Moscow’s fake war heroes Inside an elaborate conspiracy by Russian soldiers to stage combat wounds, claim state bonuses, and collect medals
Federal officials in Russia have completed an investigation into criminal fraud cases involving compensation payments and state awards to servicemen in the 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, the newspaper Kommersant reports. According to investigators, soldiers and officers from the brigade deliberately shot at one another to claim compensation. Altogether, they obtained more than 200 million rubles (nearly $2.5 million), along with privileges and decorations, most often the Order of Courage and the Medal “For Bravery.”
According to Kommersant, the case was opened after a member of the 83rd Air Assault Brigade testified to military investigators that injuries and awards had been fabricated. The whistleblower is reportedly expected to serve as a witness in the case.
In all, 35 servicemen have been named in the case, which comprises roughly 100 volumes of documents. The most prominent defendants are the brigade’s former commander, Colonel Artem Gorodilov, and the former head of the special operations group, Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Frolov, better known by his call sign, “The Executioner.” Both were arrested in the summer of 2024. The officers admitted guilt, entered into plea deals with investigators, and gave incriminating statements against their fellow soldiers.
Gorodilov is considered responsible for the killings of Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv region. Before he was assigned to the 83rd Brigade, he commanded the 234th Air Assault Regiment from Pskov, whose troops were implicated in the infamous Bucha massacre, according to a New York Times investigation.
Gorodilov was charged with large-scale fraud. His subordinate, Frolov, faces charges of fraud, bribery, unlawful possession of weapons and ammunition, and possession of explosives. According to a source at Kommersant, the latter two charges are related to weapons and ammunition stashes discovered in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. The caches contained three captured pistols, an assault rifle, loaded magazines, several mines, and grenades.
Case materials indicate that Frolov sustained four wounds during the Russia–Ukraine war. Yet, as Kommersant notes, he wore patches indicating seven wounds — five light and two severe. Investigators discovered that every one of the lieutenant colonel’s injuries had been staged: at his own behest, fellow soldiers shot him. Frolov also unlawfully received several military awards for these “wounds.” Over the course of his military service, the officer received four Orders of Courage and two Medals “For Bravery,” though journalists could not confirm how many were awarded for wounds.
Investigators characterized stories about Frolov that aired on national television as entirely fabricated and accused the lieutenant colonel of manufacturing claims, including that he adopted a girl rescued from Ukrainian shelling and that he led Russia’s “most effective sniper group” in Ukraine. They also determined that Frolov falsely claimed to have led Russia’s “most effective sniper group” in Ukraine. Kommersant added: “The story about a colonel rescuing a group of drone operators who came under fire was also fake. Testimony from Frolov led to that colonel and other senior officers being charged.” The newspaper did not specify which TV networks aired these reports.
Journalists at Agentstvo found several reports in the Russian state media featuring Frolov. On February 23, 2024, for example, Channel One aired a four-minute segment about a “unique sniper team” led by “one of the most successful snipers in the special military operation zone, call sign ‘The Executioner.’”
The broadcast claimed, among other things, that the soldier refused both medical leave and rehabilitation after sustaining his seventh wound, opting instead to return to the front, because, as he stated, “an officer’s honor demanded it”:
The soul belongs to God, the heart to woman, and honor to no one. That’s probably what matters most to me. How could I walk down the street in my hometown while fighting is still going on here? My men are here, my team is here. I just can’t.
In the same segment, the soldier boasted of knowing multiple foreign languages but refused to specify which, citing the “sensitive” nature of his past work: “I know Arabic, Pashto, and a few other languages. But if I say which ones… well, because of my past positions, that’s better left unsaid,” he explained.
The Channel One report also claimed the sniper had rescued a wounded girl from enemy fire and later adopted her, and that other servicemen frequently assist wounded children and orphans, spending a significant portion of their income to do so.
A month after the Channel One segment aired, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video on social media about the “Z-hero” known as “The Executioner,” which included footage previously shown on national television networks. The video was distributed by the ministry’s Zvezda TV channel and the pro-government outlets Komsomolskaya Pravda and Lenta.ru.
In the video, the sniper’s face is almost completely hidden behind a balaclava. However, journalists from Agentstvo, using facial recognition technology on the visible portion of his face, determined “with up to 98 percent certainty” that the man in the video was Konstantin Frolov.
According to Agentstvo, Frolov was born in Kyiv, lived in Moscow for a time, and later moved to St. Petersburg. He is the son of Oleg Frolov, a former deputy chief of Roscosmos (Russia’s state space agency) and head of the Mozhaysky Military Space Academy. Konstantin Frolov also worked at the academy, and in the 2010s, he repeatedly listed his occupation as a department head at Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) when applying for bank loans.
According to Kommersant, it was Frolov who testified against his commander, Colonel Gorodilov, during the investigation into the fraudulent payments. Both men requested to be sent back to the front rather than stand trial, but their requests were denied.