Information about the raid was first announced on June 25 via the Facebook page of the press center for Ukraine’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO).

The information in this release was similar to that shared by Kiriyenko the following day: both sources mention that four men were captured, one was killed, and two of the casualties were Russian citizens. The information in the release also included a list of seized weapons.

The second Russian, who was killed during the raid, was Aleksandr Shcherba. This man was reportedly the leader of the group.

While the ATO Press Center’s release and the June 26 report by Kiriyenko do not contradict one another, there are additional reports from Ukrainian journalists that describe different circumstances related to the incident. (The best summary of these can be found on the Ukrainian news site GordonUA). Yury Butusov, who is perhaps the most plugged-in journalist when it comes to the Ukrainian military, reported on his Facebook page that Ukrainian soldiers attacked the Russian/separatist diversion group with knives in the late morning of June 24.

The destruction of the Russian diversion group was carried out with an special degree of boldness and cold-bloodedness. They used knives to slaughter not some kind of inexperienced mercenaries, but Russian Spetsnaz forces. And the attack, judging by the messages on Russian forums, was carried out at 10am — with the expectation that a weary night guard will relax the enemy, and they would not expect an attack.

Officials from a Ukrainian military unit denied that knives were used, in a Facebook post.

Butusov also reported on his site, censor.net, that, according to sources on a separatist web forum, Ukrainian soldiers cut out the eyes of at least two Russian/separatist fighters. This information has not been confirmed, and has been repeated by Luhansk separatist officials. A handful of extremely graphic photographs have appeared online. They supposedly show two Russian/separatist fighters who died during the raid, but these materials have not yet been verified.

There are multiple accounts, and alleged corroborating photographs, that Ukrainian forces killed two killed Russian/separatist fighters, rather than one, as previously reported. According to Andriy Tsaplienko, a journalist with the Ukrainian news outlet TSN, the Russian commander Aleksandr Shcherba was the target of the raid, and that a second man was killed alongside Shcherba.

Viktor Ageyev

After his initial capture, statements from both the Ukrainian and Russian governments, and an interview with Ageyev himself and his mother, there is a lot of information to process and contextualize about the supposed Russian serviceman.

What is clear is that Viktor Ageyev is a 22-year old Russian citizen who was fighting with Luhansk separatists when he was captured. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on June 28 that Ageyev “had never served in Russia’s armed forces under contract and was discharged from draft duty last year.” This information coincides somewhat with the military identification card that was shared on Facebook on June 26, showing that he was studying gas welding in a college and carried out his year of conscription service at Military Unit 65246 at Novocherkassk in Russia’s Rostov Oblast.

Ageyev (far-left) in 2016 while serving in the Russian Armed Forces. This photograph was taken and uploaded before the alleged start of his contract service.

The crux of the story is what Ageyev did after his year of conscription service, which ended in 2016. If Russia’s Ministry of Defense is to be believed, Ageyev had no further relationship with the Russian Armed Forces after the end of his conscription service and went off to join the Luhansk separatists with no assistance from Russian officials. However, both Viktor Ageyev and his mother have said that he signed on as a contract soldier in 2017, which would have made him an active Russian serviceman at the time of his capture in Ukraine. The BBC Russian Service reports that the minimum term for a Russian contract soldier is two or three years. However, in 2016, a law was passed that allowed short-term military contracts, with terms up to one year. These shorter contracts allow the Russian Ministry of Defense to “quickly mobilize forces for particular tasks, which is important in the rapidly-changing world.”

Ageyev last contacted his mother on May 30, 2017 — about three weeks before his capture. His mother told the BBC Russian Service that he signed his contract on March 18, 2017 and was moved to a new military unit in Baltaysk in Rostov Oblast, which corresponds with the 22nd Independent Guards Brigade of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency (GRU). Ageyev himself confirmed on his VKontakte page on April 1, 2017 that he signed a contract — presumably referring to being a contract soldier for the Russian Armed Forces.