Odessa is the southern outpost of Russia. “Wait, wait, wait,” they told us
Vlad Dolgosheya spent four years and three months with his father Ruslan in a Ukrainian prison. The Kiev regime considered the father and son guilty of blowing up railway tracks in the Odessa and Nikolaev regions.
And only thanks to the exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic, Vlad and Ruslan were able to be free.
Liberated fellow countryman Vlad Dolgosheya told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about the events of the already distant 2013 and 2014, that the partisan movement is impossible without coordination and support from the Center, and how the Russian Spring choked in Odessa.
Valentin Filippov: Our guest in our improvised studio is one of the liberated prisoners of Ukraine, hostages of Ukraine, Vlad Dolgosheya. Hello, Vlad.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Hello.
Valentin Filippov: The exchange in which you participated and thanks to which you are now in the Donbass is recognized in Ukraine as Putin’s confession. “Putin admitted his participation, and Putin admitted that he is conducting terrorist activities on the territory of Ukraine.”
The fact is that for this exchange Ukraine gave up the most malicious terrorists, murderers and, scary to say, separatists, and in exchange received absolutely innocent hostages. And here you are, as proof, as one of the most terrible terrorists in the world, how long ago did you start your terrorist activities?
Vlad Dolgosheya: Oh, I started terrorist activities, probably from the point of view of the state of Ukraine, from the very birth, because I was born in the wrong region with the wrong ethno-cultural component.
Valentin Filippov: So this is in Odessa?
Vlad Dolgosheya: Yes, in Odessa.
Valentin Filippov: Wait, wasn’t this an invasion through conception, that is, the occupation of Ukraine through childbirth in a maternity hospital?
Vlad Dolgosheya: I think, after all, it was Putin’s cunning plan to occupy the south-eastern regions of Ukraine, yes. It's something like this.
Valentin Filippov: That is, already then, a long time ago, Putin, not yet being president, led the dance floors where your parents met, and created all the conditions - the rustle of the sea, light music and all the bullshit.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: Fine. Then let's start with what you have come to as a result. They say that when democracy won in Ukraine and the “old European nation” realized itself as Svidomo, you sharply opposed the formation of the “old nation” from which civilization came?
Vlad Dolgosheya: I’ll roll back the question a little. In fact, they identified themselves as an “old nation” a very, very long time ago and strove for what later happened in the end in the 13th – 14th year and later. In fact, any adequate person with an analytical mind could say for sure - both during Yushchenko’s second Maidan, and even earlier, that there would be a civil war in Ukraine, this is inevitable. Because the radical agenda that was gripping this Ukrainian segment, intellectual and political, was clear even then, they were preparing for all of this.
The question is that we were not prepared. In the Southeast, people simply lived. They lived, worked and did not really prepare for any civil war. The point is that, even if you look at the level of our GDP and production in the southeastern regions and the western center, it is clear who worked.
The saddest thing is that we probably paid for this destructive action from our taxes. My personal action directly against the Maidan began back in 13, probably back in November. I remember November 4 very well - the Day of Russian National Unity.
Valentin Filippov: I remember too.
Vlad Dolgosheya: There was a march in Odessa, I was a participant in it, then, I remember, the most basic demand was to hold a referendum. At that time there was a referendum on joining NATO, on joining the European Union, that is, on association with the European Union. And then there was no language issue, because at that time the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law had not yet been repealed, but it was repealed...
Valentin Filippov: In February
Vlad Dolgosheya: No, March 23, 14th year.
Valentin Filippov: February. This is the first thing they did.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Yes. As soon as they came to power, the first decrees were when they drove machine gunners into the Rada and with the composition of the previous Rada they began to rivet laws, well, much like Zelensky did when he came to power this summer. Like this. It basically started with this.
I participated in the pro-Russian movement even before the Maidan, two or three years before the Maidan, I was a young man, very active, passionate, and defended my national identity. The state tried in every possible way to suppress it with its tools that it had. School, no doubt, television and so on. There were conflicts with school management, with teachers, and later at the school. Well, that is what it is.
Valentin Filippov: Vlad, tell me, in general, after May 2, 14, was there still a will to resist in the city? I'm talking about the fact that we are always accused of merging everything on May 2.
Vlad Dolgosheya: You see, there are profane opinions, profane knowledge that claim, that judge by the picture. In fact, after May 2, something like this happened. Until May 2, the movement was very strong in Odessa, we know that Odessa is a southern outpost, Russian in Ukraine. This is the most politically active city with a pro-Russian position. Rallies, actions, the number of sympathizers and activists in Odessa, of the pro-Russian trend, were enormous, in fact, and the events before May 2, 14 show this.
