Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Kachura in memoriam Russia’s highest award, the Hero of Russia, “for her courage and heroism demonstrated during military service”.
–
The British newspaper The Daily Mail recalls that Kachurov bragged in interviews to Russian propaganda channels about how she enjoyed killing Ukrainians and how the soldiers of her unit shot at civilians in the Donbas region.
–
Kačurová worked at the police department in Horlivka and joined the Donetsk militia in April 2014, when Russia occupied the area. She became the commander of a missile unit with 140 soldiers, her battalion operated the Grad system and participated in a number of combat operations. She was wounded several times and since 2015 she held the rank of colonel in the forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
–
She changed into a Ukrainian uniform
The command of the Ukrainian army claims that she often disguised herself in the uniforms of Ukrainian soldiers and thus carried out diversionary actions so that later war atrocities could be blamed on Kyiv. At the same time, conducting attacks in the enemy’s uniform is a violation of the conventions of war.
–
“She was responsible for the shelling of cities in Donbass and the death of many civilians,” says Ukrainian journalist Denis Kazanskyi. In absentia, a Ukrainian court sentenced her to 12 years in prison for “terrorist activities”.
–
The Russian commander died about a month after the funeral of the first Russian soldier who was killed in Ukraine. Thirty-five-year-old corporal Anastasia Savická was buried on July 13 in her native Volgograd. “She was the first female soldier to die during a special military operation,” said Alexandr Strukov, head of local war veterans.
—
