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Russian Major-General Pavel Klimenko, commander of the 5th Donetsk Motorized Rifle Brigade, has been killed in Ukraine. The message about his death appeared in a Russian pro-war group on the VKontakte social network titled “Donbas, the Heart of Russia” the independent publication IStories noticed. In the comments, Klimenko's death was confirmed by his sisters. The post was soon deleted due to the large number of negative comments, but a new post soon appeared — this time with comments disabled.
Klimenko commanded the 5th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade named after Alexander Zakharchenko (formerly the Oplot battalion of the so-called «Donetsk People's Republic»). A native of Stavropol Krai, Klimenko served in occupied Crimea before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
He was promoted to major general in May 2024, a month after his brigade's soldiers tortured to death Russell Bentley, a U.S. citizen, Russia Today stringer, and former participant in the war in Donbas. It happened on the premises of the abandoned Petrovska Mine in Donetsk. To cover up the crime, Bentley's body was blown up. Four soldiers of Klimenko's brigade are under investigation in connection with the murder.
Around the same time, in April 2024, Klimenko's fighters tortured to death music teacher Vladimir Frolov. He had a severe disability and had been illegally drafted into the army, thus he was trying to demobilize for health reasons. Frolov ended up in the torture cellar of Klimenko's brigade. The death certificate stated that Frolov had died during an assault, but his relatives said he'd had to be buried in a closed coffin because the body had been mutilated by torture.
This past August, Astra revealed that the commanders of Klimenko’s brigade use torture to force their subordinates into «meat-grinder assaults,» while enriching themselves off Russia's war in Ukraine. According to the publication's sources, including servicemen of the brigade in question, the unit has several locations in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk where Russian soldiers are tortured. The sources call this locality a concentration camp with a torture conveyor belt.
On the premises of the Petrovska Mine, Russian soldiers are tortured by other Russian soldiers in cellars and held in pits. Commanders punish them for refusing to participate in suicide combat missions, or simply extort money and take away their payroll cards. Prisoners are strung up, stabbed in the limbs, have their faces cut, are electrocuted, and, sometimes, are also simply killed.