Artillerymen of the Russian 7th Military Base involved in the cross-border shelling of Ukraine in September-November 2014 have been identified.

The goal of a new OSINT investigation by InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community was discovery and identification of Russian artillery servicemen of the 7th Military Base (military unit 09332, Gudauta, occupied Abkhazia, Georgia, 49th Army of the Southern Military District of Russia). As part of the combined rocket and gun artillery battalion, they were involved in the shelling of Ukrainian cities, villages, and Ukrainian Army positions from late August to December 2014. We were able to identify 21 of the 35 soldiers of this military detachment, who brought death and destruction to the Ukrainian soil and left their dirty trail in social networks.

Identification of the Russian war criminals was carried out using group photos found in social network profiles of servicemen of the 7th Military Base, veterans of “Rostov-Ukraine missions”, from late August to early December 2014, as well as photos that we had published earlier. In particular, on October 2, 2014 InformNapalm published the article on a “wandering battery” of 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers belonging to the 7th Military Base. It was spotted with live ammunition a couple of kilometers away from the state border with Ukraine (Donetsk Oblast), in the wooded field camp near the village of Ekaterinovka of Matveyev-Kurgan Raion of Rostov Oblast. On December 18, 2014 , InformNapalm published another article spotting a rocket artillery detachment of Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) of the 7th Military Base, this time in Kuibyshev Raion of Rostov Oblast, which borders Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine.

It is noteworthy that on February 3, 2015, the Russian independent newspaper RBC published an article titled Reluctant service: conscripts pressed to sign contracts and go to Rostov. It featured, among other things, contract artillerymen from the 7th Military Base who deserted after the “Rostov mission”. The soldiers in the 7th Military Base spent several months in Rostov Oblast, the newspaper noted. The artillerymen withheld the details of their missions referring to the “non-disclosure document” they signed. RBC showed photos of the soldiers of a rocket battery of the 7th Military Base published previously by InformNapalm. It features the artillerymen posing against the backdrop of Grad MRLS with ammunition at the border with Ukraine. There are two unnamed RBC interviewees among them. The article also discusses the death at the border with Ukraine of Anatoly Terekhov, a contract soldier of the 7th Military Base. We reported about him and the “Rostov-Ukraine mission” of the detachments of the 7th Military Base in September, 2014.

The topic of cross-border shelling of Ukraine from the territory of Russia in the summer and fall of 2014 received ample coverage by a number of reputable international media. It also featured in InformNapalm materials, together with publications on Russian artillery units which crossed the state border of Ukraine.

So we identified most of the artillerymen of the 7th Military Base involved in the shelling of Ukraine by their group photos from the period of “Rostov-Ukraine missions 2014”. They include photos #39 and #40 posted in December 2014 in the album of the soldier we will discuss below, as well as photos from September-November period published previously by InformNapalm.

Identified artillerymen of the 7th Military Base

Sergey Lunin

Born on October 18, 1995 in the city of Anapa, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base. His album contains photo series from the period of the “Rostov-Ukraine mission 2014”, including group shots of artillerymen (# 39, # 40) and a screenshot of the damning InformNapalm publication.

Archives: VK 1 (profile, photo album, contacts), VK 2 (profile, photo album, contacts)

Kalyan Solomidenko

Born October 05, 1995 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Vlad Bykov

Born May 30 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Shomka Muchipov

Born in 1995 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album,contacts), OK ( profile, photo album, contacts).

Nikolay Zakharov

Born in the city of Penza, Russia. As of 2012-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Oleg Demsky

Born October 29 in the city of Barnaul, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK 1 (profile, photo album, contacts), VK 2 (profile, photo album, contacts)

Serge “Wise” Beradze

Born August 25 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Vitaly Serbayev

Born December 3 in the village of Perelyub, Saratov Oblast. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Dmitry Koval

Born January 11 in the city of Novosibirsk, Russia. As of 2014 in active service with the 7th Military Base. In 2016 he graduated from a warrant officer school in St. Petersburg.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Andrey Bulgakov

Born December 15, 1992 in the city of Saratov, Russia. As of 2014 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album).

Stanislav Lyovin

Born August 21, 1994 in the city of Krasnodar, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Roman Ivanov

Born July 20, 1993 in the city of Uryupinsk, Russia. As of 2012-2015 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, photos of 2015).

Nikita Holuev

Born April 05, 1989 in the settlement of Bobrovskiy, Sysert Raion, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. A graduate of Yekaterinburg Higher Artillery Command School. As of 2012-2016 an officer with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album,contacts), OK ( profile, photo album, contacts).

