"This isn't a mouse."
How officer Leonid Patrushev shot a sergeant but was not held accountable for it, instead receiving a promotion.
On Russia Day 2023, Lieutenant Leonid Patrushev shot and killed his subordinate, Senior Sergeant Badma Mandzhiev. The deceased was 38 years old and survived by three children. According to the official version, the soldier attacked the officer with a metal pipe, then took an assault rifle and opened fire. The lieutenant fired back, ostensibly in self-defense.
Leonid Patrushev has no connection to his high-ranking namesake, FSB Director and General Nikolai Patrushev. But the deceased's relatives are convinced he must have some connections, since he was "covered up from above." This isn't necessarily the case. It appears there's simply a directive not to touch officers serving in combat brigades in the Northern Military District.
NeMoskva investigated what's wrong with the murdered Mandzhiev's case and why his family has little chance of further investigation.
Vodka, Russia Day, and shooting
It all happened on June 12, 2023, in the village of Kalanchak, Kherson Oblast, at 29 Molodezhnaya Street. Russian military personnel from Military Unit 6775 from Grozny were stationed there.
The village of Kalanchak, where Badma died
That morning, two contract soldiers, longtime friends Azat Nadyrgulov and Badma Mandzhiev, returned from night duty. They fed the dogs, tidied up the mess, and asked political officer Leonid Patrushev for permission to "down a few shots." Patrushev was surprised—as if they were planning to drink in the morning—but Azat replied: "We're back on duty that evening, so we'll just cook some food, [have a drink], and then we'll go to bed." The officer, according to the soldier, gave the go-ahead.
We drank about half a bottle of vodka between us. Then we went to a neighbor's house, sat over coffee, and talked "about meat, since he sells it." Then the warrant officer called and asked where they were. The soldiers returned to the house, Azat started cleaning up, and Badma went out the gate.
Then something strange happened. First, Azat saw Badma fall. Then the political officer ran up to him, shouting, "Are you crazy?", knocked over the table, and knocked Azat out cold with a punch to the face. The soldier claims his nose is hurt from it. "he bent over completely to the right side"He lost consciousness, and when he came to, he heard gunfire and saw his friend with a "serious wound." He asked for a first aid kit, but no one had one. Then "some kind of car" arrived and Badma was taken away. Azat claims he was still alive at the time.
This is the picture painted by the testimony of soldier Azat Nadyrgulov. Lieutenant Patrushev's testimony differs significantly. According to him, around 15:00 PM, he found the soldiers drunk and demanded an explanation from Mandzhiev. He allegedly replied, "What, can't I [have a drink]?" A fight ensued. According to the lieutenant, Badma pushed him in the chest, who grabbed him by the shirt and threw him to the ground, "calling for him to calm down." He then wanted to speak with Azat Nadyrgulov, but before he could reach him, he felt a blow to his back, fell to the ground, and saw Mandzhiev holding a metal pipe. While he was getting up, Badma allegedly ran into the house, grabbed an automatic rifle, and stood with it in the doorway, taking the safety off and chambering a round.
"I got scared, went to the wall of the garage, and started to calm Mandzhiev down, but he fired his machine gun," Patrushev testified. He couldn't see where Badma was shooting. He said he then ran into the house, grabbed the first machine gun he could find, "took up a position" behind a cabinet, and prepared to defend himself. Mandzhiev also entered the house and started shouting, "Come out, we're going to shoot!" The political officer said he tried to calm the soldier down, but he still started shooting. Patrushev responded by firing at the interior door. After that, the house fell silent.
Upon going outside, the lieutenant found Mandzhiev lying on the floor with "traces of blood on his upper body." He called paramedics, who took Badma to the hospital, where he died from his wounds.
He was completely non-confrontational and loved his service.
Badma hails from a village in Kalmykia. He was born in 1985. At 18, he was conscripted into the army. He was sent to Dagestan and spent two years in the border troops. When he returned, he was called up to serve in the Russian National Guard, which he accepted. He worked first in Kalmykia, then in Volgograd, and then in Grozny, from where he was sent to fight in Ukraine.
The soldier's father, Sergei Mandzhiev, doesn't believe the official version of events. Last April, he wrote: "My son, Badma Sergeevich Mandzhiev, born February 19.02.85, 3, died. He died in a senseless way. In the North Military District. He was shot by his commander when he stood up for a soldier [Azat Nadyrgulov] he was beating. I, a simple working rural tractor driver, find myself in despair and confusion in this situation. Badma gave 16 years to the Army, has state awards, is an active athlete, an excellent family man, has three children, and suddenly he's a criminal! I categorically don't believe it!" (message) опубликовал Telegram channel "Zhest 08", with the signature "from a subscriber").
The father is certain Badma was shot by the commander when he stood up for Azat. He's a native of Bashkortostan; they met in Chechnya, in the Russian National Guard, and had been friends for years. "Knowing my son, I can imagine the circumstances of what happened were extremely humiliating and insulting for his friend, as Badma had a remarkably calm and composed nature and was completely non-confrontational," Mandzhiev asserts.
Badma loved dogs since childhood, his father told NeMoskva. He went to veterinary school, wanting to become a dog handler. While living in a private house, he kept dogs. When he moved to an apartment, he didn't want to part with them and built a new enclosure at his brother's house.
He represented his unit at various championships, winning prizes in kettlebell lifting, judo, and mixed martial arts. His eldest son now takes up boxing, a passion Sergey Mandzhiev believes he inherited from his father.
