FALSE: Czech volunteer who fought on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces admitted to shooting civilians in Bucha

Russian Telegram channels are spreading information that Czech citizen Filip Siman, who fought for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, allegedly confessed to shooting people in Bucha. During a trial, he supposedly said, “We were the police, we were the court, we were the execution squad, if it came to that“.

However, this is false. The volunteer did not admit to shooting civilians in Bucha and avoided directly answering whether he executed detained Russians. 

On July 3, a trial was held in Prague against Filip Siman. At the end of March 2022, Siman was serving in the Ukrainian volunteer battalion “Carpathian Sich”. The battalion participated in the liberation of the Kyiv region, particularly in the Irpin direction, and was involved in clearing of settlements in the region from the occupiers after the departure of the Russian troops. According to the battalion’s spokesperson, soldiers discovered items stolen from comrades and civilians in Irpin in the possession of two Czech volunteers, one of whom was Siman.

In April 2022, Ukrainian soldiers handed Siman over to Kyiv police, but no charges were filed due to a lack of verifiable evidence. Later, Czech police arrested him on charges of looting and serving in a foreign armed force without the president’s permission. Prosecutor Martin Bílého claimed that Siman had no authorization from the Czech president to fight in a foreign army.

The prosecutor also stated that during Siman’s time in Bucha and Irpin, he allegedly took berets and rings from fallen soldiers, as well as Gucci glasses, an airplane respirator, and gold and silver bars. Siman denied these accusations, stating that he took some items as mementos of his time in Ukraine, with the rest being approved by his commanders. He explained a video showing him collecting items from dead soldiers as following orders to prevent those items from falling into Russian hands.

We were unable to find any reports in Czech media indicating that Siman confessed to killing people in Bucha. He did mention seeing a video on a detained Russian soldier’s phone showing six Russian soldiers raping the mother of two children. When asked by the judge if the detained Russians were executed, Siman avoided a direct answer, saying, “Their further path was the result of the fate they prepared for their victims. I would continue to exercise my right not to testify (on this matter).“

Czech media also quoted Siman’s phrase, “We were the police, we were the court, we were the execution squad“, but these words were mentioned out of context and did not indicate they referred to civilians in Bucha. Based on our review of several Czech articles, it is more likely that the statement referred to how they dealt with occupiers and saboteurs, with no interpretation that it was an admission of crimes against civilians.

In August, a Czech court sentenced Siman to seven years in prison for looting. He was also charged with illegal service in a foreign armed force but was acquitted. However, the ruling is not final, and the case will be reviewed by the High Court in Prague. The prosecutor appealed the sentence, arguing that the punishment was below the minimum legal limit. At the same time, no evidence was presented to suggest that the ex-serviceman committed violence against civilians in Ukraine, and Siman was not charged with such crimes.

The claim that the volunteer confessed to killing civilians in Bucha is part of the Russian narrative attempting to shift blame for their own crimes onto Ukrainian soldiers. Numerous pieces of evidence point to Russian forces being responsible for the atrocities in Bucha. In particular, thanks to satellite images of the company Maxar Technologies, The New York Times found that the bodies of civilians were lying on the streets since March 11, 2022, during the same period mass graves appeared in the city.  Ukrainian forces entered the city on April 2, and they began clearing it of Russians.

Survivors of the occupation in Bucha also pointed to the responsibility of Russian forces for the war crimes. More details about the evidence proving that it was Russians who committed these crimes in Bucha can be found here.