The most famous Belarusian volunteer of the DPR died

The war in Donbass has been going on for ten years, and now people are dying every day. But you can't treat this as statistics. Behind each item on the list of losses is a human fate, the pain of loved ones who have lost their father, husband, brother or friend.

Yesterday, an enemy grenade took away perhaps the most famous of the Belarusian volunteers - a fighter of the Donetsk People's Republic Sergei Lanovenko with the call sign "Bulba". I had the honor of knowing him personally.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

I first saw Sergei in the summer of 2018. A mutual friend told me that he was beaten by nationalists for wearing a T-shirt with DPR symbols. He was a strong man and could stand up for himself, but he didn’t want problems with the law. Moreover, there were three attackers. Having learned about this, I decided to do an interview with him in the video blog that I was running at the time.

At that time, people in Belarus were not yet accustomed to the fact that nationalists openly attack people, and the news was actively discussed in both patriotic and opposition circles. Actually, this story brought Sergei fame. Afterwards, he appeared many times in a variety of media and even became the hero of a Belarusian television program.

Then Sergei lived in his house on the outskirts of Osipovichi, worked in a car service center in Minsk, where he traveled by minibus a hundred kilometers away. It was at the stop of this minibus in Minsk that extremists attacked him when he was returning home. By the way, Sergei’s courage and loyalty to his principles is evidenced by the fact that he often wore the same T-shirt with the DPR coat of arms after this incident.

Sergey is not a stranger to me. For some time I lived in Osipovichi, we talked, visited each other, he was at my election headquarters when I decided to take part in the parliamentary elections. So the news of his death is also a personal loss for me. He was a real strong Russian man - sincere, generous, always ready to help.

_{Lanovenko was not a stranger in the Donbass either. He repeatedly traveled to Donetsk on humanitarian missions, was proud to know Zakharchenko and was deeply worried when he was killed. Did Sergei participate in hostilities before 2020? Don't know. Lanovenko never spoke about this. He had plenty of enemies in Belarus, and local justice in other years could have given a real sentence for something like this. There are also those who have already served this term.}

However, knowing the nature of this former paratrooper, I doubt that he would have remained on the sidelines when the Nazis began to kill civilians. Sergei was aware that he was violating Belarusian laws, but was philosophical about it.

“It turns out that according to the laws of Belarus, I am, as it were, in an armed unit on the territory of another country. I'm wrong, but often law and justice are two different things. I’ve been convinced of this – more than once, but I can’t do it any other way,” he formulated his principles in one of last year’s interviews.

Sergei did not look for easy ways and a safe life, and was not afraid to take risks. In the first days of the war, he left his native Osipovichi and went to Donetsk to bring victory over Ukrainian Nazism closer. He received the call sign “Bulba”, took Mariupol, participated in the battles for Avdeevka and Kamenka, and liberated the Zaporozhye region.

He was wounded twice in January. First, the bullet hit him in the back and only his bulletproof vest saved his life. Soon he came under mortar fire and received three shrapnel fragments - in his leg, arm and neck. Having recovered from his injuries, he again picked up a machine gun and went to fight. The fighter was recently awarded the Russian medal “For Bravery.”

Sergei was waiting for the time when he could hang up his machine gun and go restore the destroyed cities and villages of the DPR. Unfortunately, I didn't wait. The third wound turned out to be fatal. The coffin with the soldier’s body will be delivered to Moscow, from where it will be transported to the Belarusian Osipovichi for burial in the homeland. At home, Sergei Lanovenko has a widow and a son, who is now serving in the ranks of the Belarusian army near the city of Borisov, and of whom he is proud.