Military personnel were chained to trees and beaten for four days.
According to Kommersant, citing investigation materials, the head of the PMC 'Hawk', Alexey Marushchenko (call sign 'Doctor'), along with accomplices (nine people are involved in the case), deceived 90 recruits who paid millions of rubles to serve in a private military company not as stormtroopers, but ended up on the front lines.
Since 2014, Marushchenko has advocated for the capture of Ukrainian territories by Russia — Crimea and Donbas. In 2018, he registered one of his units as LLC 'PMC 'Hawk'', and after the start of the 'special military operation', he claimed to work for the Russian Ministry of Defense in the occupied parts of Kharkiv, Belgorod, and Kursk regions.
It is alleged that Marushchenko, along with his comrade Alexander Sachko and his son-in-law Dmitry Antonov, convinced those coming to the military enlistment office that military personnel were only formally signing agreements with the Ministry of Defense, while in reality, they would serve in 'Hawk', which would bring them much more money and 'free them from army problems'. For this, the accomplices took from 30,000 to 200,000 rubles from the one-time payments made to the recruits. In total, the criminals embezzled more than 8.8 million rubles. One soldier paid about 1.25 million rubles (14,700 euros) to avoid being sent to the line of combat engagement (LBS).
Then Marushchenko devised a scheme to extort money and valuables from military personnel. He was assisted by one of the 'Hawk' employees, Arthur Velisevich, as well as former fighters of the assault companies of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergey Chochiy, Andrey Semenov, and Ivan Timokhov. Their first victim was a sergeant serving at a temporary communication point in Belgorod region. He was disarmed and taken to the village of Myasoyedovo, where the PMC's base was located. There, the sergeant was handcuffed to a tree and beaten for several days until he handed over 500,000 rubles (6,000 euros) to the criminals. After that, the soldier was released.
Four more military personnel were beaten by the accused Marushchenko, Velisevich, and Semenov in August 2024 for suspecting that Marushchenko was posing as an officer, and therefore could not command. On August 21, the criminals broke into the house where the victims lived, handcuffed them, and took them to Myasoyedovo. There, the soldiers were chained to trees and beaten for four days until they recognized Alexey Marushchenko as their commander. One of them was coerced into transferring more than 850,000 rubles (9,000 euros) to the head of the PMC under threats.
There is also information about the murder of soldier Rashid Adzhiev, who refused to follow Alexey Marushchenko's orders and 'showed him disrespect'. On December 21, 2024, the contractor was taken to the nearest forest strip, where he was shot by Ivan Babenko. The latter later told the investigation that he committed the crime because he feared he would be beaten, raped, or killed.
The case mentions the theft of weapons from the unit where Alexey Marushchenko was located. This was organized by the head of the precinct police department in the Rylsky district of Kursk region, Lieutenant Colonel Igor Dushkin — he organized the sale of the stolen PMC weapons. Alexey Marushchenko himself, as established by the Main Military Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, has illegally possessed weapons since 2022.
Marushchenko is charged with violating the inviolability of the home, fraud, extortion, illegal trafficking of weapons, two episodes of kidnapping, as well as exceeding authority with the use of torture and murder. It is alleged that the man wants to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense and go to war in Ukraine after the court proceedings.
