The International Brigade

Most Serb fighters joined the International Brigade, also known as ‘Pyatnashka’, which, according to its official Vkontakte social media account, is fighting in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

According to the court documents, nine convicted Serbs, including Milosevic, who were fighting for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine were part of this unit.

The papers also mention Nikola Perovic as one of the people who trained Serbian fighters for the International Brigade. The court papers do not specify whether he is among the convicted.

In a 2014 report published by the French newspaper Le Monde, Perovic is described as French-Serbian and is quoted as saying: “We will very soon leave for eastern Ukraine to fight alongside our Russian brothers”.

The International Brigade claims to have been first formed by 15 “volunteers from Russia” but soon more people joined.

“The brigade participated in almost all the breakthroughs of the army of New Russia on all fronts… it was engaged first in defence and then in driving out the enemy from the territory of the Donetsk airport,” reads the unit description on its Vkontakte account.

According to the court documents, Serbian members of the International Brigade were physically and tactically trained and also learned how to use weapons in eastern Ukraine.

Serbian fighters in this unit were given uniforms, automatic rifles and ammunition. They were in charge of guarding checkpoints and defending fighter positions. They also secured buildings and unloaded humanitarian aid.

BIRN sent questions about Serbian fighters to the International Brigade official email, but received no reply by the time of publishing.

Perovic has also been connected to the Unité Continentale by the Paris-based news portal World Crunch in an article published in 2014, in which Perovic was described as holding dual French and Serbian citizenship and having previously served as a master corporal in a French battalion that fought in Afghanistan.

On its official Facebook page, the Unité Continentale [Unit Continental] publishes news from the battlefield where, it says, it fights with the International Brigade. The unit also posts in the Serbian language and shares news on developments in Kosovo-Serbia relations.

Milosevic, who served with the Serbian Army between 2006 and 2012, told BIRN he first came to Donbass between October 2014 and January 2015 to fight with the International Brigade to “join the brothers in Donbass and help”.

He says his flight – via Moscow – was paid for by Unité Continentale, which he says helps Serbs to travel to Ukraine in order to fight. Unwilling to give full details of his route to Donbass, he describes the journey as difficult and that for one stretch: “You have to run, really fast, with everything you have on you, for about a kilometre and a half.”

Milosevic claims the Unité Continentale receives financial support from beyond Serbia to support its foreign fighters but says he later moved to the Prizrak Unit following a dispute over money with Unité Continentale.

BIRN emailed questions to the official email address of the Unité Continentale but did not receive a response by the time of publishing.

The Seventh Brigade

The documents show three convicted Serbs fought as members of this unit. According to the verdicts, Serbs in this unit were given automatic rifles and were tasked with securing buildings in Donetsk in 2015.

Some of them drove Soviet era T-64 tanks and combat vehicles. According to the Ukrainian authorities, this unit fought mostly in Donetsk city. The documents name one Nikola Jovic as fighting for this brigade. BIRN was unable to independently verify his identity.

According to the court documents, Jovic joined the brigade in March 2015 and received weapons and ammunition to fight in eastern Ukraine. However, he only stayed until April when he returned to Serbia. Six months later, he pleaded guilty and was handed a one-year suspended jail term.

The Serbian-Hussar Regiment

This unit was previously called the Oplot Unit but later changed its name. Serbs in this unit were tasked with securing facilities and were under the command of the recently killed Alexander Zakharchenko.

Zakharchenko’s death on August 31 was mourned among pro-Russian Serbian nationalists.

According to the court papers, seven Serbian citizens fought in the Serbian-Hussar Regiment including one named as Stefan Knezevic, said to be in charge of securing military facilities and receiving weapons and ammunition. He spent five months in Ukraine. BIRN has not been able to confirm this fighter’s identity.

Dimitrije Jojic, a Serb who was killed in Syria in June 2017, was also listed as having fought for this unit. According to the Serbian daily news outlet Blic, Jojic was killed while fighting on the pro-Russian side against jihadists.

He was buried in Moscow on June 28, 2017. On the same day, members of Serbia’s Vojvodina football fan club Firma (‘the Company’), held a special ceremony in the northern city of Novi Sad, where Jojic lived before going to Ukraine.