On March 5, the Trostianets District Court of Sumy Oblast issued a guilty verdict against the russian “commandant of Boromlya,” who in 2022 staged a mock execution of a civilian woman, the mother of a Ukrainian soldier.
What is known about the perpetrator
Bakhmanov Mykhailo Anatoliyovych (born June 3, 1982) is a native of Donetsk who voluntarily joined the armed forces of the russian federation. At the time of the crime, he served as commander of a rifle battalion of a rifle regiment in the mobilization reserve of the 1st army corps of the 8th army of the russian armed forces. He introduced himself to local residents using the call sign “Medved” and called himself the “village commandant.”
Investigators established his identity in particular through photographs taken on a phone stolen from a local resident. The images were automatically uploaded to the owner’s cloud account.
Circumstances of the crime
On March 19, 2022, at about 10 a.m., the convict, together with a group of armed russian servicemen, arrived at a private house in the village of Boromlya, where an elderly woman lived with her husband and minor grandson. The soldiers were looking for her son, an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a veteran of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). “Medved” threatened to kill him if he found him.
The russians behaved aggressively, threatened to kill everyone and blow up the house, and even fired at a well because they suspected the soldier might be hiding there.
During the search, “Medved” ordered the woman to hand over all her mobile phones. Fearing for her life, she complied and handed over two devices — a Bravis C281 Wide and a Samsung GT-E1200i with SIM cards worth a total of 562 hryvnias. The phones were never returned, leaving the family temporarily without communication with the outside world.
After failing to find the soldier and not receiving any information about his whereabouts, the russians threatened to take the woman’s minor grandson with them. She asked them to take her instead.
The soldiers then took the woman to a pond on the outskirts of the village in the direction of Sumy. There, “Medved” ordered her to walk toward a pit while he and another soldier followed behind with their weapons aimed at her. She was again threatened with death if she did not reveal where her son was hiding. When she replied that she did not know, she was forced to kneel facing the pit.
Three shots were fired. She did not see who fired them because her back was turned, but she perceived the situation as a real execution.
Sentence
The victim and her grandson independently identified “Medved” in photographs. Two other local residents and a firefighter who had personally spoken with the commander also recognized him. A ballistic examination confirmed that the shell casings found by the victim at the scene were 5.45 mm Kalashnikov rifle ammunition. Intelligence data also confirmed that this officer commanded a battalion stationed in the area at the time.
After reviewing the evidence, the court found Bakhmanov guilty under Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of the laws and customs of war committed by a group of persons in prior conspiracy — and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.