Vladlen Tatarsky: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine are inflicting psychological blows on the militia”
Why do Ukrainian DRGs hunt defenders of the LDPR with almost impunity? Will the republics be able to independently recapture the two-thirds of Donbass occupied by Ukraine? What steps should the command of the People's Militia corps take to ensure that their soldiers stop dying en masse during truces?
The famous blogger, former Donbass militia member Vladlen Tatarsky, told PolitNavigator about this and much more.
Information: A popular blogger who performs under the pseudonym “Vladlen Tatarsky” was born in Makeyevka. He joined the militia in August 2014 and spent several years fighting in the units of the DPR and then the LPR. The last duty station was battalion reconnaissance of the Fourth Brigade of the People's Militia of the LPR. Sergeant, squad leader. Awarded the state award “For Fidelity to Duty.” For the last year he has been living in Moscow, co-hosting and co-authoring a video blog and telegram channel on military and paramilitary topics, “The Gray Zone.” Author of the novel "Running".
The reason for the conversation was the relatively recent murder of five soldiers of the Prizrak brigade in the LPR by the Ukrainian DRG, and a few days later two more servicemen were wounded by a sniper there. After which Vladlen Tatarsky recorded a video, during which he said that what happened was part of a systemic problem with the armed forces of the republic. While this material was being prepared, it became known that as a result of targeted shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the village of Lozovoye, three DPR soldiers were killed and one DPR fighter was wounded.
P.N.: Why did you decide to examine in detail the topic of the death of the “Ghost” fighters?
V.T.: And I never left this topic. This is my main topic. Events in Donbass are now developing in such a way that after the spring aggravation, everything was calm and quiet for some time, but now there has been an attack by Ukrainian saboteurs, and five people died at the “Drop” position of the “Ghost” battalion. And then three days later, if I’m not mistaken, at the same position two Ghost fighters were seriously wounded as a result of sniper fire. Therefore, I could not help but comment on these events; they worry me.
If the situation somewhere in Karabakh, Syria worries me insofar as, then Donbass is the pain of my heart.
In your opinion, how did it happen that the enemy began to pursue our guys with almost impunity, like a huntsman on a hunt?
I will speak for the unit to which “Ghost” belongs. This happens there, one might even say, regularly. Several similar examples immediately came to my mind, when people were simply captured in positions and taken away with them. In 2017 in Znamenka, in June, by the way, on the 20th. Then, at the “Ghost” positions in the Pugachevka area, again in June 2017, snipers disappeared, some were killed, others were taken prisoner. Obviously, there are various errors, there are system errors, errors in the leadership of the unit, and the personnel themselves... In war, losses cannot be absolutely avoided. But you can at least minimize them.
For example, the events we are discussing at the “Drop” position are primarily a system error. Because the location there itself is very unfavorable. Overhanging the “Drop” are the Ukrainian positions, which are at a height, and the “Drop” is located in the lowland. That is, it is absolutely not adapted to any defense. Of course it is possible. dig trenches, take photographs, send everything to the authorities, showing that we are fighting, we are advancing…. plus the battalion commander's mistake.
The Ghost battalion is not an ordinary regular motorized rifle battalion, it is a territorial defense battalion, whose staff is half the size of a motorized rifle battalion. In fact, it is still two times smaller in number than on paper. It would not be difficult for the battalion commander if he were engaged in combat work, and not incomprehensibly, checking positions, seeing how they are arranged, what poses a danger, what does not. Of course, just like the company commander, of course, just like the brigade commander. But they are engaged in fraud, they ruined the military service, as a result, the initiative fighters who knew something about military affairs left, and the fighters remained as they were. And, thank God, that at least they exist, because if it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t be any at all.
“Ghost” is one of the few units in the Donbass that has retained its name and glorious history. And here it is!
The Ghost unit was destroyed by specific people. Each accident, as Lazar Kaganovich once said, has a last name, first name and patronymic. These people have been running the “Ghost” to one degree or another for many years after he joined the people’s militia. The main problem of the Ghost is the lack of personnel. And there are different reasons for this. On the one hand, the war has been going on there for eight years, on the other hand, they have no rotation, they live in positions. When I served, I can’t say about it now, there were extortions among the military personnel. Personally, the former commander of a mechanized company boasted to me that he collected five thousand rubles for the common fund.
