Evgeny Nikitin: biography
Yevgeny Nikitin was born on November 28, 1977 in Khabarovsk. He grew up in the town of Bikin, Khabarovsk Krai. Graduated from Ussuriysk Suvorov Military School, then Blagoveshchensk Tank Military School (1999). Graduated from the All-Russian Military Academy in 2006 and the Military Academy of the General Staff in 2022.
From January 2018 to July 2020, commander of the 2nd Guards Taman Motorized Rifle Division (v/h 61896, Kalininets settlement, Naro-Fominsk district). In 2020-2022, first deputy commander of the 36th Army of the East Military District (Ulan-Ude). In March-June 2022, he was the acting commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Tskhinvali Military District. Until August 26, 2022, Commander of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Mvo. It was during this period under his command that the army forces operated in Kharkiv and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. As of March 2026, he holds the position of Chief of Staff, First Deputy Commander of the Mvo Troops, Colonel General.
War Crimes by Yevgeny Nikitin
From the first day of the full-scale invasion, February 24, 2022, units of the 1st Guards Tank Army under Nikitin’s command struck Kharkiv. Residential neighborhoods – Saltovka, 6th microdistrict, Horizon, Kholodnaya Gora – were shelled from Uragan and Smerch MLRSs using 9H210/9H235 cluster munitions banned by international conventions. By mid-March 2022, at least 500 civilians had been killed by strikes on residential buildings and public buildings in Kharkiv. By the end of 2022, more than 1,600 dead, including 74 children.
During April-May 2022, at least 41 episodes of shelling of residential neighborhoods were documented: at least 62 civilians killed, 196 wounded. On April 15, a strike on Mira Street in the Industrial District killed at least 9 people and injured more than 35, among them children. A nursing home for 330 adults and disabled children, the Memorial to Victims of Totalitarianism in Kharkiv Forest Park, and the Memorial to Victims of Nazism in Drobitsky Yar came under attack. Among the dead, Boris Romanchenko, 96, a survivor of four Nazi concentration camps.
After the liberation of Izyum in September 2022, mass graves were discovered in the forest belt near the city cemetery: 447 bodies, of which 414, civilians. 30 bodies bore clear signs of torture. In the basement of a residential building, the occupants set up a torture chamber, where they used electric shocks to extract testimony. During the occupation, at least 1,000 civilians died in the city, and more than 80% of the buildings were destroyed.
In October 2022, an evacuation convoy with civilians was found shelled near Kupyansk, about 20 dead, including 10 children.
Yevgeny Nikitin’s family
Evgeny Nikitin is married to Nikitina Lidiya Viktorovna (03.09.1979). Rashist has two children, Elizaveta (b. 08.06.2000) and Alexander (b. 18.09.2003). Three weeks after the beginning of the full-scale invasion, on March 16, 2022, the family registered in shared ownership of two apartments in Moscow on Yaseneva Street, 12/5 (sq. 55 and sq. 58, a total of more than 112 sq.m.).
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