The tweet is like hundreds that appear on Twitter, making a claim without a link that is hard to prove — that certain Russian combatants are fighting in Ukraine and killing Ukrainians.

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Translation: A KPRF deputy sends his greetings to the SBU from Donbass. The KPRF is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Before long, this tweet without a link or any other information gets a bit embellished in the translation because the bloggers from the region have a context that a Westerner might not have:

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The first tweet shows a screenshot of the deputy’s home page on the muncipal legislature of Sergiyev Posad — his name is Denis Akhromkin. Is he fighting in Ukraine now and killing Ukrainians? We know it to be a generally true fact that there are Russian volunteers and regular soldiers fighting in Ukraine because we’ve documented

many such cases not only of Russian armor coming into Ukraine, but also

Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, such as those on this list of more

than 250 “Cargo 200” — the Russian military term for soldiers killed in

combat whose bodies are returned to Russia — or buried in the war zone

with an Orthodox cross and only the name “Ivan.” Can such stories which so often come on Twitter without any links

to their sources be confirmed? Many of the details can, but we cannot

definitely prove that Denis Akhromkin is in fact in combat killing Ukrainians —

although he has been caught bragging this on posts since removed, and

there are many pictures of him armed, in combat zones — and as we shall see, independent Russian journalist Andrei Trofimov has asked a lot of hard questions and come up with some more relevant context. The problem with VKontakte and other social media is that they can

be very misleading and sometimes deliberately so and by themselves,

aren’t enough to establish a claim. Thousands of such accounts are now

being assiduously mined by an army of bloggers in Ukraine, Russia and

the West to prove that Russia invaded Ukraine and uses both volunteer

and regular army in Ukraine.And thousands of accounts are also being

created by wannabees and provocateurs who would

like to discredit journalists. The presence of “Lost Ivan” can be proved in other ways, also using

social media or from the eye-witness accounts of Western journalists.

Despite limitations, VK has proven to be a useful resource although not

always as definitively as it may seem at first. Local journalists on the

ground willing to cover the war and ask hard questions who take

incredible risks have also been needed to run these stories to ground. Contrary to what pro-Kremlin trolls say, Akhromkin does exist, is a

member of the local city legislature — not the State Duma — in

Sergiyev Posad, a town in Moscow region famous for its monasteries.

Akhromkin appears to work at the Emergencies Ministry (Emercom) — he is shown in pictures and newspaper articles in the uniform and gear of this ministry — and as a volunteer patroller and possibly in

that capacity has a legal firearms license. He has a tattoo of the “Militant Russia” mixed martial arts club and a friend in a “Novorossiya” t-shirt featuring Col. Igor Strelkov. Akhromkin is a member of

several organizations including the People’s Militia which is an

auxiliary to the police. He has traveled to Moscow to lobby for the new

law on druzhinniki which would give them more powers and make it

possible to fine citizens who resist their “lawful orders” face

punishment by fines. Akhromkin with deputies in the State Duma lobbying for the druzhinniki law. Photo by Alternativnaya Gazeta Is he in fact a member of the Communist Party? This was questioned by some Twitter members but while not immediately evident, it was eventually confirmed. The Moscow Regional Chapter of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) has written about him,

describing a clash he had with a Tajik labor migrant who hung out his

underwear to dry on a clothesline. In a “think of the children” moment

and drawing on his existing practice as a “cleanser” of “illegal

immigrants,” Akhromkin informed that man that his laundry was in view of

a children’s playground and he had to take it down. The man resisted, words were exchanged, and at one point the

migrant was said to take off his pants to graphically show Akhromkin

what he thought of such concerns, and then popped him over the head with

a bottle, although Akhromkin was not seriously injured. The police were

summoned — and all of it was captured on tape as yet another

successful “round-up” of a “churok,” as Central Asians are pejoratively called by such Russians.



article happens to show Akhromkin’s campaign poster for the KPRF where

not surprisingly he campaigns on the issues of “Migrants, Housing and

Law and Order” Thisarticle happens to show Akhromkin’s campaign poster for the KPRF wherenot surprisingly he campaigns on the issues of “Migrants, Housing andLaw and Order”