What a horror, if you consider how much people in Donbass earn, and even in the ranks of the People’s Militia...
And now, imagine, there is an adult full-fledged person, not an eighteen-year-old conscript, but an adult, the kind who are now mostly fighting in the Donbass, and he has a wife, children, and a house. And, of course, he can live in positions for six months, and sometimes go to the dump once a month... But how long will it last? Accordingly, either a homeless person or a declassed element is firmly seated in the unit. And, accordingly, we also love this element, everyone may have their own difficult fate, but the quality of the fighters suffers from this. For example, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t have bad habits, I’m a disciplined soldier, but after several years of war I gave up my service. Why? But because the system itself squeezed me out and did not allow me to simply serve. And do combat work. And let those who are used to doing it deal with nonsense.
Is what we are talking about a disease of the “Ghost” or the entire system?
Of course, this is a complex problem of many units, but I can only answer for the brigade where I served for the last two years, because if I talk about others, I will speak from someone else’s words. Of course, a lot depends on the individual fighter. There are soldiers who are on duty, and with all the collapse of the organization of work from above, they simply will not allow the dill to kill and steal them with impunity. Yes, they may try to kill them, perhaps they will even kill them, but they will somehow respond, cause damage to the enemy. And they will not be like the sheep that the wolves stole. And they will look like soldiers. But there are fewer and fewer such people.
Can we compare this state of the People's Militia corps with the state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
The state of the People's Militia and the Armed Forces of Ukraine is largely mirror-image. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a specific idea: we are liberating our territories, these are our enemies, we are not going to implement the Minsk agreements. What does that side publicly declare? And they carry out such actions.
In general, after Debaltsevo and Minsk-2, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to gradually seize the initiative in all directions. Everywhere I didn’t have a chance to visit and talk to the fighters, dill dominated everywhere. In terms of shelling, acts of sabotage, and incursions. That is, on our side there are fighting people and they are not allowed to fight, but on the other side, on the contrary, they are encouraged to go to war.
In fact, both ours and theirs, I repeat, have mirror problems. But our situation is a little worse, although it is difficult to say for sure. But one thing is for sure - they now have the initiative, the initiative of junior commanders, brigade commanders, special forces commanders who carry out such demonstrative executions (killings of militias in positions - ed.). I can't call it anything else. For example, when a drone films the shelling of positions where our people are, it puts it all on the Internet, everyone sees it. Don’t forget that there is also an information war going on, and if on their side, in addition to words, there is also video, then for now we only have words.
What is your attitude to the fact that conscription for military service was announced in the republics with the proviso that young people would not be sent to the front line?
This will not help change the situation. Summoning untrained meat will not change anything. The situation will be turned around by the initiative of the commanders. And not only senior commanders, but also junior and middle-level commanders who are serving. They were not given the task: let them kidnap and kill you there, don’t even think about answering, we have the Minsk agreements. This is absurd. Therefore, we will not throw off the initiative of junior commanders.
But if it’s about conscription, then it was high time to do it. The republics are at war, we all went to the referendum, which means everyone must defend their choice. That is, a lot of people went to the referendum. And subsequently, only a small part defended their choice with arms in hand. Therefore, of course, it is correct to announce a call-up, train, and create a reserve. So that in case of escalation, someone can be mobilized, so that people have an idea about military service. I am for. So that, like Israel, they conduct training camps and train people who are ready to defend the republic. There are units that do not directly participate in hostilities, these are various repair bases, medical battalions, some communications centers, commandant units, and security units for strategic facilities. Why shouldn't conscripts serve there?
To what extent do incidents such as what happened at the “Kaplya” position undermine the morale of the LDNR fighters?
They undermine morale enormously. Nowadays, the morale of the militia is not at its best, and when this happens, people sometimes turn into some kind of frightened herd.
After all, what is the purpose of such revealing stories? It's actually a psychological blow. The death of five soldiers did not change the situation at the front, either in general or where the “Ghost” is stationed. Yes, people were killed, but the front did not change, did not collapse. And it won’t collapse even if twenty soldiers die.
