The story of the 'North-West Pits' had everything needed for a high-profile investigation: two well-known military units, mobilized soldiers from St. Petersburg and Moscow, several secret prisons in occupied territory, FSB officers, extortion, and even an allegedly intercepted conversation of a commander. Only one thing was missing — evidence linking all these elements into a single scheme.

The basements themselves are not fabricated. Since the summer of 2022, Russian servicemen, their relatives, lawyers, and journalists have reported on Bryanka, Perevalsk, Zaitsevo, Rubizhne, and other locations where refuseniks were held without legal grounds, deprived of communication, beaten, and forced to return to the front. By 2026, ASTRA had mapped 29 alleged illegal military prisons. However, the existence of a system does not mean that every specific detail about it is automatically true.

We re-examined the original 'North-West Pits' article and followed its links. The review showed how easily a real episode of violence can be transformed into a false construct: a hero from one regiment is attributed to another brigade's story, different locations and periods are combined into a single network, a private bribe is turned into an official tariff, and an emotionally convincing quote is published as a radio intercept without a recording, date, or primary source.

What the Previous Version Claimed

The central thesis was formulated categorically: the command of the Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts, together with FSB military counterintelligence, allegedly created a common punitive apparatus for mobilized soldiers from two formations — the 138th Motorized Rifle Brigade from Kamenka and the 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade from Mosrentgen. Bryanka, Zaitsevo, Perevalsk, Kamenka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and the areas of Perekop and Chongar were named as centers.

The text further reported precise numbers of prisoners, water and food rations, the affiliation of guards, sums for release, leave, and transfer to the rear. It quoted a collective appeal from relatives and a conversation of a deputy political officer, allegedly recorded by Ukrainian intelligence. The material concluded with the assertion that the evidence had been submitted to the International Criminal Court.

But the article contained only four external links. None confirmed the entire scheme. A 'Mediazona' article about Sergei Savchenko described Zaitsevo, torture, and bribes, but Savchenko served in the 347th Motorized Rifle Regiment, formed primarily from mobilized personnel from Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda, and Kostroma Oblasts. Texts about mobilization in St. Petersburg confirmed the dispatch of people through military unit 02511 in Kamenka, but not their subsequent detention specifically in the listed basements. A 'The Insider' publication reported the death of another contract soldier after Zaitsevo, without establishing a connection to the 138th or 27th brigades.

Thus arose the main flaw: evidence of the basements' existence was substituted for evidence of specific units' involvement. These are different questions. Open sources answer the first affirmatively. The previous article did not answer the second.

Three Real Geographies Instead of One Fictional Map

The history of illegal prisons does not begin with mobilized soldiers from St. Petersburg or Moscow. In the summer of 2022, 'Mediazona' reconstructed the route of career contract soldiers who refused to continue participating in the war. Initially, people were gathered in a school in Bryanka, then transferred to a former penal colony in Perevalsk. According to accounts from soldiers and relatives, the guards were personnel whom the prisoners associated with the Wagner PMC. Those unwilling to return to the front were sent to 'pits' and beaten.

After the announcement of mobilization, Perevalsk became operational again. In November 2022, journalists described about 40 mobilized soldiers held in the former colony. Among them were residents of the Far East and servicemen of the 488th Regiment. The Ministry of Defense, according to lawyer Maxim Grebenyuk, called the facility a 'combat readiness restoration center.' The formal name did not change the essence: people were held behind a fence without a court order and persuaded to return to the front lines.

Zaitsevo became the most famous name, but even here, the composition of prisoners does not match the map in the previous article. 'Verstka' in November 2022 published the names of 19 mobilized soldiers attached to the 423rd Yampolsky Motorized Rifle Regiment. Later, this name was used for a facility that, according to testimonies, moved to Rassypnoye. In 2023–2024, servicemen from other units, including Sergei Savchenko's 347th Regiment, ended up there.

