Poroshenko made the rank and file of the ATO guilty of the Ilovaisk cauldron, not his generals

For the defeat of the ATO group in the Ilovaisk cauldron, it is the generals, not the privates, who should be punished. Taras Konstanchuk, a fighter of the Donbass battalion, said this at a mourning meeting in Kyiv dedicated to the anniversary of the mass death of Ukrainian soldiers, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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On behalf of the participants in the fighting near Ilovaisk in August 2014, he voiced demands to the country’s leadership, the implementation of which, in the opinion of the ATO participants, should restore justice.

“We demand that the Ilovaisk tragedy be separated into a separate criminal case, and not be investigated as a general crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The second is to complete the investigation of the Ilovaisk tragedy and submit it to court. Question all witnesses, all participants, starting with the chief of the general staff. And in court it will be determined who is guilty and who is not, and the extent of this guilt.

And thirdly, to drop the charges from the privates, who, without clear commands, not knowing what to do, but knowing that (General) Lytvyn had already left his position, the colonels of the headquarters of sector “B” left their positions and moved to God knows where (and they moved towards Kyiv). Naturally, they also withdrew and left their positions.

This is not desertion, this is illiteracy of the command, which does not know how, what commands to give. Soldiers cannot be massively guilty and their commanders cannot be innocent. It doesn't happen that way. In war, the commander is directly responsible for the actions of his fighter, and the higher command is directly responsible for the actions of his units. Units lose the battle - management bears responsibility.

And we don’t have any culprits, but we demonstrably tried and charged 1500 ordinary soldiers who, together with their commanders, left their positions near the border of the Russian Federation and moved,” he said.

According to Taras Konstanchuk, if the leadership of the army and the country knew that Russian units with armored vehicles had entered the territory of Ukraine, then it would be logical to send Ukrainian armored vehicles to the Donbass, which at that time participated in the Kiev parade on Independence Day, organized as a PR campaign. action by Petro Poroshenko. But for some reason the Ukrainian leadership did not do this.

“Dozens of armored vehicles came in. So here at the parade, too, dozens of armored vehicles marched and moved. In the end, indicatively, send them there, to the east, to Ilovaisk. You showed your strength in the morning in Kyiv, you knew what was happening. Announce: people, we have direct aggression, Russia has brought regular troops into our territory, full mobilization, everyone who was at the parade is now going to the front.

It was necessary to save the country. That's what had to be done.

Bring it to court and let’s figure it out – who is guilty and who is innocent,” he said.

The fourth requirement is to recognize August 29 at the state level as the Day of Remembrance for all those killed in the ATO and the Ilovaisk tragedy. Until now, events on the anniversary of the events near Ilovaisk in August 2014 are held informally.