Journalists from Schemes, an investigative project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have reconstructed the timeline and identified the hospital in occupied Donetsk where Ukrainian prisoner of war Andrii Pereverzev was operated on, after which a burned inscription reading “glory to Russia” and the letter Z appeared on his body. The investigation says the operation may have been performed by specific Russian surgeons who had visited the hospital.
According to Schemes, journalists established that Pereverzev was operated on at the Donetsk Clinical Territorial Medical Association (DOKTMO), which, the investigation says, was renamed the Republican Clinical Hospital named after M. I. Kalinin in 2023. After the surgery, the prisoner was transferred to the proctology department on the sixth floor of an eight-story building, and Pereverzev confirmed to journalists that the view from the window matched that location.
The investigation reports that Pereverzev joined the Ukrainian military in 2023 and served in the 79th Air Assault Brigade in the Donetsk region. According to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War and the brigade, on the evening of February 23, 2024, following enemy assault actions, the position stopped responding and was captured.
Pereverzev told journalists that after being taken captive he was transported to occupied Donetsk, where he was beaten and interrogated, and later taken to a hospital for urgent surgery. He said he heard from medical staff that the operation had been performed by a Russian doctor, while a Ukrainian physician now helping him treat the scars described it as a “gift from a surgeon.”
Schemes says one of the key leads was information about regular visits to DOKTMO by a group of Russian doctors calling themselves “Friends of Donbas Medicine.” The investigation states that journalists found publications and other data indicating the presence of Russian surgeons at the hospital during the period when, according to the reconstructed timeline, Pereverzev may have undergone surgery.
The investigation names the initiator of the group as State Duma deputy and surgeon Badma Bashankaev, as well as Krasnodar-based surgeons Yuriy Kuznetsov and Andrey Kryachko. Journalists cite social media posts, video metadata, border-crossing data, and other indicators which, according to Schemes, may confirm their presence in Donetsk on February 24, 2024.
The report says journalists contacted those mentioned. Yuriy Kuznetsov denied operating on Pereverzev or having any connection to the inscription, while Badma Bashankaev and Andrey Kryachko, according to the investigation, did not respond to requests. Schemes also names several hospital staff members and managers in the context of the reconstructed timeline and the hospital’s operations.
Separately, the investigation cites the position of Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. Taras Semkiv, head of a relevant department, said a criminal case has been opened over the alleged cruel treatment of Andrii Pereverzev, and that information from the journalistic investigation will be added to the case materials.