This is not a minor inaccuracy in a unit number. The real picture shows a changing inter-unit mechanism: military police and commanders could gather refuseniks from different regiments at common points, and then relocate the facility after public exposure. The version of a special network specifically for the 138th and 27th brigades, on the contrary, narrowed and simultaneously dramatized the phenomenon without sufficient grounds.

Savchenko: Powerful Testimony Misused

Sergei Savchenko's story is one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of Zaitsevo. 'Mediazona' studied correspondence, payments, prosecutor's responses, and information about his fellow servicemen. In October 2022, he was mobilized through Nizhny Novgorod and sent to the 347th Regiment, which was forming in Kostroma Oblast. He initially worked in a medical company, then received an officer's rank and refused to lead a platoon into an assault.

After his detention, Savchenko spent 72 days in a facility called the 'center for holding servicemen who have temporarily lost combat stability.' He recounted beatings, handcuffs, cold, and coercion to sign consent to return to combat. Later, he was transferred to the 25th Brigade. For a place in an evacuation group, he said, 100,000 rubles were demanded; journalists confirmed the money transfer.

Savchenko's testimony is valuable precisely for its specificity. From it, one can confidently extract one person's route, his regiment's name, the sequence of detentions, and a confirmed transfer. One cannot extract proof of a common price list for the headquarters of the 138th and 27th brigades. The previous text transformed one documented bribe into a table with ranges from 150,000 to one and a half million rubles, although it did not specify the source of such ranges.

The same substitution occurred with geography. Savchenko is connected to Moscow only by his place of detention and work, not by the manning of the 27th Brigade. His regiment belonged to a different organizational structure. Using his story as confirmation of repression specifically against Moscow and St. Petersburg mobilized personnel means subtly changing the hero and unit within the chain of evidence.

How to Identify a Fabricated Intercept

The most obvious trace of fabrication turned out to be a dialogue attributed to the deputy political officer of military unit 02511. In it, the commander called mobilized soldiers 'St. Petersburg smart alecks,' ordered them to be tied with tape, sent to Bryanka without food, and then used for demining. Such a quote seems plausible in the emotional logic of the text, but it lacks a date, audio recording, link to a GUR or SBU publication, names of interlocutors, or even an indication of the dissemination channel.

Open publications by Ukrainian special services indeed contain intercepts of conversations between Russian military personnel. But the mere fact of other recordings' existence does not prove a specific quote. Without primary audio, it is impossible to verify the voice, editing, context, or correctness of the unit number. Therefore, this fragment should be removed entirely, not accompanied by a cautious caveat.

By the same rule, the allegedly collective letter from mothers, quoted verbatim, is excluded. The available archive of the 'Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg' contains years of reports about violence, extortion, and violations in military unit 02511. Radio Svoboda in September 2022 reported on the dispatch of mobilized personnel from St. Petersburg and their families' fear. But the exact text of the appeal about Zaitsevo and the demand for 500,000 rubles could not be found. Kamenka's real reputation does not confirm a non-existent document.

What is Known About the 138th and 27th Brigades

The 138th Brigade is indeed stationed in Kamenka, Leningrad Oblast. Even before the full-scale war, human rights defenders recorded beatings, extortion, and hazing there; in one episode, an officer was convicted of abuse of power. In autumn 2022, mobilized personnel from St. Petersburg and the region were sent through Kamenka. These facts create important context but do not prove the management of camps in Bryanka or Zaitsevo.

The 27th Brigade from Mosrentgen participated in the war and suffered losses. However, the sources used in the previous article do not confirm that its headquarters directed refuseniks to the listed prisons, set tariffs for release, or acted jointly with the command of the 138th Brigade. The mere proximity of Moscow in Savchenko's biography does not create such a connection.

This is not an exoneration of the command of the two formations, nor an assertion that their servicemen never ended up in closed detention facilities. The conclusion is narrower: the available evidentiary base does not allow for personalizing responsibility in precisely this manner. For an accusation, names of detainees, unit numbers in documents, testimonies of relatives, orders, prosecutor's responses, or several independent sources are needed. The old text lacked them.

