‘Butcher of Mariupol’: Russian general Mikhail Mizintsev is a mystery to experts

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“This is Mikhail Mizintsev. He is leading the siege of Mariupol. … He has huge experience of destroying cities in Syria,” Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, tweeted last week over a photo of the 59-year-old general, a man with close-cropped gray hair and pale blue eyes.

Mizintsev, who heads Russia’s National Defense Control Center, was placed under sanctions Thursday by the British government, which said he was “linked to the planning and execution of the bombardment of Mariupol, among other key Russian military operations against Ukraine.”

The Russian military officer has been dubbed “the butcher of Mariupol,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement.

But despite his newfound notoriety, some Russia-watchers were surprised to see Mizintsev singled out. Previously, he did not have much of a reputation despite decades of service, experts said.

“I honestly don’t understand all this — I don’t think he has any operational command responsibility here, and he’s not got any particular reputation as martinet or thug that I know of,” said Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at University College London who studies Russia’s armed forces.

Jeffrey Edmonds, former director for Russia on the National Security Council and a senior analyst at the CNA think tank in Washington, said he knew little about Mizintsev and had never interacted with him.

Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the British think tank Chatham House, said that Mizintsev is a senior figure but that he has spent much of the past decades in jobs that were “effectively administrative — not just staff posts, but running headquarters, command posts, coordination centers.”

“So he’s different from the other prominent senior Russian commanders who have mostly had operational on-the-ground experience in Syria,” Giles wrote in an email.

The United States has not imposed sanctions on Mizintsev. However, Britain’s Foreign Office said he was “known for using reprehensible tactics, including shelling civilian centers in both Aleppo in 2015-16 and now in Mariupol — where atrocities are being perpetuated against Ukrainian people.”

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The destruction of Mariupol has drawn comparisons with the siege of Aleppo in 2016, when Russian forces helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crush rebels there in an eight-month campaign that featured the use of cluster bombs, chemical weapons and other banned munitions, in addition to heavy shelling and conventional airstrikes.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s website, Mizintsev headed a ministerial coordination body responsible for the return of refugees during the Syrian war.

Mizintsev has been named as Russia’s point man in an agreement with the Ukrainians for a humanitarian cease-fire to allow beleaguered residents of Mariupol to evacuate and critical aid deliveries to enter the city, where more than 100,000 people are estimated to remain trapped.

The cease-fire is “purely for humane purposes,” he said at a briefing Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reported.

But Sergey Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military in Odessa, wrote on Facebook on March 23 that Mizintsev was “personally” controlling the military operation in Mariupol, adding that the Russian leader had ordered his troops to bomb a maternity hospital and other civilian targets.

The Ukrainian government has released audio that it claimed was an intercepted recording of Mizintsev berating and threatening Russian soldiers for their appearance. The Washington Post could not verify the authenticity of the recording.

Ukraine’s former ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba, shared the clip on Twitter on March 23, describing Mizintsev as “the butcher of Mariupol.” Scherba later told The Washington Post that he did not know of Mizintsev before the war, adding that he was “not an expert” on the Russian army.

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Giles, the Chatham House expert, said Mizintsev was a surprising figure to take the brunt of the blame for the attack on Mariupol, given his background.

But that does not necessarily mean he was not responsible, Giles said. “I find it hard to believe that, given the visibility into Russian operations that the U.S. and the U.K. have proven through their intelligence disclosures, that accusation can’t be based on something substantial.”

The relative anonymity of the Russian three-star general was apparent in Russia, too, according to Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist who studies the country’s security services. But that was nothing unusual, he said.

“He is not a big name in Russia,” Soldatov said, adding that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was really the only military leader known to the public. He was also popular — a fact that could explain why Russian President Vladimir Putin is cautious about firing the more senior official, Soldatov added.

Shoigu disappeared for 12 days in March before returning to public life on Saturday as abruptly as he had departed. His absence sparked widespread speculation about Russia’s military leadership during a war that is widely perceived to have gone badly for the Kremlin.