An American who was tortured by four Russian soldiers, who have since been charged by the Department of Justice with committing war crimes against an American citizen in an unprecedented case, has a nonprofit group, not the U.S. government, to thank for saving his life.
Kirillo Alexandrov is a Ukrainian American who lived in the village of Mylove in the Kherson area when the war started in February 2022. In April 2022, he was arrested by Russian forces in Russian-occupied Ukraine, and he was kidnapped and tortured by the Russian soldiers who detained him. His captors threatened to assault him sexually and execute him.
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“During the abduction, we allege that those defendants threw the victim to the ground while he was naked, tied his hands behind his back, pointed a gun at his head, and beat him with their feet, their fists, and the stocks of their guns,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said last week. “We allege that, as they interrogated him, they tortured him. They beat him, again, with a gun. They punched him in his chest and stomach. They threatened to shoot him. They stripped off his clothes and took pictures. One of their conspirators threatened to sexually assault him.”
The charges against Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, Dmitry Budnik, Valerii, and Nazar — Valerii and Nazar’s last names are unknown — mark the first time someone was charged under the U.S. war crimes statute that Congress passed nearly three decades ago. The statute gives the DOJ jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes committed against American citizens abroad.
Alexandrov was not released by the Russian forces who were holding him hostage, even as Project Dynamo, a U.S. nonprofit group negotiating on his behalf, had talks with the Kremlin regarding his freedom. Instead, Alexandrov was rescued by the nonprofit group, which consists of former military and intelligence officers, in a daring mission across enemy lines without any U.S. military support.
“This is extremely important — that I was broken in ways I’ve never been broken before — left behind by everybody. America left me behind. Ukraine wasn’t doing well in the war at that point, at least in Kherson, where I was at,” he told the Washington Examiner, adding that the minimal communication he was able to have with Project Dynamo founder Bryan Stern prior to the rescue operation was “probably the one thing that kept the thread attached.”
Stern believes at least two more of their rescues from Ukraine could lead to war crimes charges with a maximum of four such cases, though he acknowledged they do not focus on evidence recovery during their missions.
Project Dynamo has been conducting rescue operations globally since 2021, first coming together to rescue people in Afghanistan who were afraid of staying in the Taliban-run country following the collapse of the government at the end of the U.S. military presence in August 2021.
The group has rescued about 7,000 people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, Israel, Gaza, Maui during the wildfires, and Florida after Hurricane Ian hit in the less than three years the group has operated, according to Stern. The group is preparing to conduct rescue operations in Taiwan in the coming years should China decide to invade the island it considers a part of its territory.
Project Dynamo does not want to interfere with any U.S. military or intelligence mission, so it asks the government if it can proceed with an operation beforehand, and in every case, Stern said the administration gave the group the green light. This band of former intelligence and military operators put their lives on the line to rescue Americans when the government informs them it isn’t coming for them, and yet, the administration doesn’t pay, reimburse, or even readily acknowledge the group’s efforts.
“There is a hard policy divide between the private sector, including the nonprofit world, and the executive branch of government, where we can’t even get funding from them,” Stern explained. “We can’t get a thank-you note from them. We have not received anything from anyone in the executive branch of government whatsoever, be it from the White House to the DOJ, FBI, Homeland, State Department, CIA, the military, you know, whatever it is, all of whom are charged with the safe recovery or with the safety of American citizens.”
Project Dynamo is funded through private donor support, though Stern believes there should be a way for the government to assist financially. He referenced how the government offers financial rewards for information related to wanted fugitives or terrorists and advocated a financial incentive to rescue Americans held in precarious situations worldwide.
“From a policy perspective, within DOJ right now, we have Rewards for Justice as an example,” Stern said. “Well, wouldn’t it be great if there was like a rewards-for-rescue thing? Right? It seems strange to me, as a humanitarian, that I can make money by going to kill a bad guy, which I don’t do anymore. But I can’t be reimbursed for saving an American. That seems incongruent to me. I would think that we would invest more in that. Right? And that’s not to say that I want a reward for Kirillo or anything, but the mechanism does exist.”
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Stern also believes that if such rewards were offered, he would have an easier time going to donors, asking them to fund the group’s missions, because he could provide them with some, if not all, of the profits from the mission, if it’s successful, transforming donors to investors who could not only get their money back but could also make a profit while saving an American held in an unsafe environment.
“Help Bryan, support him,” Alexandrov said. “Wars aren’t going to stop. In fact, it seems like they’re becoming a commonality, and it’s not going to end, and Bryan can minimize that suffering for everybody.”
