents using the call sign “Medved” (“Bear”) and called himself the “village commandant.”
Investigators were able to identify him in part thanks to photographs taken with a mobile phone stolen from a local resident: the images automatically synced with the owner’s cloud account.
Circumstances of the crime
On March 19, 2022, at around 10 a.m., the convicted man arrived with a group of armed Russian soldiers at a private house in Boromlia, where an elderly woman lived with her husband and underage grandson. The soldiers were looking for her son — an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a veteran of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). “Medved” threatened to slit his throat if he found him.
The Russians behaved aggressively, threatening to kill everyone and blow up the house. They even fired shots into a well, suspecting that the woman’s son might be hiding there.
During the search, “Medved” ordered the woman to hand over all mobile phones. Fearing for her life, she complied and gave them two devices — a Bravis C281 Wide and a Samsung GT-E1200i with SIM cards worth a total of 562 hryvnias. The phones were never returned, leaving the family temporarily cut off from communication with the outside world.
After failing to find the soldier and not receiving information about his whereabouts, the Russians threatened to take the woman’s underage grandson with them. She asked them to take her instead.
The soldiers then drove the woman to a pond on the outskirts of the village toward Sumy. There, “Medved” ordered her to walk toward an ice hole in the frozen water, while he and another soldier followed behind with their weapons aimed at her. She continued to be threatened with death if she did not reveal where her son was hiding. When she replied that she did not know, they forced her to kneel facing the ice hole. Three shots were fired. She did not see who fired them because she was facing away, but she perceived it as a real execution.
Verdict
The victim and her grandson independently identified “Medved” in photographs. Two other local residents and a firefighter who had personally spoken with the commander also recognized him. A ballistic examination confirmed that the shell casings found at the scene were live ammunition for Kalashnikov assault rifles of 5.45 mm caliber. Intelligence sources confirmed that this officer commanded the battalion stationed in the area.
After reviewing the evidence, the court found Bakhmanov guilty of committing a criminal offense under Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of the laws and customs of war committed by a group of persons acting in prior conspiracy — and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Photo: project “The Book of Executioners of the Ukrainian People”
