They send rockets to their birthplaces and children. Generals from Ukraine are also directing the Russian attacks

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It is no secret that people of Ukrainian nationality are fighting on the side of the aggressor in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And that the Russians are also fighting for Kiev.

However, the investigative website Slidstvo.info has now found three high-ranking commanders of the Russian army who are of Ukrainian origin – and directly manage combat operations directed against their native country. They are shelling the Ukrainian cities where they grew up and where their relatives or acquaintances still live. Their Ukrainian roots were previously pointed out by the Myrotvorec project, journalists have now linked their names to specific places where the units under their command operated, and mapped the assets and family relationships of the commanders.

The first of them is Lieutenant General Vladimir Mashevsky. He was born 54 years ago in Dymer, which is located in the Kyiv region. In February 2022, Russian troops began to occupy the city – residents were held captive, tortured and killed. “According to the investigating authorities, native Mashevsky was the one who at the beginning of the invasion ordered Russian troops to ‘break through’ the state border of Ukraine and attack towns and villages in the Kyiv region,” wrote the author of the article, Janina Kornienková.

Under Maševský’s leadership, the Russians seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and occupied towns such as Dymer, Borodjanka, Hostomel and Buča. The Russian murder and torture of civilians in Bucha in March 2022 became a symbol of the brutality of Russian action in Ukraine. After pushing out the Russian occupiers, Ukrainian forces found bodies scattered in the streets, discovered mass graves.

Massacre in Buča

Mashevsky, who in the past managed the protection of Rosatom facilities and state military-industrial complexes, became involved in Ukraine already at the time of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Already in 2014 and 2015, according to findings of Slidstva.info, he regularly flew to Rostov-on-Don, which is the closest Russian airport to the Ukrainian border. At that time, the most active “militia” fights were taking place in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In recent years, he was responsible for manning Ukrainian nuclear facilities.

In April 2023, he then met with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi in Kaliningrad, with whom he discussed the security situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Russian troops in March 2022.

“Mashevsky has one son – Roman. Today he works as a fashion photographer in Moscow. He cooperates with Russian fashion magazines, betting offices and airlines. He also travels a lot – during the invasion of Ukraine he managed to fly to France, Iceland or Japan,” says journalist Kornienková.

He adds that Mashevsky is therefore fighting against his former fellow citizens in Ukraine, because his family is “safe” in Russia – or somewhere in the world.

This makes him different from another native of Ukraine, Russian army general Vadim Klimenko. He is at war in the area where his own children live.

Vadim Klimenko comes from the village of Prosyana, which is located in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine. “He joined the ranks of the Russian army long before 2014 (annexation of Crimea, note ed.) – already in 1999 he distinguished himself in the war in Chechnya as a member of the naval brigade of the Black Sea Fleet, then served in the 40th independent naval brigade in Kamchatka. He has the title of ‘Hero of Russia,'” the open source intelligence (OSINT) experts described on social media some time ago.

He later commanded the 7th Russian military base in Abkhazia. It is a separatist region of Georgia, which Russia has occupied since 2008.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war in Ukraine in March 2022, Klimenko’s unit settled in the Zaporozhye region in the city of Enerhodar, which is located near the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Regular power outages caused by Russian shelling made safe operation of the power plant impossible.

“One of the captured majors from Klimenko’s military unit confirmed in August 2022 that Klimenko led the unit,” writes Slidstvo.info.

In 2023, Klimenko was promoted to general for his military merits. He is fighting in Ukraine despite the fact that he has two minor children and an ex-wife in the Dnepropetrovsk region.

And thirdly, there is Colonel Igor Svarkovskij. He is currently the commander of the coastal forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. He is therefore responsible for the offensive in the south of Ukraine and the shelling of Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

According to the Myrotvorec server, he previously served as the chief of the missile troops and artillery of the Army Corps of the Russian Defense Forces.

Like Mashevsky, Svarkovsky flew to Russia during the annexation of Crimea and to Simferopol, a city located in the central part of the annexed peninsula. In 2019, he commanded the Victory Day parade in occupied Simferopol. “The following year, he earned two million rubles with the Black Sea Fleet,” journalist Janina Kornienková found out.

In 2024, soldiers of the 126th Independent Coastal Defense Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, which reports to Svarkovsky, brutally murdered a man in the temporarily occupied Kherson region. “The suspects brutally beat a 64-year-old man in his yard. The victim subsequently hid in the house, but the attackers followed him and shot him with automatic weapons,” wrote the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office on social networks.

In addition to probable war crimes, Svarkovsky’s origin also links him to Ukraine. The colonel was born in the Poltava region, later studied at the Sumy Artillery School. He subsequently moved to Russia, where he began to build a military career and married the Ukrainian Lina Svarkovská. According to the available photos, she apparently lives in occupied Crimea and supports the Russian takeover of the peninsula.

Svarkovská is relatively active on social networks, where she mainly shares her hobby – dancing. On her Instagram profile, however, you can also find photos from vacations with her husband Igor and daughter Valerij.

Valerija studied at the Kyiv University of Trade and Economics until 2016. During the annexation of Crimea, she allegedly sided with Ukraine. In the description of her profile, Valerija has written: “Ukraine in the passport, the world in the heart.”

According to the Ukrainian portal Slidstvo, she should currently reside in Germany. Svarkovski’s daughter is thus probably far from the trenches and shelling.