Anton Petrov

Born in the village of Biyavash, Perm Krai, Russia. A graduate of Kazan Higher Artillery Command School and Mikhailovskaya Artillery Military Academy. As of 2012-2016 an officer with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Andrey Varenik

Born on March 29, 1994 in the city of Tuapse, Russia. As of 2014-2015 in active service with the 7th Military Base. His photo album contains photo series (# 27, # 31), from the period of “Rostov-Ukraine mission 2014”.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Aleksandr Aliyev

Born October 05, 1995 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2014 in active service with the 7th Military Base. His photo album contains photo series from the period of “Rostov-Ukraine mission 2014” with a store of ammunition (# 2, # 4), geotagged – Matveyev-Kurgan Raion of Rostov Oblast, 2 km from the Ukrainian border.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Aleksandr Semyonov

Born May 25, 1995 in the city of Yoshkar-Ola, Russia. As of 2012-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base. In September 2016, he was awarded a certificate of merit by the Commander of the Southern Military District (No. 3).

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Sergey Layevsky

Born March 05, 1994 in the city of Omsk, Russia. As of 2013 -2015 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Ilya Efremov

Born in 1994 in the city of Perm, Russia. As of 2013-2015 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

Dmitry Lung (Berkut, Ivanov)

Born September 05, 1991 in the city of Donetsk, Rostov Oblast, Russia. As of 2014-2016 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album,contacts), OK ( profile, photo album, contacts).

Georgy Kiselev

Born December 20, 1985 in the city of Saransk, Russia. As of 2014-2015 in active service with the 7th Military Base.

Archives: VK (profile, photo album, contacts).

At least 10 of the 21 identified artillerymen that participated in “Rostov-Ukraine missions of 2014” are active military personnel and continue to serve at the 7th Russian Military Base in occupied Abkhazia. Some have been spotted in the battalion tactical groups of the 7th Military Base, which has been on combat duty at the border with Ukraine in Rostov Oblast of the Russian Federation since 2014.

Personnel and armament of the 7th Military Base of the Russian occupation forces The 7th Krasnodar Red Banner Order of Kutuzov and the Red Star Military Base, military unit 09332 (Gudauta, occupied Abkhazia, Georgia), includes: Structure – Command; – Four mechanized infantry battalions; – Sniper company; – MBT battalion; – Two self-propelled artillery battalions and one battery of towed howitzers; – Rocket artillery battalion; – Antitank artillery battalion; – Antiaircraft missile battalion and an antiaircraft artillery missile battalion (parts of the so-called Anti-aircraft battalion group of the 7th Military Base); – Reconnaissance battalion; – UAV company; – Engineer battalion; – NBC protection company; – Control (communications) battalion; – EW company; – Control and artillery reconnaissance battery (of the artillery commander); – Control and radar reconnaissance platoon (of the air defense commander); – Control Platoon (of the reconnaissance commander); – Maintenance battalion; – Logistics battalion; – Headquarters company; – Medical company; – Military advisers platoon; – Training simulator platoon; – Training range; – Brass band. The military base also includes a so-called aviation command office providing ground support for periodic flights of the Russian Airforce planes to the airfield in Gudauta; an anti-aircraft missile regiment (formerly the 100th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, military unit 90100), consisting of 2 SAM battalions in Agudzera and Primorskoye, which have 8 units of S-300 SAM’s on combat alert (make part of the so-called anti-aircraft battalion group of the 7th military base). The base also has an electronic technical unit with alert facilities deployed on the airfield of Sukhumi Babushara Airport. Armament: – T-90A and T-72B3 main battle tanks – 41 pcs. (51 pcs. according to other sources); – BTR-82AM and BTR-80 armored personnel carriers – 156 pcs.; – MT-LB light multi-purpose armored towing vehicles – 15 pcs.; – BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher systems – 18 pcs.; – 2S3M Akatsiya 152-mm self-propelled howitzers – 36 pcs.; – D-30 122-mm self-propelled howitzers – 6 pcs.; – 2S12 Sani 120-mm mortars – 18 pcs.; – MT-12 Rapira 100mm anti-tank guns – 12 pcs.; – Shturm-S self-propelled anti-tank missile systems – 12 pcs.; – BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance vehicles – 4 pcs.; – 9A33BM2(3) Osa surface-to-air missile systems (SAM) – 12 pcs.; – 9A34(35) Strela-10 SAM’s on armored vehicle mounts – 6 pcs.; – 2S6M Tunguska self-propelled anti-aircraft guns – 6 pcs.; – 9K38 Igla man portable surface-to-air missiles – 27 pcs.;

The armament of the base also includes S-300PM SAM launchers – 16 pcs. In addition, in accordance with an agreement on joint armed forces between the Russian Federation and unrecognized Republic of Abkhazia signed in Moscow on November 21, 2015, two mechanized infantry battalions, artillery and aviation groups, as well as a separate special operations group have been attached by Abkhazia to the 7th Military Base. Except for a few of our additions, this note is based on the data from milkavkaz.net.

Judging by the number of our publications featuring military unit 09332, the 7th Military Base beats all previous records and is the most active military unit of the Russian Army in Ukraine. Read more:

The databases of identified Russian military personnel and evidence of their involvement in the fighting in Ukraine on the side of the Russian-terrorist forces are available here: https://informnapalm.org/en/category/top-investigations/

This publication was prepared on the basis of an OSINT-investigation by InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community. Author Irakli Komaxidze

Translated by Artem Velichko

Edited by Max Alginin

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