Ukrainian Teens That EU Says Were Tortured Killed by Russian Forces, Ukraine Reports

Two Ukrainian teenagers that the European Union said were tortured by Russian occupying forces in Zaporizhzhia Oblast were killed over the weekend, Kyiv’s human rights ombudsman and Russian officials said.

Tihran Ohannisian and Mykyta Khanhanov were gunned down on Saturday, June 24, in what Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said was a “battle” with Russian forces. Lubinets said the two, both born in 2006, killed a Russian soldier and police “collaborator” in the assault.

He posted a video of Ohannisian, holding a gun and displaying a bloody hand and a rifle on his lap. Ohannisian says, “Two for certain. It’s death, farewell,” and “Slava Ukraini” – “glory to Ukraine” – just before the footage stops.

On Saturday evening, Vladimir Rogov, a Ukrainian who holds a leadership position in the Russian administration Zaporizhzhia Oblast, posted that “two pro-Ukrainian terrorists were eliminated” in a shooting in the port city, and named Ohannisian.

According to a European Parliament resolution passed just days before their reported deaths, Russian officials in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast charged Ohannisian and Khanhanov with planning to sabotage the Berdyansk railway. Following their arrests in September 2022, both boys were subjected to beatings and electroshock torture to elicit confessions, and their families were harassed. They faced up to 20 years in prison.

The circumstances of their deaths were still unclear, but Ukrainian state broadcaster Suspilne reported on Tuesday that their families were still not permitted to view the bodies.

According to a city official cited in the report, the two boys were shot by Russian snipers. On Sunday, Maxim Zhorin, former commander of the Azov Battalion, lauded Ohannisian and Khanhanov as heroes, and Ivan Federov, the exiled Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, paid tribute to them.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO focused on forced disappearances and other war crimes in occupied parts of Ukraine, said on Monday that the pair had come under pressure again in recent weeks, and that Ohannisian had called his mother in Germany a few days before his death to say he could not find help in Berdyansk.

Lubinets has called their deaths extrajudicial killings. Credit: Dmytro Lubinets via Storyful