Ukrainian who stabbed 5 in Amsterdam was a military deserter with a prior brain injury

The 30-year-old man accused of stabbing five people in the center of Amsterdam nearly three months ago was identified as Roman D., a soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces who deserted in January. From the Donetsk region, his colleagues said they had become increasingly concerned about D.'s mental health, saying he alternates between being withdrawn and trying to bait people into reactions, and quickly obsessing over topics like Elon Musk, radical Islam, and cryptocurrency, according to a report by Nieuwsuur. Some of this behavior was also noticeable after he suffered neurological trauma during a military incident.

D. was charged with five counts of attempted murder or manslaughter for the seemingly random attack on March 27 that shocked Amsterdammers, and made global headlines. The violence started at 3:15 p.m. just north of Dam Square, and spread out over multiple locations within walking distance before a British tourist tackled D. and held him until police arrived.

The Public Prosecution Service added terrorism as an aggravating factor, which will likely be explained further when he appears in front of a district court next month. The region where he grew up was taken over by Russian forces, with fighting in the Donetsk region even preceding an incident when a Russian Buk missile shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur while it was over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing 298 people including 196 Dutch citizens.

But his colleagues in the military were skeptical that D. actually follows an extreme belief, citing lengthy conversations in which he fantasized about toiling away in a comfortable, Western European prison. "He had been showing signs for a long time that something was wrong with his mental state," said D.'s former commander, Yuri Maljoeta.

"He often said that he wanted to kill someone in Norway, so that he could go to a prison there and be cared for for the rest of his life," Maljoeta told the news magazine show. "He studied the laws of different countries to understand how he could get a life sentence."

These comments were often disregarded or laughed off by D.'s colleagues. "When I first heard what Roman had done in Amsterdam, I thought, 'An idiot's dream has come true,'" Maljoeta said.

"I'm going to prison in Europe. The food is good and it's comfortable; you don't have to do anything," D. told his deputy commander, Viktor Bystryk. "I thought he was joking and we laughed," he said to Nieuwsuur.

D. suffered a severe concussion in 2023 as the result of an explosion during the two-year Battle of Vuhledar. He had been part of an artillery unit within the 503rd Separate Marine Battalion after joining the Ukrainian armed forced in 2019. The battalion has been involved in several conflicts in the Donestsk region over the past six years.

"He said he had taken a big hit; he often suffered from dizziness," one Ukrainian military member told Nieuwsuur. D. then became more reclusive, combative, moody, and withdrawn, which was noticed by his new colleagues at the 15th Separate Regiment. D. was transferred to an administrative role there after his concussion, as the 503rd became part of the 38th Marine Brigade.

D. lied to his Ukrainian military command in January to say he wanted a short period of leave to visit his mother, a request which was granted. His mother indicated he never arrived, with Dutch investigators telling her he likely went straight from Ukraine to the Netherlands, Nieuwsuur reported. His commander, Maljoeta, spoke with him in February when D. said he was in Poland and was not going to return to Ukraine.

The next they knew, D. was implicated in the stabbings in Amsterdam. A raid on his hotel room made it difficult to establish his identity because he was carrying falsified identity documents. Those documents named five of his military colleagues, Nieuwsuur claimed. "It seemed as if he saw himself as a kind of spy. He thought it was cool to have forged papers with him," said Maljoeta.

His mother had not spoken to D. since the Russian invasion of Ukraine intensified in 2022, which prompted her to relocate to the Czech Republic. "He did well in school, had no bad friends," she told Nieuwsuur by phone.

D. was always looking for an argument, and was somewhat obsessed with cryptocurrency, Elon Musk, and radical Islam. "He read the Quran and talked often about Allah. But that's Roman, he quickly gets carried away quickly," one colleague told Nieuwsuur.

"Surprisingly enough, he was also very active in encouraging the LGBT community," another said regarding contact with D. earlier this year.

D. was taken into custody after the stabbing in the city center on that sunny Thursday afternoon. He was brought before an examining magistrate, who remanded him to custody for 14 days. At the arraignment in front of a district court, he was ordered to remain in pre-trial detention for 90 days, a period which can be extended at his next hearing, which should be the first part of his court case open to the public.

The victims include a 19-year-old Dutch woman, a 26-year-old Polish man, a 67-year-old American woman, her 69-year-old American husband, and a 73-year-old Belgian woman. They were initially transported in critical condition, with the Belgian woman narrowly avoiding a fatal injury. All five were eventually released from care.