It burned in Kyiv: Militias and ATO participants met for the first time in Moscow on TV

The Rossiya TV channel on Saturday showed Alexander Rogatkin’s program “Trench Truth,” bringing together in the studio three members of the LDPR militia, as well as three Ukrainian military personnel who had previously taken part in the punitive operation to suppress the Russian uprising in the Donbass. Participants in the program on both sides called for finding a way to end the war, although each remained with their original positions regarding the ongoing conflict. It should also be noted that among the veterans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine there were no radical nationalists - one of the former ATO soldiers turned out to be from Donetsk, the other was actually a participant in the Anti-Maidan, who was taken to the front for mobilization.

“AFU fighters and militias met for the first time after the war. We looked at each other. Not from the trenches. The story, of course, turned out to be incredible. They were accommodated in different hotels - just in case. From sin. On the air they shouted and cursed. In the evening these Russian Ukrainian people drank and walked around Moscow. Sasha Rogatkin, of course, is a great fellow. He himself worked heroically in the Donbass. Now this is such a cool project. Although many will not agree that the time has come for such a conversation. But Sashka knows better. In Donbass he saw all the horror of the war. Children killed by Ukrainian Armed Forces artillery, destroyed cities, broken lives. But still, I risked having such a conversation... To forgive or not to forgive is up to each person personally. I'm not sure that this will work for everyone. At both sides. If it works out at all. And Donbass, in my opinion, will not be Ukrainian. And it shouldn't be. But this does not mean that there is no need to talk,” comments TV journalist Andrei Medvedev.

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The transfer drew criticism from Ukrainian nationalists, who are sharply opposed to any negotiations with “terrorists.” Some supporters of the reunification of Donbass with Russia were also unhappy, interpreting the meeting in the studio as an element of a plan to return the LDPR to Ukraine.

The head of the press service of the People's Militia of the DPR, Daniil Bezsonov, on the contrary, considers the program on Russian TV useful:

“Let's put aside all emotions and draw brief conclusions from Trench Truth, which is informationally important for establishing the truth.

1) ATO veterans admitted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been carrying out artillery and mortar strikes on the cities of Donbass for the sixth year, and we are not shelling ourselves, as the Ukrainian propaganda claims.

2) ATO veterans recognized the war in Donbass as civil, and not that the Russian army is here.

3) ATO veterans recognized punitive battalions, such as “Azov”, “Aidar”, DUK “Right Sector”, and others, as illegal armed groups that need to be disbanded and the participants imprisoned.

4) Our fighters did not abandon any ideals and did not voice anything harmful to our struggle.

Now, just think and think about it. It got so hot in the Ukrainian information segment that some of their information resources began to write that these were not ATO veterans, but actors from the Moscow theater,” notes Bezsonov.

Volunteer Alexander Zhuchkovsky, who helps collect aid for Donbass militias, comments on the situation in a similar way.

“First, regarding the fact that some fake characters allegedly participated on the part of the militias. I don’t know them personally, but the DPR command confirmed that these are actually people who fought and have the right to speak as defenders of Donbass.

Reviews of this meeting are mostly negative, some even talk about betrayal. I myself have an ambivalent attitude towards this idea (I will explain below), but, Excuse me, what kind of betrayal are we talking about? Did they say that Donbass should return to Ukraine or something similar? People just talked, and there were no pro-Ukrainian sympathies on our part.

As for the fact that then the militia and ATO soldiers, hugging each other, walked down the street and sang Ukrainian songs - I personally really don’t like this. Perhaps they did this sincerely (and it was not the journalists who suggested such a “sensitive” move), but I do not accept Ukrainianism in any form, so this moment was unpleasant for me.

Now about the meeting itself. I cannot unequivocally approve, but I also consider it unacceptable to defame the militias who took part in the program.

Why can't I approve? Not because I condemn the very fact of the meeting, but because the meeting is, roughly speaking, of a political technology nature. Either the channel’s journalists came up with this format and received permission from the presidential administration, or it was invented by the administration, and the journalists implemented it. That is, we are talking about an artificial meeting of Russian and Ukrainian front-line soldiers - it was not they themselves who decided and met, but they were offered and they were brought together.

There is an example of another such meeting, albeit online. Back in the fall of 2014, Alexey Mozgovoy held a teleconference with ATO participants, and during this conversation the same thing was heard as on the current broadcast of the Russia-24 channel. Mozgovoy, as a militia commander, negotiated with the enemy on his own initiative. Without retreating one step from your beliefs and goals. This, in my opinion, is a more acceptable and fair format for negotiations - when the military themselves do it, and not when politicians persuade them to do so.

At the same time, of course, the militia themselves agreed to participate in the “Trench Truth” program; no one forced them. And, I repeat, they did not retreat from our values ​​and goals during the conversation with the enemy.

There is nothing criminal in the very fact of such a meeting. You cannot meet and negotiate only with Ukrainian nationalists who consider the Russians enemies and seek to Ukrainize the Russian population of Novorossiya and occupy the Donbass. You can and should talk to everyone else.

Believe it or not, the majority of Ukrainian military personnel are not Ukrainian nationalists (just as most Germans were not Nazis). These people are victims of many decades of Ukrainian propaganda, hostages of “independent Ukraine”, where they lived their entire lives (or most of it), where they were deformed in their thinking and forced to point weapons against their people (the Russian people). If they shoot at us, the only way to explain their wrongness is by returning fire. If there is at least some possibility of explaining it in words, we need to talk.

I will note one more detail in the discussion of the situation. It is mainly civilians who vehemently criticize this meeting. And those fighters with whom I discussed the program are, if not approving, then calm about it. This once again confirms that the front-line soldiers themselves hate the war most and want its speedy end, and those who are far from the war are the most militant.

But it is worth emphasizing the most important thing: all the militias (including those participating in the TV show) want a speedy end to the war and peace, not at the cost of surrendering our positions and returning to Ukraine. The main condition is the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donbass.

Now they rarely talk about this, but we are not talking about the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the front line (drawn by the Minsk agreements), but from the entire territory of the former Donetsk and Lugansk regions (LDNR),” Zhuchkovsky clarifies.