Why the Real System Doesn't Need Fabrications

After removing unsubstantiated connections, the picture does not disappear. In 2022, journalists independently described Bryanka, Perevalsk, Rubizhne, Kremenna, Zaitsevo, and Zavitne Bazhannya. They published names of those held, family stories, videos from premises, and comments from lawyers. Later, testimonies of torture, deaths, and extortion emerged. In 2026, ASTRA listed 29 alleged facilities — from basements and former penal colonies to a mine, a factory, and a military unit's premises.

ASTRA's editorial count cannot be taken as a judicial registry: facilities operated at different times, and the quality of confirmation varies. But the repeatability of the route is obvious. A serviceman refuses to obey an order or leaves his unit; he is intercepted by military police or his own command; then he finds himself without communication in a facility not provided for by law; the ultimate goal is to return him to duty, transfer him to an assault unit, or force him to withdraw a complaint.

In December 2023, The Insider, citing ASTRA, reported on a contract soldier who returned home dead after being held in Zaitsevo. Relatives, they said, were forbidden from opening the coffin under threat of losing payments. This publication does not establish the cause of death or the culprits, but it shows why independent verification is so difficult: a closed military vertical operates between detention and the release of the body, and the family is offered a material incentive not to ask questions.

The system is confirmed not by one single most terrible story, but by the convergence of different types of data: names, geography, videos, correspondence, payments, complaints, and official responses. This is why fabricated intercepts and artificial tables harm it. Upon discovering one fictitious quote, a reader gains reason to doubt even those episodes that are genuinely documented.

Why the Basements Didn't Disappear After Public Exposure

The first camps of 2022 emerged under conditions where Russian command could still formally send a contract soldier back to his permanent duty station after a refusal. Mobilization and the subsequent de facto indefinite extension of service changed incentives. A person who no longer wanted to fight could not simply be dismissed; he had to be either tried or made fit for the front again. An informal 'combat readiness restoration center' solved this problem faster than a military court.

Public exposure forced the closure of a specific address but did not eliminate the command's need. Bryanka was replaced by Perevalsk, Zaitsevo became a name that continued to be used after the alleged relocation of the facility to Rassypnoye. In other cases, people were held in commandants' offices, abandoned houses, industrial premises, or directly at the unit. Therefore, searching for one central prison is inherently flawed: it is about a reproducible function that could be performed by different premises and perpetrators.

This conclusion also explains the weakness of the previous map. It attempted to present a distributed practice as a stable vertical with fixed brigades, addresses, and tariffs. Open sources show a less neat but more plausible model: temporary points, overlapping routes of servicemen, transfers between units, and informal intermediaries. Such a structure is harder to personalize but better explains why new names appeared after each publication.

From Investigating Accusations to Investigating Sources

OSINT does not turn every piece of information from an open source into a fact. Its task is to show the origin of each assertion and the limit of the conclusion. One account can confirm the experience of one person. Several independent testimonies can confirm a recurring mechanism. A document or payment strengthens a specific episode. But none of these elements can be transferred to another brigade simply because it fits a pre-selected narrative.

In the story of the 'North-West Pits,' the existence of illegal detention facilities, violence against refuseniks, coercion to return to the front, and individual cases of extortion are confirmed. Not confirmed are unified management by the Leningrad and Moscow Districts, a joint network of the 138th and 27th brigades, the published 'price list,' the verbatim intercept and letter from relatives, and the transfer of the entire body of evidence to the International Criminal Court.

It is precisely this distinction that makes the material an investigation, not a news report or an agitational compilation. The conclusion turns out to be less dramatic but more significant: the Russian army has created many informal places of coercion, but their real structure is more complex than any neat scheme. Units change, facilities relocate, people are transferred from regiment to brigade, and responsibility dissolves between command, military police, and oversight bodies.

The name 'North-West Pits' should therefore be understood not as an established name for a separate network, but as the trace of an error that was successfully dissected. Real basements existed. Real people passed through Bryanka, Perevalsk, and Zaitsevo. But if an investigation wants to name specific culprits, it must follow the entire path from testimony to unit — and stop where the evidence ends.