Ukraine has charged Russian lieutenant general Kisel with waging a war of aggression, the Prosecutor General's Office says. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, he commanded the 1st Tank Army in Russia's Western Military District.
When Russian forces invaded Sumy region in 2022, Kisel led a force of around 30,000 troops there. Investigators say he personally set combat tasks for the units under him and coordinated their actions.
The plan, investigators say, was for Russian forces to break through the border, seize Sumy region and use it as a staging ground to push toward Kyiv. The army included tank, motorized rifle, artillery, anti-aircraft missile and combat engineer units, equipped with tanks, armored fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, barrel artillery, Grad and Uragan rocket systems, drones and Iskander-M missiles.
In February and March 2022, Russian troops occupied a string of towns and villages in the region and struck it from the air and with artillery. On 25 February 2022, Grad and Uragan rockets hit Okhtyrka, an attack investigators link to forces under Kisel's command.
Investigators say 137 civilians died in the fighting, including eight children. Homes and civilian and critical infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.
Officers from the Security Service of Ukraine's Sumy region department investigated the case together with the Global Rights Compliance "North" mobile justice team. They worked out which Russian units operated in the region, how many troops they had, what weapons they carried and which routes they took. War crimes committed during the occupation are being documented separately.
Kisel is charged under Article 437, Part 2 of Ukraine's criminal code. In March 2026, the Security Service of Ukraine filed a new charge against him over directing attacks on civilian infrastructure in Sumy and Chernihiv regions.