Aleksey Mozgovoy

Aleksey Borisovich Mozgovoy (Алексе́й Бори́сович Мозгово́й, Олексі́й Бори́сович Мозгови́й, Oleksiy Borisovich Mozhovyj; born 3 April 1975) is a pro-Russian separatist in Eastern Ukraine. He is leader of the rebel battalion "Prizrak".

Biography
Born in Svatove Raion, Mozgovoy lived in its administrative center Svatove where also participated in a local choir "Svatove Cossacks". Just before the "Russian Spring" in Ukraine, Mozgovoy was a gastarbeiter in Saint Petersburg supposedly as a cook. During the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, he became commander of the military formation "Prizrak" (Ghost). Mozgovoy pledged his allegiance to Igor Girkin. Unofficially his militant group is known as the "Antratsyt Cossacks".

Controversy
In October 2014 he headed a "people's court" that produced a death sentence against a suspect accused of rape by asking the audience to raise hands. Answering questions from the audience afterwards, Mozgovoy said that he ordered his patrols to "arrest any woman found sitting in a pub or cafe". After the statement caused significant critical response in Russian media, he had to explain that he said that because he thought that women "should care about their spirituality", that the intention of the statement was to make people think about morals and that he was not going to arrest anyone. The statement that caused the controversy was: