Vakulenko's murder was ordered by a Luhansk native whose sister survived the occupation of Irpin – Slidstvo.Info
Vladyslav Neskorodyev, who was born in Luhansk has relatives both in the occupied territories and in Kyiv oblast, was complicit in the murder of children's writer and poet Volodymyr Vakulenko in Kapitolivka (Izyum district), which happened while Kharkiv oblast was occupied, Slidstvo.Info reports.
The police have identified two Luhansk militants suspected of murdering Volodymyr Vakulenko: V.V. Neskorodyev and S.A. Udodenko. They are an "LPR" company commander with the call sign "Lion" and a machine gunner with the call sign "Udod (Hoopoe)". Both were born in the currently occupied Luhansk.
"Slidstvo.Info" journalists found the sister and aunt of Luhansk native Vladyslav Neskorodyev, who ordered the torture and murder of multiple people during the occupation of Kharkiv oblast in 2022, and talked to them.
Vladyslav's sister Suzanna, who moved to Irpin (Kyiv oblast) after Luhansk was occupied in 2014, had not heard about the war crimes her brother is suspected of before her conversation with the journalists.
"Now that you are telling me this my heart just starts pounding. I don't know this whole story at all... We are from Luhansk city. I left back in 2014. And my brother stayed, and I don't even know where he is, what happened to him... I was simply shocked when I heard from my grandmother what was going on there, in Luhansk. It was a shock for me, I couldn't believe it," the woman said.
Suzanna said that when the Russian troops occupied Kyiv oblast, she did not have time to flee for a safe place with her children, so she waited in the basement of her house for Irpin to be liberated. Her family survived the occupation in Irpin. Their house survived, though the windows were broken. Now they have moved to another house.
Suzanna had a fight with her brother and has not been in touch with him since: "I haven't talked to him in 7 years. I don't even know where he is, what's up with him. We never got along very well. The last time we saw each other was in 2014, when we were in Luhansk."
The woman says that she did not know that her brother had sided with the occupiers:
"He worked on construction sites, was helping his aunt and uncle. I don't know anything else like that. The family remained in Luhansk: brother, Oleksandr Kovalev, and our mother. Our aunt stayed because our grandmother said that she was not going anywhere. Why everyone else decided so – I won't answer for them, I don't know. Everyone decides for themselves."
Neskorodyev's sister assured that she hates the Russian army and that she herself "would never side with the Russians."
Neskorodyev's current whereabouts are unknown. In Ukraine, he faces 8 to 12 years in prison (Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
As the IMI reported, Volodymyr Vakulenko was born and lived in Kapitolivka village (near Izyum, Kharkiv oblast) with his son. Shortly after Kharkiv oblast was occupied, the Russian military took him away from his home, and his family never saw him again. After the de-occupation of Kharkiv oblast, his body was discovered in a mass grave in Izyum.
According to the police, the Russians killed Vakulenko with a Makarov pistol; two bullets were found in his body. The writer was buried on December 6, 2022, in Kharkiv.
In November 2023 the police identified two Russian soldiers involved in the shooting of Ukrainian children's writer Volodymyr Vakulenko and the murder of three more people during the occupation of Kharkiv oblast.
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