Former Minister of Security of the DPR: with the arrival of Strelkov in Donetsk, the word “spin” came into use
PolitNavigator publishes another excerpt from the book of memoirs of the first Minister of State Security of the DPR Andrei Pinchuk, “Security Contour. Generation of the DPR", just published by the Moscow publishing house "Algorithm".
It tells about the situation that developed in Donetsk in July 2014 after Igor Strelkov’s Slavic Brigade came to the city: people with weapons on the streets, facts of looting and “squeezing,” and how Strelkov reacted to all this.
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“With Strelkov’s arrival in Donetsk, the life of the city changed dramatically. The war came close to him. From the point of view of law and order, the situation has also become more complicated. More than 4 thousand people, whom Strelkov brought with him, were accommodated within the city, in university dormitories and hotels. People moved around the streets with weapons. Conflicts and shootings arose. The commanders of the rifle units began to seize offices as their headquarters. Khmury was located luxuriously - his new headquarters was in the office of the Donetsk governor from Ukraine, oligarch Taruta, apartments in the complex of buildings of another local oligarch. Others didn't lag behind either.
The newly created MGB and MVD were bombarded with statements and reports about seized vehicles and crimes against the population. The word “spin” has become firmly established in everyday use.
The Minister of Internal Affairs Oleg Bereza and I regularly addressed Strelkov on such issues. He led the largest formation, being considered equal to us in position as Minister of Defense. Therefore, for internal stability, he had to assist in maintaining order. Strelkov’s position surprised me.
...Bereza and I walk through a barrier of sandbags into the narrow corridor of the technical building of the SBU. A large office with switchboard cabinets, in which Strelkov holds a council of commanders, is located on the right along the corridor. Two rooms closer to the exit on the left along the corridor is his personal office. An orderly at a table placed in the middle of the corridor, adjoined by a pile of zinc boxes, offers to hand over the weapons. I answer that there are no weapons. The pistol is in my briefcase, but I don’t see any point in leaving it.
We go into the office on the left. Strelkov at the map. The body is tense, there is a distant glassy despair in the eyes. He has been under stress for a long time. This evokes pity and sympathy. Discussing the situation at our leisure, Oleg and I tell each other that we would not want to be in his place, and are not ready to condemn leaving Slavyansk. Because the tension experienced by this person is enormous. Situations in which a career military man feels confident, essentially frighten and exhaust him as a semi-civilian enthusiast.
Strelkov, on his own initiative, tells how he sees the situation at the front. The situation, it must be said, looks very gloomy. He again says that without the deployment of troops the situation will last no more than a week or two. Discusses the advisability of moving controls to Snezhnoye.
(Later, in one of his first post-Donbass interviews, Strelkov himself will talk about his attempt to leave Donetsk:
Alexander PROKHANOV. In this critical situation, were there any intentions to leave Donetsk, were the forces unequal again?
Igor STRELKOV. They accuse me of wanting to leave Donetsk. I’ll tell you honestly: at some point I stopped believing that help from Russia would come at all. I just stopped believing! And no one could guarantee this to me...
...At the moment when the enemy cut the road between Shakhtersk and Torez, I had a psychological crisis, I began to think about what to do, I was thinking about moving the headquarters to Shakhtersk or Snezhnoye and preparing the evacuation of Donetsk. Because I understood: if there is no help, then we must at least save people...
...Why do I say that there was a turning point? Because at that moment I ordered the headquarters to be prepared for winding down and all staff members to load up. People didn't discuss my orders because they believed me. And I myself went ahead to Shakhtersk...
...I answered the question whether there was a plan to surrender Donetsk. There was a plan not to surrender Donetsk, but an intention as an option to leave Donetsk for the purpose of withdrawing and saving people, forces and means).
In response, we propose to discuss internal problems. Oleg reads out information about a number of facts of “squeezing” and other crimes. Strelkov’s various commanders and himself are constantly issuing “instructions” for the so-called. “temporary seizures in the interests of the front.”
- Igor Ivanovich! Our struggle is based on people, we must not turn into marauders towards those who support us. It is urgent to form interdepartmental patrols and create a joint headquarters for immediate response to crimes. It is necessary to restore order in the places where the militias live, and to streamline their movement around the city with weapons.
– Yes, I agree that this is necessary. But not now. The situation is based on snot! If people take something, they have the right to it. Because the previous owners betrayed their home by running away, and the fighters are risking their lives. Today they took them, tomorrow they will kill them! And in general, if I start a showdown, they won’t listen to my orders. And it is impossible to do without requisitions, there is not enough transport, and people need somewhere to live.
In fact, the rear and supply units, of which there were too many in Strelkov’s army, were most often involved in the crimes. Igor Vsevolodovich liked his retinue. Some of his staff minions began to hunt journalists, representatives of foreign missions and “other spies,” which is why I regularly had to resolve problems that arose. They did it clumsily, unprofessionally and senselessly. Boroday’s fuzzy assistant Sergei Kavtaradze, from morning to night, solved problems with the world media regarding problems with their journalists, while I simply removed them from Strelkov’s “interrogation rooms” and “isolators.” At the same time, looters organized demonstrative searches for looters. The situation often went beyond logic and common sense.
