Russia has hit new depths in its glorification of mercenaries and war criminals for their role in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Alexei Milchakov was recently invited as the commander of the neo-Nazi Rusich paramilitary group to give ‘a lesson on courage’ to schoolchildren in his native St. Petersburg. Yekaterina Polukarpovaya, the head of School No. 538 may not have known, and almost certainly did not care, that Milchakov is wanted for war crimes in Ukraine and is under US sanctions, as is ‘Task Force Rusich’ for their activities as a unit of the notorious Wagner mercenary group. She may well have been unperturbed by Milchakov’s neo-Nazi views of which he essentially boasts, but was she really OK about sending a man who, back in 2011, videoed himself decapitating and eating a puppy, and incited his fellow neo-Nazis to kill down-and-outs to share in the children’s “civic-patriotic education”?
Information about the events has only now become public because of a post on the Rusich Telegram channel, however the lessons at Grades 7 and 9 appear to have taken place on 21 May 2025. This was just three months after Yan Petrovsky, Milchakov’s comrade-in-arms, fellow neo-Nazi and co-founder of Rusich, was sentenced by a court in Finland to life imprisonment for those same war crimes committed in 2014 together with Milchakov.
Radio Svoboda noted that Milchakov’s ‘lesson’ was the second given by a member of a far-right organization in 2025. The first such occasion was arranged on 20 February by Dmitry Anatolievich Morozov, described as the organizer of Russia’s so-called ‘Foundations of security and defence of the motherland’ – part of the regime’s current program at militarizing and indoctrinating young people. The individual invited on that occasion was from ‘Nevsky Front’, an organization, linked with the far-right Española unit, described by the Guardian as a formation of football hooligans and neo-Nazi volunteers fighting as a paramilitary force on Russia’s side in Ukraine.
Alexei Milchakov (b. 1991) was just 20 when he earned notoriety and, seemingly, a criminal record for posting a video of himself beheading, dismembering and eating a puppy, and for his calls to fellow neo-Nazi comrades to kill down-and-outs and dogs.
Milchakov, Petrovsky and their neo-Nazi Rusich fighters played an active role in the military conflict in Donbas (Luhansk oblast) from June 2016. Although Russia was still pretending that this was a ‘grassroots uprising’ and ‘civil war’, all such units were very clearly armed and financed from Moscow.
The four war crimes for which Yan Petrovsky was sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 March 2025 pertained to actions by him, Millchakov and other Rusich fighters. Since Petrovsky was accused of direct involvement in war crimes, as well as in his capacity as deputy commander of Rusich, there seems no reason to assume that Milchakov, as commander, would face different charges.
Most of the charges were over the killing of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and serious wounding of four others in the ambush at a checkpoint near the city of Shchastia in Luhansk oblast on 5 September 2014. This was a deliberate and treacherous ambush, with the Russian / pro-Russian militants who had gained control of the checkpoint flying a Ukrainian flag in order to trick the Aidar Battalion defenders and lure them to their death. It is prohibited under international law and rules of warfare to use the flag of the opposing side to carry out such ambushes.
Petrovsky was found guilty of allowing his (and Milchakov’s) subordinates to mutilate one of the wounded soldiers by carving out the Rusich group symbol on his cheek. He had also desecrated a slain soldier’s memory by posing by his body and circulating this on the Internet. He had also made and circulated equally degrading photos with Milchakov gloating over a dead man’s body.
Although only Petrovsky has thus far been found guilty, both he and Milchakov have repeatedly made statements that Rusich would not take prisoners, and have admitted to appalling war crimes. In November 2023, Millchakov boasted that he and his men had, in 2014, cut off the arm of a Ukrainian defender which had the tattoo ‘Glory to Ukraine’ on it. They had marinated it in a jar, he claimed, “as a souvenir”.
Rusich has been linked with the Wagner Unit since 2022 and has also been sanctioned by the EU and several other countries. In August 2024, two videos were posted of Ukrainian prisoners of war having been killed and their bodies dismembered. The second, on 16 August 2024, was posted by Rusich and showed a masked man pointing to a severed head on a pole which he claimed to be the head of a Ukrainian defender.
In September 2022, the Insider reported that Milchakov had published ‘Instructions on disposing of Ukrainian prisoners of war’ with this inciting people to torture and kill the POWs, and essentially explaining how they should do this. The neo-Nazi who once beheaded, dismembered and ate a puppy, now encouraged other Russians to cut off POWs’ fingers or ears; poke needles under their fingernails and other such horrific forms of torture.
