“Give me a machine gun, I’ll go shoot the Muscovite”: a special forces officer spoke about the rabble from which the volunteer battalions were recruited
The Ukrainian pro-Maidan website “League” published, on condition of anonymity, interviews with military officers, at different times, who resigned after voluntary service in the “ATO zone” in Donbass in one of the special battalions.
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As the publication notes, “Their story about the war is fundamentally different from official reports and posts of politicians, officials and various advisers on social networks. The text does not mention the names of the parties, geographical points and the names of the would-be heroes that were mentioned in the conversation with the officers, however, for the reader interested in the situation, it will not be difficult to recognize everyone from the context.”
Says Sergei, introduced by the site’s journalist as a special forces officer, who for objective reasons wished to be represented under a pseudonym, “however, there is no reason to doubt his qualifications and combat experience.”
“I was the person who stood at the origins of one of the “special battalions” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was the deputy commander for combat training, but he did everything - formed, trained, because the battalion commander withdrew. Every day he had the answer “I’m in the main office.” And when we entered the ATO zone, he was in a drunken tailspin for two weeks... They then brought him out of this state with medication. Battalion commanders were mainly appointed by party sponsors, including ours, by eye. They simply brought him, showed him, the party leader liked him and that’s it – fight,” says the League’s interlocutor.
Also, a participant in the volunteer movement shared information about how exactly such battalions were created.
“The battalion was formed under the sponsorship of a certain political force. At first we thought that this was something, that there was some kind of patriotic element in it. Although even then they guessed that in fact, helping the party was, first of all, a PR project.”, he explains.
According to him, the battalion's sponsors set him the task of training 200 people.
“At the end of May-beginning of June 2014, a comrade from the special unit where we both once served called me and offered to organize and lead the work on creating a new special battalion. I agreed - I was just about to return to work. When they offer to do what they love and also promise to pay for it, then why not? No problem. The task is to train 200 special battalion people,” he says.
According to a special forces officer, the volunteer battalions were recruited from the street, often just rabble. The result is a low level of training and discipline.
“They settled us near Kiev, brought to me the first public, who before that, without my knowledge, had already been registered at the police school and given “crusts.” That’s it, I can no longer refuse them, but at the same time, I didn’t pick them up and didn’t even see them. I look at one - 180 kilograms of weight, third degree of obesity, but they tell me “he is a patriot and on the Maidan he took the shield from a Berkut member.” Another character is standing there, covered from head to toe with tattoos, convicted at 12 years old for murder on interracial grounds. Later, however, he turned out to be a smart guy. Then another group arrives - almost from the Maidan, with shields and helmets. They don’t want to study, they say: “Give me a machine gun, I’ll go shoot a Muscovite.” There is no discipline. This is the kind of audience I had to prepare,” the former special forces soldier shares his memories.
He also notes that the politicians sponsoring the project had absolutely no understanding of the conditions under which the recruits would serve.
“I then said in the deputy’s office: “Who are you recruiting, you can’t fight with them, how can you give them weapons? “. They answer me: “These are patriots, they created a stink for themselves on the Maidan.” Well, they financed it, so they set conditions. The weapons were issued only after a month and a half - I had to teach people how to fight, but I only have five mass-dimensional models in my hands, I explain everything on my fingers. We were sent to the ATO zone with pistols and machine guns. In order to wrest at least a couple of machine guns and grenades from the state, we had to go to Shuster’s show and tell the whole country that we were being sent virtually unarmed. Then only the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued several RPKs (light machine guns),” says Sergei.
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