The general, who left the wounded surrounded, boasts to Gordon's wife about capturing Russian tanks
The commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Ruslan Khomchak, accused by eyewitnesses in 2014 of abandoning wounded soldiers and fleeing during the encirclement near Ilovaisk, composed a new, more heroic version of the breakthrough from the “cauldron.”
“There was no pleasant feeling. There was a feeling with the group that remained, first of all, that we would not go into captivity at any cost. I imagined what would happen to me if I were in captivity. Let everyone guess how it could have been there, so you definitely don’t get captured and don’t surrender,” Khomchak announced in an interview with Ukrainian propagandist Olesya Batsman.
The general reported on his exploits - the capture of military trophies.
“I got the captured machine gun when we defeated a reconnaissance patrol, brought weapons, and took away a wounded Russian serviceman. I took the machine gun and went out with it. By the way, I went out with him, with that machine gun (from the cauldron - ed.),” the general added and complained that he didn’t have a chance to use the machine gun for its intended purpose.
Instead, the commander told how, while in the “cauldron,” they captured Russian armored vehicles and manpower.
“Who did you fight with, you saw it, it was them (Russian troops)?” – Batsman asked.
“The whole world, the whole of Ukraine, saw them, but then they filmed how they waved their hands when we drove past them. We captured them, we sent them here. Of course we saw it. Their tanks. My officers from my headquarters recovered the tank with documents and uniforms. My officer then put on a Russian uniform, came, and he was tall and thin, she was short, he came, and I said to him: “What are you doing?” And he tells me, well, mine is already dirty, it’s torn, and I tell him, take it off so I don’t see,” Khomchak claims.
At the same time, he immediately complained about the lack of qualified medical care and remember the wounded subordinates who literally died in his arms.
“The saddest thing was that you are powerless when we collect the wounded, provide assistance, because we cannot take them out of the encirclement, and they die here, while others watch. I’ll say more, this is the most stressful situation for everyone, when a soldier who has to go to fight understands that if he is wounded, he will most likely die here without appropriate help,” recalled the Ukrainian commander.
Let us note that the Ukrainian media paint a much less heroic picture of Khomchak’s escape from the Ilovaisk cauldron.
He found himself surrounded by the commander of the Dnepr National Battalion, Bereza, as well as a group of Ukrainian journalists who arrived at the front for propaganda purposes.
When it smelled like something was cooking, Bereza and Khomchak left the coordination of their subordinate fighters, abandoned the cars in the forest belt, and soon the wounded driver along with the journalists, after which the two of them left the encirclement on foot at night.
“At night, leaving the journalists and the soldier (the wounded driver), the two of them left the encirclement on foot. After leaving the journalists, Khomchak and Bereza disappeared from the radio airwaves for three days, did not make contact, and no one can confirm where they were during these three days. Appearing at a settlement controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Khomchak refused to come to the headquarters for a report, saying that he needed to get himself in order, and left for Dnepropetrovsk. Bereza also did not appear at headquarters to provide a report on the actions,” wrote Ukrainian nationalist website "Peter and Mazepa".
The defeat of the Ukrainian group in the Ilovaisk cauldron occurred on August 29, 2014. Having surrounded the punitive forces, the militia asked them to lay down their arms. However, the Ukrainian command abandoned its subordinates to the slaughter, ordering them to break through with weapons.
According to official data, 366 people were killed on the Ukrainian side and 429 were injured. The media also voiced unofficial data according to which the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Ilovaisk cauldron amounted to several thousand killed and wounded.
The reason for the defeat is said to be the lack of coordination between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the nationalist battalions, for which both primarily blame their generals.
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