The Tornado Battalion (батальона «Торнадо») was a (Pro-Ukraine) Volunteer Battalion assigned to the Ukrainian Special Tasks Patrol Police, it was formed as a successor of the Shakhtarsk Battalion, a military unit formed by Oleh Liashko of the Liashko Radical Party, it also included members of the Right Sector movement.
The unit’s leader was Ruslan Onishenko.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has disbanded the Shakhtarsk special operations traffic police battalion after some of its officers were accused of looting, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told one of the country’s television stations.
“The Shakhtarsk battalion, which fought excellently near Ilovaisk, was disbanded on orders issued by the minister because it was involved in repeated instances of looting in Volnovakha and in other situations,” Avakov was quoted as saying on Friday by Radio Liberty.
Complicated history
The battalion, set up in June 2014, was initially called Shakhtarsk after a city in Donetsk Oblast but was dissolved in October because of accusations of looting. It was soon resurrected as the Tornado Battalion.
Tornado fighters admit that cases of looting had taken place but they argue that the media have greatly exaggerated their extent. Moreover, those accused of looting have been expelled from the unit, and currently the crime is severely punished, they say.
In addition to convicts, the battalion includes Ukrainian nationalists, including ones from the Right Sector and Spilna Sprava (Common Cause) groups. The Shakhtarsk battalion initially included the Jesus Christ Hundred, linked to ultranationalist Dmytro Korchinsky’s Brotherhood right-wing group. But this group later became a separate unit, called the St. Mary Battalion.
The Battalion was later disbanded due to extreme cases of misconduct by its members, including sex crimes and torture, but its members were later released in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, allowing them to re-join the war effort:
MP VIII of the convocation Igor Mosichuk said that the former commander of the disbanded police company “Tornado” Ruslan Onishchenko was released from prison after 7 years in prison. About it he wrote in its Telegram channel on Monday, July 11th.
“Ruslan Onishchenko’s ex-combat of the Tornado Battalion released from behind bars,” the publication said.
According to Mosichuk, Onishchenko spent almost 7 years in prison.
It will be recalled that in April 2017 the former commander of “Tornado” was convicted The Obolonian District Court of Kyiv is up to 11 years in prison for articles on resistance to a law enforcement officer, appropriation of power, suicide, unnatural rape, abduction, unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture. Together with him, seven more of his colleagues were sentenced to real prison terms, and five battalion fighters were given suspended terms.
In 2015 at the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported, that Onishchenko was convicted five times. According to the agency, the ex-commander of “Tornado” is involved in the creation of a criminal group in the city of Privilla Luhansk, which dealt with torture and illegal imprisonment of local residents.
It will be recalled that in late February it became known that Onishchenko and a number of other prisoners wrote a request release them to participate in a full-scale war against the Russian Federation Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova then assured that each candidate for dismissal was scrutinized before completing his sentence under hostilities.
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