‘Secret patients’ Belarusian hospitals have quietly treated Russian soldiers wounded in Ukraine — including a commander linked to Bucha killings
Hundreds of Russian soldiers have received medical treatment in Belarus since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war in Ukraine, according to documents obtained by RFE’s Russian Service and its project Skhemy and shared with the Belarusian Investigative Center. Wounded troops were admitted to Belarusian hospitals, including during Russia’s failed attempt to seize Kyiv in 2022. Among these “secret patients” were members of elite units and soldiers involved in the occupation of Bucha; investigators published their names, diagnoses, and hospitalization dates. Meduza summarizes the key findings from BIC’s investigation.
In the first 21 months of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, 898 wounded Russian soldiers and National Guard troops were treated at hospitals in the Belarusian towns of Gomel and Khoiniki, according to an internal Russian Defense Ministry database obtained by the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC). In their report, journalists refer to these individuals as “secret patients.” Hospital staff were reportedly prohibited from speaking about the presence of Russian military personnel.
“You were strongly — how to put it — ‘advised’ not to talk about any of it,” a former employee of a hospital in the Gomel region told BIC. “Otherwise, you and your family could face serious consequences.”
The database includes information showing that fighters from units whose involvement in operations in northern Ukraine had not previously been documented were treated in Gomel hospitals at the start of Russia’s invasion.
Among them were troops from the 16th Separate Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, part of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. This unit has long been suspected of involvement in Russia’s operation to seize the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, but until now, there had been no hard evidence. The investigation also identifies members of the “Kubinka-2” Special Purpose Center, which participated in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
One patient listed in the Gomel hospital records, Russian serviceman Roman Zyazin, took part in the February 24, 2022, operation to seize the Antonov airfield in Hostomel. He was hospitalized in Gomel with a facial injury and a compound jaw fracture. Zyazin had previously described his role in the Hostomel operation on the Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV channel: “We moved into the outskirts and into Hostomel itself, where I was wounded and then evacuated.”
According to BIC, Zyazin is a former member of the patriotic youth organization Yunarmiya. Internal Yunarmiya documents obtained by the research group KibOrg also mention Zyazin and three other soldiers — Sabukhi Baladov, Pavel Nikitin, and Matvey Shipunov — who were hospitalized in Belarus in the early weeks of the invasion. Zyazin is now a cadet at a military physical training academy.
On February 25, during the battle for Hostomel, Russian riot police (OMON) units from Krasnoyarsk, Novokuznetsk, and Kemerovo joined the fighting, Ukrainian media reported, citing intercepted communications. Their convoy was ambushed on a bridge between Hostomel and Kyiv. Surviving troops retreated deeper into the town, where at least 11 civilians attempting to flee toward Kyiv were killed at the intersection of Sviato-Pokrovska and Shevchenko streets, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. Russian forces later set up a joint post in a kindergarten in the village of Zdvyzhivka. Ukrainian authorities reported that at least 18 civilians were killed in Zdvyzhivka and nearby areas during the Russian occupation.
According to BIC, 68 wounded OMON officers were treated in Gomel hospitals following the fighting in Hostomel. Investigators identified several of them by cross-referencing the Russian Defense Ministry database with documents found by local residents on a bridge in the town. Among those admitted to hospitals in Gomel and Khoiniki in late February and early March 2022 were:
- Senior Police Lieutenant Alexey Artamonov (Kemerovo region) — three shrapnel wounds and a fracture
- Senior Police Sergeant Ivan Dyukanov (National Guard, Kemerovo region) — traumatic brain injury and bruising
- Senior Police Sergeant Andrey Khitrov (National Guard, Novokuznetsk) — shrapnel wound to the lower left leg
- Police Sergeant Andrey Leonov (National Guard, Kemerovo region) — traumatic brain injury and concussion
- Ilya Churakov (“Ratibor” OMON detachment, Krasnoyarsk region) — shrapnel wound near the right ankle
- Sergey Tsapkov (“Ratibor” OMON detachment, Krasnoyarsk region) — acoustic trauma and acute hearing loss
- Denis Katkov (“Ratibor” OMON detachment, Krasnoyarsk region) — traumatic brain injury and concussion
Two more Russian servicemen — Munko-Zhargal Zhalmaev and Zorik Zygbin, both from military unit 46108 in Ulan-Ude — were hospitalized in Gomel on March 9, 2022, with shrapnel wounds. A third soldier from the same unit, Dmitry Terentyev, was admitted on March 25 with blast injuries.
Zhalmaev’s and Zygbin’s names also appeared on a personnel list from a Russian military unit that residents found in the village of Berezivka, which lies along the Zhytomyr Highway — a key road connecting Kyiv to Ukraine’s western regions. In the first days of the war, Russian troops tried to block the highway, even as civilians attempted to flee the capital. Ukrainian media reported that units from Russia’s Buryatia — including the 5th Tank Brigade and the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade — were deployed along the road and opened fire on fleeing civilians.
Altogether, BIC verified the identities of about 70 Russian soldiers stationed along the Zhytomyr Highway based on the internal military database. Some of their names matched those found in documents recovered near the road.
Investigators also confirmed that one of the Russian soldiers treated in Gomel was Alexander Kvitko (callsign “Skipper”), commander of the 6th Company of the Pskov Airborne Forces, who took part in the occupation of Bucha. He was hospitalized on March 28, 2022, with shrapnel injuries to the neck, arm, leg, and buttocks.
According to the Ukrainian investigative outlet Schemes, Kvitko may have been involved in the killings of civilians in Bucha. Witnesses reported seeing him at 144 Yablunska Street, an office building used by Russian forces as a base and detention site for members of Ukraine’s territorial defense before executing them.
Ukraine’s National Police suspects Kvitko in the murder of Alla Minaeva, a pensioner found dead in her home. Investigators believe that even if he didn’t carry out the killing himself, he was at least aware of it. “Civilians who had been helping the elderly woman approached Alexander Kvitko and asked if they could bring her food and supplies,” senior investigator Ivan Dulkai told Radio Svoboda. “Kvitko told them not to bother — because, in his words, ‘we handled things with her humanely.’”
The Geneva Convention on the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field permits a neutral country to provide medical assistance to a warring party without it being considered interference. However, the Belarusian Investigative Center argues that the treatment of Russian troops in Belarus should be seen in the broader context of the Belarusian government’s support for Russia’s invasion.
In September 2023, the European Parliament declared Alexander Lukashenko complicit in Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. European lawmakers cited Belarus’s role in spreading hate speech and disinformation, supplying equipment and ammunition to Russian forces, and providing staging grounds for both Russian troops and Wagner Group fighters. Lukashenko himself has admitted that Russian troops entered Ukraine from Belarusian territory — and has said he would be open to another such offensive.
“Providing medical treatment to Russian troops should be considered part of Belarus’s overall support for the war — and a forfeiture of its neutral status,” said Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer with Ukraine’s Regional Center for Human Rights. “This matters for any future legal proceedings on complicity or aiding criminal aggression by senior Belarusian officials, and in assessing Belarus’s state responsibility for an internationally wrongful act.”
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