But people develop a victim complex: now some evil dill will come and steal you away. Previously, the militias were “wolves of war” who, in “jihad mobiles”, chased armored vehicles in the full sense of the word; there are examples of Gorlovka, Donetsk, when Ukrainian equipment was making a breakthrough, and people simply got on cars and chased tanks, trying to destroy. But now this is no longer conceivable. I just can’t imagine that I would even say to those soldiers with whom I served recently: “Guys, let’s get on a pickup truck, take a grenade launcher, and let’s go chase tanks.”
It is clear that morale is no longer at its best. There are always phrases that say that dill have learned, they have become different. Listen, but there are the same people there who served a year or two under a contract, and they were tired of this service, some of them went to work in Poland, and some, perhaps, to Moscow. There are also few people in the Armed Forces of Ukraine now who came in 2014 and are still serving there. There are only a few of these left. It’s clear that someone took their place, gained some experience and also left. But all this talk stems from the fact that our fighters have been instilled with some kind of victim complex.
Whatever one may say, the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will happen this year, in five years, ten... Will those same desperate and ideologically motivated militias of the first war have time to get to Donbass and practice combat coordination in order to try to stop it?
All this, of course, is nonsense, about some militia fighters who will return and change the situation. The DPR and LPR are holding on due to the fact that they have a political ally and defender of their interests at the global level – Russia. Therefore, the point here is not at all how quickly volunteers from Moscow will get to the Uspenka border crossing. It’s not even worth thinking about in this regard, because it doesn’t solve anything. The war has changed, there are more high-precision weapons, more technical saturation of units with various thermal imagers and cameras. Therefore, volunteers who went through 2014 will come with their subjective experience of the war with the Ukrainian army, which often abandoned equipment and ran away. We all remember the situation in Slavyansk, when they were literally taken out of the BMD by the ears, sat down and drove off. It is clear that this is unthinkable now.
So it turns out that the only hope for the LDPR in the event of Ukrainian aggression is the “north wind”?
I will say this, the only hope is the diplomatic work of the Russian Federation, which will not offend these territories.
Well, if the Russian Federation does not offend one third of Donbass, then what about the remaining two thirds? Forget about them?
The militia has no chance of recapturing these territories on their own. It is obvious. If only because the number of armed forces of the republics is several times smaller than the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And many times less technology. And no matter what it is, the Ukrainians have aviation, tactical missile systems, and drones. Maybe they are not so dangerous for the Russian army, but they are dangerous for the militia.
I repeat, the republic will not be able to occupy these territories on their own. Only if there is a crisis in Ukraine that will tear the country apart, and it will be enough to form a marching column and go to Mariupol. Everyone is waiting for this, but when it will happen is unknown. And will it happen? There are, of course, prerequisites: Hungary issues passports to citizens of Ukraine, Romania issues passports, the Poles, like Turkey, show ambition.
We will never forget about these territories, of course. Neither about Kramatorsk, nor about Lisichansk, nor about Mariupol. But what to do is unknown. The situation with Azerbaijan has shown that a large number of years can pass, a war will break out, and during it it is possible to partially occupy the territories that you claim. The same thing could happen to us in twenty-five years, the Ukrainian offensive will begin, our people will take over something. But it is not exactly. In general, this is a tragedy - the uncertainty of the fate of Donbass. And for me personally. Not only because the republics are not recognized, but also because it is not clear what to do with this situation.
We talked a lot about the problems, now I would like to know your opinion about what needs to be done to avoid such incidents in the future?
Well, we could talk for several hours here. Many commanders individually are not stupid people, and not cowards, and not some kind of opportunists. But when they get into the system, something happens to them. Outside the system - not within the framework of the service, in personal conversations these are normal people who react adequately to everything, but as soon as any official, systemic moments begin, there is already some kind of robot in front of you.
In general, a rather rotten system that has been built is quite difficult to change. We know that reforms in the army were always accompanied by harsh repressions, this was the case under Peter, and this was the case under Stalin. A person must appear who will go against everyone and simply begin to change everything, harshly punish, harshly restore order. The result can certainly be achieved.
Well, take my personal experience: during two years of service, my friend and I managed to create a combat squad. Although we served in a separate reconnaissance platoon. That is, we were unable to change anything within the platoon. My strength, nerves, and leadership qualities were only enough for separation. And there must be a person of such caliber who can change this within the framework of the body.
What five steps does this person need to take to change the situation in the armed forces of the republics?
