War in Donbass: Unknown details from first persons. Part II

“PolitNavigator” publishes the second part of an interview with the former head of the DPR MGB Andrey Pinchuk (now one of the leaders of the Union of Donbass Volunteers), where he tells previously unknown to a wide range of readers details about the events in the Donetsk Republic at the height of hostilities. Read the first part of the conversation with Pinchuk and ex-head of the DPR Alexander Borodai here.

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-There were a lot of different security and counterintelligence services in the DPR, until the moment when you headed the DPR MGB?

-A lot of. And Cossack counterintelligence, and the Vostok and Oplot battalions. And in general, there were all sorts of them there. But since July 17, 2014, they were officially and legally illegitimate. They were destroyed step by step and disbanded. Some of them later became part of the MGB and were subjected to appropriate personnel filtering there. For example, the Baranov Special Committee and the Abwehr unit, and a number of smaller units.

-By the way, was the Abwehr a good officer and person, otherwise they told different things about him?

-The Abwehr was sincerely dedicated to the cause. He had his own history, including service in the SBU before the war, which is why he was actually appointed to the corresponding position. He was part of Strelkov's battalion when it operated in Crimea. Then the battalion was disbanded. Then in April 2014, he and Strelkov entered Slavyansk.

The Abwehr was sincerely devoted to both Strelkov and the cause. His problem was that all his close relatives were in Vinnitsa. When he became public and became widely known, they were subjected to very serious persecution. This led to the fact that he, who had done a lot for the common cause, began to drink. The Abwehr, alas, could not withstand the psychological pressure.

All the problems that were associated with the Abwehr were related specifically to alcohol consumption. But as a sober employee, I can describe him on the positive side. He enjoyed authority, was a good performer, knew how to organize work, and was brave.

-And Khmury?

- Khmury was Strelkov’s man. They met him in Chechnya. As far as I remember, Khmury was the deputy commandant of one of the “Chechen” commandant’s offices. There, he and Strelkov overlapped due to the nature of their official activities. He had his own military path. He went through Afghanistan. He served in reconnaissance units and combined arms units. At the time of his arrival in Slavyansk he was a military pensioner. It was Strelkov who invited him because there were not enough people, especially with military experience. Gloomy organized his work as best he could.

I cannot now assess his general military activities, this is not my diocese, and it would not be very correct to do so. But there were all sorts of bad and criminal situations associated with his unit, as well as with others. Question: to what extent were his subordinates integrated with him in these criminal matters and were at that moment under his control? I personally cannot answer these questions, because for this you need to look at the relevant criminal cases. They were no longer excited in front of me. But, naturally, there were complaints against these people.

Khmury undoubtedly fulfilled his positive function during the war in Donbass. He contributed to the common cause. We must not forget that Khmury went to fight in Donbass at the most difficult time. This is certain.

But there is also no doubt that Khmury’s time, like that of a number of other field commanders, has passed for objective reasons. The fact that he later did not enter Donetsk indicated that his time in Donbass was over. It’s just that the unit he led turned out to be out of staff. It turned out to be illegitimate in the built-up military structure of the warring Donbass - two army corps located in Donetsk and Lugansk, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Revenue and Duties, which was paramilitary.

This was Khmury's biggest problem. He also understood this well and tried to find a way out of this problem, but did not find it. Therefore, all of Khmury’s difficulties were related to the fact that he was not included in the management system of the DPR departments, nor in the system of combined arms army corps. He found himself outside of it.

This is roughly the state the Cossacks found themselves in, who were then disarmed, and some of their units were introduced into the structure of legitimate military formations, just like Khmury’s unit. Part of Khmury’s reconnaissance unit became part of the Republican Guard unit of the DPR, and part of it became part of the first corps.

Gloomy was not ready for such a turn of events. That is, he is not ready to scatter his people among different units. His problem is an organizational problem, and everything else, including complaints of a general criminal nature... in general, during my time in the MGB there were no such criminal cases, I am responsible for my words.

-Question about economic crime. It is no secret that in 2014, some factories were cut up for scrap metal, coal was illegally mined and sold, and humanitarian aid was stolen. What was considered illegal economic activity on the territory of the DPR?

-Industrial activity was considered completely legitimate. A number of regulations were adopted by the governments of Boroday and Zakharchenko, which legitimized it. When we talk about the fact that coal was sold to Ukraine, there was a moral question: are we not helping the enemy? But on the other hand, coal was supplied, for example, to those Ukrainian thermal power plants from which we received energy. Therefore, sometimes coal had to be supplied.

