Murders in Andriivka 2022
Critical reporting
On June 17, 2024, a Moscow court issued arrest warrants for editor-in-chief Roman Alexandrovich Anin (°1986), founder of the investigative journalism website Важные истории [Vazhniye istoriii or Important Stories, and for journalist Yekaterina Georgievna Fomina (°1992), a contributor to TV Dozhd and Important Stories, and winner of several international journalism awards. Anin and Fomina were accused of «spreading false information» about the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. In August 2022, Fomina published an investigative report and a video in Important Stories about war crimes during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the massacre of civilians in Butcha and the more northerly village of Andriivka, under the title The Commander Gave the Order: «They Must Be Destroyed».
Roman Aleksandrovich Anin
Based on this video, both Anin and Fomina were sentenced on March 31, 2025, to 8.5 years in prison and banned from blogging for 3 years. Since the journalists work in Latvia, the sentence was pronounced in absentia and will be calculated «from the moment of their arrest or deportation to the Russian Federation».
Yekaterina Georgievna Fomina
As part of her investigation, Yekaterina Fomina also interviewed Russian Corporal Daniil Andreevich Frolkin, a mechanic-machinist of the 64th Motorised Rifle Brigade of the 51460th Military Unit, who participated in the Andriivka events. Frolkin was sentenced to 5.5 years of probation by the Chabarovsk Garrison Military Court on charges of «disseminating false information about the Russian Armed Forces».
They Must Be Destroyed
Some terms from the documentary
Moonshine is - still - one of the many home-made alcoholic beverages in Russia. It has the reputation of being the most harmful of them all and is also called the beggar's drink because it costs little to distill.
Load 200 is the code commonly used in Russia to indicate the load of trucks that repatriate dead bodies from the battlefield.