The founder of the Gulagu.net human rights group, Vladimir Osechkin, announced that his organization is suspending efforts to help Russian military personnel opposed to Ukraine war leave Russia.
Osechkin, who is based in France, wrote on Telegram on March 29 that the decision was made after former Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev, whom Gulagu.net helped flee to France last year, confessed to knowledge of war crimes in Ukraine.
According to Osechkin, Filatyev told Swedish journalist Erik de la Reguera during an interview that he had been aware that some Ukrainians captured by his unit would later be executed.
Osechkin said that Filatyev had never told him and his group about knowing of extrajudicial killings of Ukrainians he and his fellow soldiers captured during the invasion of Ukraine.
Pavel Filatyev
Osechkin also said that Filatyev did not mention that element in the book he published after Gulagu.net helped him leave Russia and move to France.
"We also apologize to all who willingly or unwillingly got involved in this situation and assisted Pavel Filatyev at our request. We trusted that man and asked you to help him. We could not have imagined that this man is capable to do something like that," Osechkin wrote.
"This case and experience showed clearly that it is important to thoroughly check all testimonies and statements before deciding to assist or not assist such individuals," he said, adding that his group suspended its program on evacuating Russian military personnel to other countries.
Osechkin also wrote that he will offer his resignation as president of another rights organization, the New Dissidents Foundation, at the group's gathering next month.
"I am ready to bear responsibility for my mistakes and I want my negative experience to help others to avoid similar situations," Osechkin said on Telegram.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, Gulagu.net also helped Russian military servicemen Konstantin Yefremov and a former member of the Wagner mercenary group, Andrei Medvedev, leave Russia after they described what they witnessed during the invasion and openly condemned the war in Ukraine.
The Russian military has been accused of committing multiple war crimes in Ukrainian towns and cities. Russia denies the accusations despite abundant evidence to the contrary.