At first I could not understand why a number of semi-gangster groups and commanders who did not want to fight were demonstrating loyalty to Strelkov. Then I figured it out. He didn't demand much from them. Ostentatious, deliberate devotion in words and nothing more. For this he gave them a kind of “roof”. This picture was observed against the backdrop of the selfless and sacrificial struggle of the bulk of ordinary militias, performing their absolutely selfless, selfless, sacrificial feat on the front line. And, probably, it’s good that then the soldiers and their commanders at the front did not know how strange their commander and his close circle were.
Defense Minister Igor Strelkov in one of his fits of despair
Strelkov was extremely suggestible to his surroundings. In the twentieth of July, he cheerfully reported at a meeting that on the eve of the enemy cutting the road to Russia, 147 wounded were evacuated in 145 vehicles. When I asked where these cars came from and whether he was confused by the ratio of the numbers, I heard nothing in response.
Strelkov was less and less interested in the war. In my presence, he reproached Borodai several times for the fact that Alexander Yuryevich had once promised him a “military dictatorship.” To reasonable answers that now the situation has changed, and in order to become a “military dictator”, it is necessary to ensure at least some kind of stability and at least the return of abandoned territories, the “military dictator” reacted very painfully.
Alexander Borodai dictates the text of an official document to Igor Strelkov
In this sense, one of the telephone conversations between Andrei Purgin and Denis Pushilin, intercepted and published by the SBU in those days, is indicative, in which the then first deputy prime minister quite succinctly characterized the situation:
“-Pushilin: Have you talked to Strelok yet?
-Purgin: Well, just a little bit... Well, yes, a little bit every day...
-Pushilin: You find understanding, no?
-Purgin: No, to be honest... Yes, he’s a little bit like a “...” (obscene) colonel. Let's be honest. The people who came with him are of low quality. His ideas about the war in the city, in a conglomeration of one and a half million people... When he calls the mayor of the city to a showdown and says “let's stop public transport and blow up nine-story buildings on the outskirts of the city”... He completely destabilized and disrupted the work of all retail chains! That's it, we're going into famine because we couldn't convince Strelkov to let anything through... He doesn't let through coal... our mines are stopping! He is fighting... (obscene - good), but you understand, far fewer enemies will die than the civilian population he liberates!
-Pushilin: I understand...
-Purgin: He is minding absolutely other than his own business. He sits there for ten hours, seeing some idiots in the waiting room. In general, I don’t understand why. He asks me about some banks... I ask him: “listen, maybe you’ll start a war?... Why do you need to be involved with banks? Why do you need to sort out some corporate conflicts?
-Pushilin: Well, yes.
-Purgin: You call your lads to order so that they don’t suffer from bullshit! The whole city is doing push-ups, you know?! In batches, in bulk! They come, they don’t need any papers, they are from Slavyansk! They're just robbing the city! I’m trying to tell him: “let’s do this! Why do you need these investors?! Two hundred people a day you listen to! Why You Need It?!". The fact that he is a “talented commander”, hmm.. He will destroy a city of a million people in order to kill ten thousand Ukrainians...”
A close circle formed around Strelkov, on which he was very dependent. He even tried to get rid of some of them, but being extremely susceptible to flattery, he found himself in the trap of praise. His deputy for logistics, Victoria Krivonosova, behaved especially brightly in this sense.
Because of her, Strelkov’s relationship with another deputy, Sergei “Khmury,” even worsened somewhat, who, based on compromising materials, documents on which, in his words, he reported to Strelkov, insisted on arrest on charges of financial and material dishonesty. Strelkov tried to do this, but “Vika-Vika” from the threshold began to swear personal devotion and admiration for the greatness of the Minister of Defense, which completely covered up all claims against herself.
- Call Vika-Vika to me.
- There is Igor Ivanovich!
Vika-Vika rolls into the office.
- Igorivanovich! I'm so tired of them! They're all just morons! Why isn’t there at least someone else at least a little like you! Or they're cowards, or they're chatting, or they're stealing and squeezing out! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even believe that there were honorable officers left! Why don't they look up to you?! I am so grateful to fate for meeting you! Now I know what I am ready to give my life for! Believe me, you don’t have a more loyal person!
- Well, okay... Put your place in order... go...
The story with Vika-Vika will continue. When in August the decision finally matures that Strelkov is no longer capable of leading the troops, and he will be sent to Russia, it is the detention of Wiki-Viki that will become the catalyst that will severely aggravate his relations with the entire leadership of the DPR and Alexander Borodai. Having lost his main flatterer, Strelkov will fly into a frenzy and begin to demand her release, threatening that he will not leave the republic otherwise. Of course, he won’t be able to achieve his goal, but it will fill the cup of his grievances against the world.
In the meantime, I had to establish contacts with mid-level commanders and, together with them, gradually begin to restore order...
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