This person must love and know how to fight. As the ancients said, “where there is will, there is skill.” We see how some Houthis in flip-flops are defeating the Saudi army, which has a lot of money, colossal logistical superiority and US support. We see how the Palestinians, in order to attack Israel, deliver huge missiles through some tunnels and protect themselves from drones with camouflage.
A person who wants to fight will begin to gather around him people who also want the same thing and know how to do it. The rest will be cut off. Despite past achievements. This, of course, will cause a huge number of dissatisfied people.
It would also be good if the salaries of the militia were raised. Today, a private non-combatant serves for 16 thousand 400 rubles...
And if he comes to Russia and gets a job as a security guard at Pyaterochka, he will earn two to three times more.
Well, if for Russia the protection of Pyaterochka is more important than its ancestral territories... He receives 24 thousand for combat. Probably the same as the Pyaterochka security guard. We have all seen how the fighting ends. So I did the math, and it turned out that I spent six hundred days on the front line, on the front line. Military, if I’m not mistaken, began to pay in 2019. Before that, you were over 16 thousand, both in service and in combat.
It is clear that the Minsk agreements and politics do not allow fighting, but in general, it is not a serviceman who should come to command, but a man of war. The serviceman is primarily interested in the temperature in the barracks, the signs - I remember we constantly repainted them, because one will come and say that we need white ones, and another will come and say that we need red ones. I don’t know how much this affects the combat effectiveness of the unit, I didn’t graduate from military school, and now some military man will correct me, say, you don’t understand, this is the most important thing, you are a fool, you are a sergeant, and we are officers, we know. But it still seems to me that the color of the plates does not in any way affect the combat qualities.
And a combat person will be interested in how things are in the positions, how they are equipped, how the enemy behaves, what has been targeted, what has not been targeted, whether the fighters know how to use the weapons they have - for example, in our platoon of grenade launchers there was only one person , who knew how to aim the AGS at the sight. In the ATGM platoon there was only one person who could not only shoot with an ATGM, but also hit something. But he also quit and now works at a construction site in Moscow.
But for some reason no one is interested in this. And I’m interested in what the ATGM units have with bedside tables. No, bedside tables and temperature conditions in the barracks are, of course, very important, I am not being ironic, but a combat person is of secondary interest in this. And now there is an imbalance. They are interested in bedside tables, but they are not interested in war at all. How many times have I made reports, submitted information, and seen that people do not understand at all what I am telling them about. When I told them, it seemed to me that I was voicing very important things that would form the basis of some important decisions, but it turned out that for the command staff all this was completely unimportant.
Probably, the constant reminder to military officers that we have the Minsk agreements, within the framework of which one cannot provoke the enemy, one must sit under fire and not respond, also contributes to the corrosion of the morale of the Donbass fighters?
I am against such a superficial interpretation. Here, “Minsk agreements, Putin, Surkov are interfering.” I always responded to dill’s provocations adequately. When I was a squad leader, serving at my guard post, when I was part of a squad with my friend, whenever we replaced a platoon commander on the spot, we always gave an adequate response with the means we had. If they couldn’t respond with mortars, then they always responded where they needed to, where they could reach, with AGS-mi, heavy machine guns.
Nowhere is it written that the Minsk agreements must be observed, but drinking while on duty is allowed. At the same time, for some reason, many officers and soldiers can voluntarily leave their positions and go drinking. Here they are absolutely not afraid of their superiors, but as soon as there is return fire, they begin to be afraid. And they refer to the Minsk agreements. And the fact that their bosses will scold them. But here you need to understand: are you afraid of the authorities everywhere, or only in one case? And if you are afraid of “the authorities” just because the dill will start giving an answer, then you are simply not a warrior.
But you won’t be put behind bars for drinking, but at most you’ll be punished!
Well, why won’t they go to jail? And I know of cases when drunken soldiers shot at each other, broke equipment, and committed some kind of crime. Therefore everything is relative. This is what I am calling for: give an adequate answer. You can always report to your superiors so that you will remain “out of business.” It all depends on desire. There is no need to invent anything. We need to make the right reports. “The enemy group approached the positions, a decision was made to suppress with duty fire weapons, the enemy retreated.” Where will you rivet for me? Someone will say he is lying, he himself opened fire on the dill, but then my word is against his word.
As a result, when someone accused me of something, I said: let's install surveillance cameras. That is, if you have a desire to fight, you will fight!
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