Russian pilots’ wives duped into posing for fake ‘calendar girls’ snaps – exposing identities of Putin’s ‘war criminals’

4 weeks ago 4

ARTICLE AD BOX

UKRAINE duped the wives of Russian pilots to pose for “calendar girls” photo shoot to reveal their husbands’ identities.

A dozen women posed together wearing their husbands’ medals in front of a Russian fighter jet.

A group of Russian pilot’s wives were duped into posing for a fake calendar which exposed their husband’s identities[/caption]

Hackers also posted intimate images of the wife of a Russian commander Lilia Atroshchenko[/caption]

a woman in a military uniform has a patch that says pocchr

Lilia was tricked into organising the photoshoot, wearing her partner’s military uniform[/caption]

a man in a military uniform salutes in front of a field

Colonel Sergei Atroshchenko, of Russia’s 960th Assault Aviation Regiment, ordered a 2022 attack on Mariupol, Ukraine[/caption]

They thought were making a calendar to boost their husbands’ morale at the request of the Russian Air Force.

Most of them wore high heels and mini skirts.

They were “only too happy to help,” The Times reported.

But they had been tricked Ukrainian activists from the InformNapalm group.

The Ukrainein “hacktivists” used the image to identify the pilots of the 960th Assault Aviation Regiment who they suspect of committing war crimes.

And they passed their findings to investigators at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The 960th Assault Aviation Regiment stands accused of killing some 600 civilians, many of them children, in an airstrike in a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol in 2022.

InformNapalm launched its ruse by approaching Lillia Astroshchenko, wife of regiment’s commanding officer Colonel Sergey Astroshchenko, 43, pretending to be a colleague.

two women wearing military uniforms with badges that say " poccer "

Russian military wives and girlfriends were duped in the fake photoshoot[/caption]

a woman in a military uniform has a badge that says pocchr

Hackers were able to use these images to gain more information on Putin’s men[/caption]

As the wife of the most senior officer in the regiment she was able to convince the other women to take part.

All of the women wore their husband’s dress jackets, complete with gold embroidered epaulets and badges revealing their ranks.

Campaign medals pinned to their chests also revealed where the pilots had served, and allowed the investigators to cross-reference records to find their husbands’ identities.

Mykhailo Makaruk from InformNapalm said: “We’ve caused [the Russians] quite a lot of trouble over the years.”

The group was founded in 2014 when Russia seized control of Crimea and fomented rebellions in Donbas.