"They've turned everything upside down," Mandzhiev fumes. "Badma loved his service, he never drank much, maybe 50-100 grams—that's all. If he'd really hit the lieutenant with a pipe, he could have killed him. I don't believe it, and there was no pipe in the court [case file]. They dragged out the case into my son's death for three months, didn't open it, and the investigator came all the way here, to Kalmykia, to persuade [Badma's] wife to drop the investigation. And then they made it so that he was the culprit, not the victim."
What's wrong with the Mandzhiev case?
The main reason to doubt the official version is Azat Nadyrgulov's testimony. At first, he was reluctant to speak with NeMoskva, saying there was no point in "dredging up the past." He eventually shared his memories.
"I was sitting there washing my hands, and a guy runs up and throws a chair… I had a dislocated fracture of the nose," Azat says. "No one screamed or attacked the officer. But they made it look like we jumped on the officer, like we were disobeying him. Who would they believe: the soldier or the commander?"
Azat calls himself a "superfluous witness" and says he was "quickly removed, within a month": his contract was terminated for failing to comply. He claims this isn't difficult to do if "the unit commander is willing."
The source also says that Patrushev has had bouts of aggression before: he knows from other soldiers that "there were instances of physical violence against subordinates."
At the same time, Azat admits that he saw Patrushev hit Badma, but he knows nothing about the subsequent course of events because he lost consciousness.
The case includes witness testimony that supports Patrushev's version of events, but all of them were soldiers from Unit 6775, subordinates of the lieutenant, and therefore, according to the defense, they could have presented a consistent version of events. Furthermore, testimony was taken from five eyewitnesses, and judging by the transcript of Nadyrgulov's testimony, at least eight people were present at the scene. At least one of them, Warrant Officer Andrei, was not questioned.
Badma Mandzhiev's defense presented arguments in court that, in the lawyer's opinion, require the case to be sent for further investigation.
Thus, the lieutenant's claims of being attacked and hit with a pipe have neither been confirmed nor refuted—no forensic examination of Patrushev was conducted. There is also no forensic examination of the lieutenant's service weapon, which he could have used to fire the shots. The lawyer also points to the testimony of a witness, soldier Ozgovich, who confirmed that Azat Nadyrgulov had "bodily injuries to the face" and was bleeding. The investigation, however, failed to establish the circumstances of these injuries.
The defense doesn't understand why Patrushev didn't use his service pistol to subdue Mandzhiev. At the very beginning of the conflict, he could have fired into the air or ordered his nearby subordinates to subdue Badma. After all, according to testimony, they were able to take the metal pipe from him.
There is no physical evidence—machine guns and ammunition—in the case. According to court documents, all material evidence was destroyed as a result of shelling In November 2023, one of the shells struck the building of the Military Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR). The court used only photographs of the assault rifles as evidence. There is no evidence in the case file of fingerprints on the weapons. No photographs of the ammunition from the scene were taken that could have been used to reconstruct the shooting.
Commander is always right
"There's an unspoken ban on the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office investigating cases involving officers serving in combat brigades in the SVO zone. Therefore, they [officers] can do whatever they want; they effectively have immunity," claims a source in the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, with whom говорил journalist for the publication “Vorstka”.
He provided the editorial staff with a trove of dozens of complaints against commanders: soldiers and their families report beatings, executions, criminal orders, and extortion. These complaints come either from third-party agencies, such as the human rights ombudsman, or from regional military prosecutors. Verstka contacted several complainants and confirmed that they received mostly formal replies; in most cases, no response at all. No investigations were conducted into the complaints. The publication concluded that the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office had prohibited the review of complaints against frontline commanders.
A Russian army officer fighting in the Kharkiv area confirmed to Verstka that the command knows they face no consequences for their crimes. "They have complete carte blanche here. The only issues that can be affected are corruption, supply issues, and such. And pit, "zeroing" “It’s the norm, it’s part of the discipline, there’s no getting away from it,” the soldier explained.
The death of Senior Sergeant Mandzhiev fits into the general logic that the actions of an officer who shot a subordinate who had consumed alcohol on Russia Day can be considered justified and fair: "War will write everything off."
The investigation into the Kalanchak incident continued until March 2024. However, the case was opened not for the murder of a soldier, but for the attempted murder of an officer.
On June 27, 2024, the Kherson Garrison Military Court found the murdered Mandzhiev guilty of attempted murder and dismissed the case due to the defendant's death. On October 9, 2024, the appellate court upheld this decision. In April, Badma's defense attorney filed a cassation appeal, which is scheduled to be heard in a military court in Novosibirsk; the date has not been set at the time of publication.
Despite everything, the relatives hope that further investigation into the circumstances of the soldier's death will be conducted. They understand the chances are slim. After meeting with Sergei Mandzhiev, Kalmykia's Human Rights Commissioner Valery Chub sent a request to Alexander Bastrykin, Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, even though the case is under the jurisdiction of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office. A letter addressed to Putin requesting his attention to inconsistencies in the case was returned to Kalmykia and forwarded to the head of the republic.
The father of the deceased soldier is most outraged by the fact that no criminal case was even opened regarding the death of the soldier, which did not occur during combat operations.
“A person was killed, it’s not some kind of rat or mouse,” Mandzhiev doesn’t understand.
Azat Nadyrgulov, citing fellow soldiers, claims that the officer was promoted six weeks after the murder. Leonid Dmitrievich Patrushev is now a senior lieutenant.