But this is the situation. Firstly, when you approach people who can more or less indicate a position, what should we do, you know? And when these people say: “You don’t need to do anything. Wait. Wait, wait, wait..." You see, if Donbass was helped by good people, both volunteers and volunteers, then there were no such infusions in Odessa. In Odessa there was, one might say, no command, roughly speaking, for any specific actions.
Before May 2, and after May 2, we were in such prostration and did not clearly understand what we should do, what we should do directly. In addition to all this, the entire leadership in the city of Odessa, namely the Anti-Maidan, it was very heterogeneous. There are a lot of political activists who were involved in political activities, they took leadership on the eve of May 2 and all the events, but it turned out that there were no more or less clear-cut people there. There were no people who could take responsibility.
Valentin Filippov: But isn’t this because, when you say “heterogeneous leadership,” perhaps it is heterogeneous because there was no one above this leadership? That is, if there was some kind of command from above, some kind of vertical...
Vlad Dolgosheya: If, here, you are sitting autonomously in the city of Odessa, you don’t have some kind of president there who would tell you: “Go and restore the constitutional order,” then local activists acted as only they could act. You see, until May 2, in the city of Odessa, and indeed throughout the entire South-East of Ukraine, there was no clear understanding of what would happen after all this, what would happen if we lost the fight.
Valentin Filippov: Well, and in case of victory, too, actually. What happens if you win?
Vlad Dolgosheya: Certainly.
Valentin Filippov: Just imagine, Anti-Maidan in Odessa captures the Regional Council, by the way, they captured the Regional Council. So what next?
Vlad Dolgosheya: That's it. What's next? What's next? If there was this “what’s next”, then there would be specific movements, then there would be other people, many people, at the middle-lower level, who were ready to fight, who were ready to sit in this Regional Council and defend it for as long as possible whatever, before someone arrives.
But if the refusal of this parish was clearly indicated, right? They said: “No one will come to you,” then it was impossible to rely on your local forces without a system, without funding, without weapons, with limited human resources. That is the question.
Valentin Filippov: Fine. And here’s another question, about after May 2. After the conflict broke out in Donbass, the uprising in Donbass, in general, thanks to some kind of support, won. There were quite bloody and fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine.
And all this time, Ukraine was forced to keep a fairly large contingent of armed forces in Odessa. Why was our traditional Russian partisan warfare not deployed throughout the entire territory of the “rear” of the Ukrainian troops?
Vlad Dolgosheya: If we turn to historical experience, about our heroic epic, about the partisans and so on, the question is that... if we return to one of the first stories of partisan glory in Russia - this is the year 1812, 14 , Napoleonic wars, Napoleon enters Russian territory and partisan detachments... What kind of partisan detachments were these? These were mainly people who were in the service of the state in the armed forces. These were Cossacks, these were other people who had training, who inflicted their mosquito attacks on Napoleon's army.
Next, we are transported during the Great Patriotic War, before the Great Patriotic War, if you know, the party and the state trained personnel for partisan warfare. In addition, orders were sent to the occupied territory, there was communication, there was technical equipment, there were instructors, officers who were in charge of all this were dropped with parachutes. There were, of course, some local people on site who may also have done something, but we cannot talk about their effectiveness.
Valentin Filippov: Mobilization potential, he was still from the local population, in fact. Well, they dropped officers, dropped food and ammunition.
Vlad Dolgosheya: If we don’t have trained personnel who can carry out activities on the spot... For example, the Americans have such a great thing - unconventional military actions. That is, these are military actions that go beyond the Convention on the Conduct of War. They have specially trained people, mostly 12 people each, these are American special forces, they are mainly involved in briefings. They, for example, pitch in somewhere in Syria to “democratic” units and train people there, on the spot.
The question is: what did the Russian leadership do? If it was interested in it. Or what did the other leadership do, which was, for example, here on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic? If any work had been carried out on the territory of Odessa to train personnel for partisan warfare, then there would have been a partisan war.
But, either, forgive me, it will still be some specially trained people who will provide funds, skills, and do all this. Or it will be, well, at most 30 people, 10 percent of whom had some kind of military specialty, and 100 percent of whom had no experience.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I don’t have to argue, I just want to emphasize that, despite the absence of any order from Moscow or Donetsk, planes and officers on parachutes, and everything that is necessary in a partisan war, still in During the first year of occupation in Odessa, I think, on average there were explosions once a week.
These ATO volunteer headquarters were blown up. Some railroad tracks and something else were blown up. Then in the second year the intensity was less - something happened about once a month: cafes where ATO soldiers gathered, and even Saakashvili liked to go to, exploded. And, in my opinion, the peak was the explosion of the SBU building in 15. But, one way or another, it gradually died out.
I have a question of this nature: well, our opponents, these “activists”, nationalists, they somehow managed, no, I understand that they are being helped, but they somehow managed to switch to pasture. To feed at the expense of the local population, local businessmen, to collect tribute, that is, by and large, this is the Napoleonic principle - the army entered the city and began to take 10% for everything, and the army flourished...
