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Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev has earned the nickname “Butcher of Mariupol” for masterminding the harrowing attack on the Ukrainian city that has reduced it to rubble.
Ukrainian military officials claim that Mizintsev orchestrated a similar attack in Syria, leaving the city of Aleppo bomb-shattered. The attack in Mariupol included the bombing of a theater that had marked itself as a shelter with children – an attack that killed roughly 300 people seeking refuge at the time.
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Mizintsev, 59, serves as the head of the National Centre for Defense Management, which Russia established in 2014 to direct future military operations.
Here’s what else you need to know about the man who sits in one of the most powerful seats in Russia.
SOVIET-MADE
Mizintsev was born during the height of the Soviet Union’s power in 1962 in a village some 400 miles outside of Moscow.
He swiftly rose through the ranks, studying at the Kiev Higher Combined Arms Command School before becoming the commander of a recon platoon in the Soviet army in East Germany – the same region where KGB agent Vladimir Putin operated.
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Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Mizintsev deployed to the Caucasus to command a motorized rifle battalion.
His return to Moscow in the late 1990s led to rapid promotion, culminating in a post in 2003 as the head of operations directorate of the chief of staff, a role that tasked him with military planning duties.
He then took control of the National Centre for Defense Management, at which point he reportedly coordinated Russia’s involvement in the Syrian civil war between 2015 and 2016.
SYRIAN OPERATIONS
Russia assisted Syrian government forces with a series of air strikes, hitting Aleppo with attacks that killed around 1,700 civilians.
Russian forces reportedly used cluster and incendiary bombs and chemical weapons in residential areas, including hospitals.
UKRAINE
Mizintsev has served as the face of the Russian press in statements about the siege of Mariupol.
In video briefings, he called the Ukrainians “bandits” and “neo-Nazis” and accuses them of engaging in “mass terror.”
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He stands accused of ordering the strikes on multiple civilian infrastructure targets, including schools, hospitals and the theater that sheltered more than 1,000 civilians.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties, called on Mizintsev to face war crime charges at the Hague.
