War crimesĪ former Ukrainian POW of the Prizrak Brigade told Amnesty International that his captors had brutally tortured him and other prisoners, including through daily beatings, near-starvation, and the stabbing as well as shooting of body parts. The Prizrak Brigade also includes many individuals claiming Cossack heritage, resulting in it being nicknamed the "Antrastsit Cossacks". The latter, alternatively called the "Volunteer Communist Detachment", is mostly composed of Communists and commanded by Pyotr Biryukov.
By 2019, the foreigners mainly operated as part of the Prizrak Brigade's Unit 404 and the Biryukov-Markov Unit. The bulk of the unit's volunteers came from Spain and it was commanded by an Italian fighter called "Nemo". The emblem of the unit was that of the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. In 2015, a far-left military political unit composed of internationalist volunteers called "Interunit" was built inside the Prizrak Brigade, and was operational until 2017. In the brigade's early phase, several foreign volunteers were associated with "Unité Continentale", a group which described itself as socialist and enlisted both French as well as Brazilians, but had reportedly been founded by French ultranationalists. These foreigners come from France, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Norway, Colombia. Membership of Prizrak comprises primarily of east Ukrainians and Russian nationals, however, due to their political ethos the unit does draw in a number of foreign volunteers. The brigade fields its own political commissars. The Prizrak Brigade considers itself both a military combat unit as well as an anti-Imperialist and revolutionary socialist political organization.
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Shoulder patch of the Biryukov-Markov Unit In the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Prizrak Brigade took part in the Eastern Ukraine offensive. On 24 October 2020 Aleksey Markov, political and military leader of the group after the assassination of Aleksey Mozgovoy, died in a car accident. Security Service of Ukraine has been pursuing units members in order to detain them since then. In the same year, all "military units" of the DPR and LPR were designated as " terrorist organisations" by Supreme Court of Ukraine. The unit was subsequently reorganized as the "4th Territorial Defense Briagade ( Alchevsk)" of the United Armed Forces of Novorossiya. Researcher Mark Galeotti argued that the assassination was "mysterious" and noted that the Prizrak Brigade ceased its great autonomy following Mozgovoy's death. Separatist authorities blamed Ukrainian assassins, but investigators and members of his unit suspected that his local rivals were responsible. Mozgovoy was killed in an IED and gun ambush on along with a number of his bodyguards. In early 2015, it fought in the Battle of Debaltseve. However, the Prizrak Brigade deliberately stayed outside the developing umbrella structures among the separatists, initially neither joining the Army of the South-East or the Luhansk People's Militia. The brigade quickly earned a "feared" reputation and was regarded as one of the best units loyal to the LPR. The commander of the Brigade Aleksey Mozgovoy claimed in late December 2014 to have up to 3,000 fighters.
It began as a platoon sized unit, but in August 2014 it became a battalion as the number of fighters grew to 1,000. The unit was established in late 2014 after anti-Maidan protesters occupied the RSA buildings in Luhansk.
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