Human rights activists reveal two minors were executed by Russian snipers in occupied Berdiansk

The circumstances of the death of two teenagers, Tyhran Ohannisian and Mykyta Khanhanov, in the temporarily occupied Berdiansk are still unclear.

Media Initiative for Human Rights Co-founder and War and Justice coordinator Olha Reshetylova stated on Radio Svoboda that even assuming the partisan teenagers started shooting first, the Russians were not trying to "disarm them in any other way."

"No one knows how it happened and what was happening then. Today (June 26 — ed.), we learned that sniper shots killed the boys. Mykyta was killed with a shot in the head and Tyhran — in the heart. The occupation police didn't even try to save the boys' lives somehow," Reshetylova said.

As the human rights defender said, the teenagers were under investigation for half a year and, accordingly, under pressure and searched. Investigators came to investigative experiments with several "jeeps" of law enforcement officers.

"A huge number of armed guards accompanied all these investigative actions. On the other hand, if we believe the version of the occupiers that it was an attack on policemen, there was no attempt to prevent the boys' actions in any other way," she emphasized.

Reshetylova also recalled that the murder of Ohannisian and Khanhanov was preceded by six months of persecution. Tyhran was kidnapped and kept for some time by the local police, where he was tortured. Both teenagers were under pressure from the occupation authorities.

"But in recent weeks, this pressure has increased incredibly because the so-called investigators have already prepared an indictment against them for 'sabotage,' that they were allegedly preparing to blow up electric poles on the Melitopol railway. This case had to be brought to court. And this meant they would be arrested again sooner than that's all," said the human rights activist.

Reshetylova added that the teenagers ran away from home and hid for several days after an investigator under the control of the occupation administration came to them last week. Tyhran's mother left Berdiansk with her younger children and could not help him.

"As soon as Tyhran arrived home, this investigator immediately approached him. And they had a very long conversation with him. About what? We don't know. After that, Tyhran and Mykyta went for a walk around the city," she said. "Tyhran was still talking to his mother. He was completely calm. He said that he plans to be home by nine o'clock and that he and Mykyta are thinking about how to celebrate Mykyta's birthday because Mykyta was turning 17 on Sunday."

The human rights activist believes that the boy's behavior half an hour before the reports of the shooting did not indicate that he was planning "any risky actions for his life."

Also, the occupation authorities say that civilians — random passers-by — were allegedly injured in this shootout. At the same time, human rights defenders cannot confirm such information.

"We saw all this correspondence in local chat rooms during the shooting. It was a very short period. And there was no information that there were any civilian casualties," she said.

Reshetylova believes that the occupation authorities are trying to put crimes the murdered boys did not commit on them. They say this is an attempt to hide the facts of bullying and torture from teenagers.

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, called killing two minor boys in Berdiansk an "extrajudicial execution" on the telethon.

"When the teenagers received suspicions from the investigative committee of the Russian Federation, we immediately turned to Russia. First, to provide us with all the information about them. Second, to return the Ukrainian children home," he said.

As the ombudsman noted, Ukraine appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross with a request to urgently visit the boys and do everything to return them to Ukraine.

Background

The so-called "leader" of the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, Vladyslav Rohov, announced the killing of two Ukrainian partisans in Berdiansk. One of them is a 16-year-old teenager, Tyhran Ohanesian, who was held captive by the Russians.

The Russian occupiers said they had killed two teenagers they called "terrorists and militants." According to the collaborator, at approximately 7 p.m., when the population was resting with their families on the city embankment, "two militants opened fire with automatic weapons."

In June of this year, the European Parliament demanded that the Russian authorities stop the process against the children and allow them to leave for the territory controlled by Ukraine.

As Rubryka reported, as of June 20, according to the official information of juvenile prosecutors, the official number of children killed by Russia is 490.

In addition, 19,499 children were already adducted and deported to Russia and the so-called republics, of which only 373 minors were returned home.

Children of War is a platform where you can report and find all the information about children who suffered due to the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine. The Prosecutor General's Office emphasized that information on a war crime against a child can be provided through a single evidence hub: warcrimes.gov.ua and by phone: +380961004438, +380683235856.

On April 27, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution recognizing the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia as genocide.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Putin and children's rights Lvova-Belova. They are accused of illegally deporting children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation from February 24, 2022.