Photo by Andrei Trofimov Alternativnaya Gazeta Akhromkin is a member of a group with a VKontakte page called “Dezinsektor”

whose name appears to be based on the Russian words for “disinfectant”

and “sector” whose motto is: “We catch illegals, we force the organs to work” —

meaning the police and intelligence agencies — although some might be

thinking of the Tajik migrant’s defiant gesture. From news accounts and his VK page, we can see Akhromkin is very active in bringing “humanitarian aid” to southeastern Ukraine. But is he one of those fighters who smuggles himself and arms into Ukraine under guise of the Red Cross, as described by this veteran in Yekaterinburg who admitted he misused the local Red Cross organization in this fashion? Here’s Akhromkin standing in a telnyashka, a Russian paratrooper’s t-shirt and a bullet-proof vest in front of a Ukrainian ambulance. What’s he doing there? This type of story is popular in Ukrainian and Western mainstream media right now but it isn’t necessarily true — in fact Newsweek has just run a story that is based on a faulty account by NVUA.net and Ukrinform which we explained here and here and which ultimately led to the head of the Moscow Red Cross to refute the story that he had claimed such Russian volunteers and arms were being smuggled into Ukraine in white “humanitarian aid” trucks — and to denounce Ukrainian journalists who ran this story. Yet, as we pointed out, the debunkers failed to take into account that the Moscow Red Cross in fact had been critical of how humanitarian aid was being brought into Ukraine, and in fact there were reports of fighters smuggling themselves into Ukraine in vehicles bearing the red cross. The pictures on Akhromkin’s VKontakte account do show him posing with guns, though it is uncertain if they were legally obtained in relationship to his Emercom work or druzhinnik activity. They show him posing in Krasnodon, Ukraine, with Afghan war veterans and separatist fighters. They show him posing with the infamous Russian-backed battalion commander nick-named “Motorola” who has twice broken his arm in combat – he appears to be in the ruins of the Donetsk Airport. And here at the remains of the Saur-Mogila war memorial in the Donetsk region: As the pictures in the original tweet which we also confirmed are on his VK account indicate, he’s even posed by wreckage with the word “Donetsk.” Is is he going on assault runs on the airport? These pictures in fact are not proof he was actually in combat because of the propensity — particularly of paramilitary groups and nationalist groups from Russia — for people to want to pose and get souvenir pictures. Are there any other clues that could confirm he did fight in a war? Akhromkin is also shows pictures of graves of Russian soldiers who have died in battle — he writes on the caption “Glory to Russian warriors. These men were not arms dealers, for them it was a weapon of vengeance.” It’s not clear where they are buried, but the way in which their graves are lined up so closely with the standard wooden Orthodox crosses often used to bury such soldiers in Ukraine — it’s likely it is in Ukraine. At home, they would have a headstone. Disturbingly, he is shown

by an ICRC vehicle — again, is he one of these fighters smuggling himself and

his weapons into Ukraine under cover of the Red Cross? Or is he just making an aid delivery to this location:

Ultimately, it’s hard to prove that these pictures, even with camouflage and guns, mean this man in a militarized ministry and police auxiliary is in combat. He’s sitting on a camouflaged tank — but are sneakers the right foot gear for combat? But in the last week, Akhromkov appeared in sensational news reports by journalist Andrei Trofimov who claimed that Akhromkin and another man had been arrested at the Russian-Ukrainian border smuggling guns into Ukraine. Trofimov said he had tips from Russian law-enforcement about the arrest. In his first article, he didn’t mention any names and blacked out the faces of some militants in a photo, but when Akhromkin himself issued public denials, he then did mentioned the name of him and his friend. Akhromkin indignantly denied the charges to the local media and in a YouTube address.

Trofimov stuck to his story and reported further and printed another photograph, this time showing the face of Akhromkin and a buddy by a BTR: Trofimov writes that Akhromkin must have known who was detained at the border because he made the comment “I begged them in every way not to put out ideas of unlawful actions and withdrew from them.” And surely he knew when he said that he “never had” any relationship to unlawful activity that he himself had a record for sentencing for unlawful weapons possession — which he didn’t report to the police. If he did, reasons Trofimov, and he was the one who informed on Yury Prudenko (seen above), with whom he had traveled to Ukraine, why did he begin blustering and denying? Prudenko himself wrote angrily in the comments of Trofimov’s article that they were simply inspected at the border, no weapons were found. Yury Prudenko. Photo via Alternativnaya Gazeta

Now the story was starting to look a little less like “humanitarian aid drop-off” and more like “combat tourism” in Ukraine. But why were FSB agents informing a blogger of an effort to stop something that in fact they’ve shielded their eyes from — and participated in — for most of this year? Is this the famous “dumping of Novorossiya” that Col. Strelkov always frets about? Trofimov then went even further and went to get a videotaped interview with Akhromkin and Prudenko.