The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for a Russian general for crimes in Ukraine; he was also involved in the 2008 Georgia war
The International Criminal court in the Hague has issued arrest warrants for two Russian military commanders, Sergey Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov, who have been found guilty by the Hague Tribunal of war crimes in Ukraine.
It was revealed that Sergey Kobylash, currently serving as the commander of long-range aviation in the Russian armed forces, also personally participated in the Russian-Georgian war in 2008.
On March 5, the International criminal court in the hague stated that Kobylash and Sokolov are accused of conducting missile strikes on Ukraine from October 10, 2022, to at least March 9, 2023. As a result, Ukraine’s critically important electrical infrastructure was damaged, posing a serious threat to the civilian population.
The court also concluded that the damage to the civilian population and infrastructure from these missile strikes was far greater than the damage to military targets.
Who is Sergey Kobylash?
During the fighting between the Russian army and Georgian troops in August 2008 in Tskhinvali, Kobylash, then commander of the 368th Russian aviation regiment, personally flew a Su-25 fighter. His plane was shot down. He managed to eject and land in an area controlled by Tbilisi.
According to Russian sources, he was found and evacuated by helicopter. However, Mikhail Saakashvili, the then president of Georgia, writes that Kobylash was captured and later exchanged.
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Another version published in Georgian media is that a Georgian old woman saved the Russian military man. This version is based on an interview that Kobylash gave at the time to the Russian state agency “RIA Novosti.”
In the interview, he shared that “a kind Georgian grandmother scolded him for ruining her vegetables in the garden but gave him water and showed him the way to the Ossetian units. Thanks to this, Kobylash said, he managed to leave before Georgian military arrived at his parachute landing site. He recounted that he quickly left the village and was evacuated by a Russian rescue helicopter called in via radio.
In 2013, president Putin appointed colonel Kobylash as the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force. A year later, he was promoted to the rank of Major General. In 2016, Putin appointed his favorite pilot as the commander of Russia’s long-range aviation.
Kobylash was born in Odessa and holds the title of Hero of Russia.