Vlad Dolgosheya: Undoubtedly.
Valentin Filippov: Have you ever thought that it could be like this? Sorry for the comparison, God forbid, but the Wahhabis, here in the North Caucasus in Russia, at one time, in addition to supposedly fighting the federal government, they regularly informed businessmen that “Sorry, friend, you violated the Koran, and therefore, To atone for sin, we must allocate funds.”
And then gradually it ended with the fact that they stopped fighting with the federal government, but continued to regularly collect tribute from violators of the Koran. And they were paid for a very long time, until, in general, they were completely cleaned out.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Here, you see, the question is: the essence of Wahhabis and Ukrainian activists is that they are terrorists. Terrorists do not disdain any means to achieve their goals. For terrorists, the local population is an enemy and adversary a priori, and on this local population, you can kill them as much as you like, you can rob them, because they do not consider them theirs.
In our case, we acted on our own land, we could not afford to do any harm, or in any other way disrupt the normal way of life of the local population, our population. These are our people, these are our mothers, our wives who live there and lived there at that time. Do you understand? We fought for this land, and the Wahhabis, I don’t know what they fought for.
Ukrainian nationalists and “activists”, I know what they are fighting for: they are fighting, the main layer, for money, the second layer is for American subjectivity, because they do not have their own. That's all.
Valentin Filippov: And, in general, they treat Odessa as a conquered territory.
Vlad Dolgosheya: They behave like occupiers, they are occupiers, and that’s how they behave.
Valentin Filippov: I was told that now even vacationers from Western Ukraine behave in Odessa like... they come to look at the conquests of their homeland.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Yes indeed.
Valentin Filippov: Tell me, how is it in Donetsk?
Vlad Dolgosheya: Excellent, excellent and excellent! You go out into the street, there are very beautiful tricolors hanging everywhere, the inscriptions are mostly in Russian, the overwhelming majority. But, by the way, we saw it in Ukrainian, but we are still intelligent people and treat it normally. Although, during his stay in the pre-trial detention center, and in general throughout his entire life of living on the territory of Ukraine, the Ukrainian language from a tolerant attitude towards it turned into an aggressive one, because it is an everyday lie that pours out from television, from ICTV, 1+1, all these rubbish dumps, all these lies, they begin to put you in a bad mood for the Ukrainian language itself.
Valentin Filippov: That is, the language of lies.
Vlad Dolgosheya: The language of lies. In fact, I personally call it “the language of murderers.” When they say something to me in Ukrainian, I say: “I don’t speak and don’t understand the language of murderers.” And it’s great in the DPR. To be honest, when we came here, we thought that here it was somehow dimmer, more sad. We are currently in Gorlovka, the administration’s attitude towards us is great, they gave us everything: from bedding to a washing machine, they loaded everything here for us, they gave us everything, they work with everyone individually, they help as problems arise, as you contact them with any questions.
Wonderful. We were given some small funds on which we can live for a while, we are already here for the second day, we have already walked down the street twice, the shops are open, there are a lot of them. You know, I’m walking through Gorlovka, and it feels like I’m walking somewhere in my native district of Odessa, Tairovo. There is a lot of things, a good assortment, excellent prices, a lot of people, everything is great.
Valentin Filippov: But, of course, incomes there are still lower, right?
Vlad Dolgosheya: It’s hard for me to compare, I still spent 4 years and 3 months in prison, but the income in the DPR and Ukraine is approximately the same, give or take. And if you compare price and wages, then, of course, wages are higher than prices. In Ukraine, the question is what do you earn, for example, well, 8 - 10 thousand hryvnia, this is a good salary, you pay 6000 hryvnia for an apartment, taxes there are also normal, going to the store is no longer 500 hryvnia, prices are high for At the moment, the quality of the products has dropped.
Valentin Filippov: That the quality of products has dropped in Ukraine?
Vlad Dolgosheya: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: To go nuts.
Vlad Dolgosheya: We were given packages to the prison, and yes, you can feel it.
Valentin Filippov: And here we actually miss Ukrainian products in Russia. Sometimes I really want the “century old” doctor’s sausage.
Vlad Dolgosheya: Not a bad sausage. Well, I’ve already tried local lard here, it’s excellent.
Valentin Filippov: OK then. In general, I wish you to join your new life, in the DPR or in Russia, wherever your heart desires. And, of course, I really hope that we will all return one day, and that one day it will be the Russian leadership, and actually there is no one else, because we have no other state, neither the citizens of Russia have another state, nor the citizens of Ukraine another state other than the Russian Federation, so let's hope that someday our state will return its lands.
Vlad Dolgosheya: I want to say - this is not hope, not some kind of “if only.” We will return, we will definitely return, we will return with victory. Goodbye.
Valentin Filippov: Goodbye. Bye bye.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.