On the territory of the DPR, a number of enterprises are still owned by Ukrainian oligarchs. The same Rinat Akhmetov and a number of other persons. It is impossible to nationalize them for one simple reason. After they are nationalized, they will be dropped out of the production cycle. That is, they will not be able to conclude international agreements for the supply of their products, they will lose certificates, the ability to sell products and supply raw materials.

You know, I had a story related to military duties and taxes to the budget of Ukraine. When I learned that some DPR enterprises were paying military taxes, the first thing I ordered was to take all measures to close them and stop paying taxes to the budget of Ukraine.

But it was a very complicated story. It turned out that if they do not pay taxes, they do not receive certain benefits, including those related to the receipt of international treaties. Eventually, they stop. Therefore, we had to look for some compromises and alternative forms in order for the enterprise to work, and people could simply get paid. If an enterprise stops, then it is very difficult to start it up – both production capacity and again find markets.

So the functioning of enterprises in war conditions, when the bulk of production is exported, is very difficult. Some say: we need to work through Russia. But there is also a difficulty in this. Before the war, all these enterprises were competitors of Russian enterprises, because Donbass and Russian enterprises are fighting for a common sales market. So these questions are very complex. Here we need to somehow negotiate with Russian companies so that they give in. But they say: we cannot give in, because we are working at a loss. How can we provide for our workers in Russia?

There was economic crime in the LDPR. It still exists today, and my successors in the DPR MGB have to fight it.

- Did ministers who steal have to be “put in the basement”?

-Certainly. Many ministers were detained in 2014: ministers of agriculture, industry, fuel and energy complex and others. Even the Minister of Culture was detained.

-What is it for? Did you move the violins and double basses to the left? Left concerts?

-You are the Minister of Culture. You come to Donetsk and find out that museums store all kinds of gold items and art objects in general with high artistic and historical value... In general, if you sell them at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, then selling coal will seem like a kindergarten.

(laughs) And you ask: what can the Minister of Culture do? You can steal everything and everywhere if you have the appropriate desire. Naturally, we tried to suppress such desires whenever possible with all our might and means.

Economic crime is a complex thing. Economic scammers appeared who tried to warm their hands in all sorts of processes. There were sometimes very funny cases.

-For instance?

-Launch of “Money of Novorossiya”. It was a very loud and vibrant story. All sorts of people came to the DPR and said: we are envoys of the Russian government. We are ready to launch the money of Novorossiya. They, like the priests in “The Golden Calf,” bewitched the entire Chairman of the People’s Council of the DPR, Boris Litvinov, who sincerely believed that this could save the DPR from the economic crisis. This “money of Novorossiya” was printed.

Can you imagine this “wonderful” situation? Just imagine, several million people live on your territory. You come there and put the “money of Novorossiya” into circulation. First, you print candy wrappers called “Money of Novorossiya” in a printing house, then you open many exchange offices. After this, you announce: now we trade only for “New Russia money.”

What happens next? People and businesses come to you, bring dollars, euros, Russian rubles and even hryvnia, and in return you give out candy wrappers. Yes, after this you instantly become billionaires, since millions of people who lived in the Donbass had a lot of currency in their hands.

-Did you have to talk to Ukrainian prisoners due to the nature of your service? What impression did they make on you?

-One of our most famous Ukrainian prisoners was the commander of the “cyborg” battalion Kuzminykh. He was from the 81st brigade. Kuzminykh was a guy from Zhytomyr. The degree of his zombification was simply amazing.

I remember how Alexander Zakharchenko and I talked to him, and the next day the bus stop on Bosse (Donetsk microdistrict – editor’s note) was shelled. Next to Bosse there was the Gormash plant, where the militia’s equipment was repaired. The Ukrainians regularly tried to shoot at the plant, but since they shot poorly - both the guns were old and the level of training of the artillerymen was very poor - they ended up somewhere nearby. That time we got to the same stop. Many people died. If my memory serves me right, more than 15 people.

Zakharchenko was then simply shocked by this shelling and the loss of life. He ordered the Kuzmins to be brought to this stop so that he, too, could see all this horror - what his colleagues did to peaceful people. But Kuzminykh was quite indifferent to what was happening.

I then read some of his interviews after the exchange. In it, he called what he then happened to see on Boss a production.

When we talked with Kuzminykh, he told me that all of you, that is, the militias, are not free. I even asked him: “Oleg, why do you consider us not free?” He answered to confirm his thesis: “Ukrainian television does not work for you” (laughs).

Yes, yes, this is his verbatim quote. Me: “And if Ukrainian television works for us, will we be free?” He: “Yes.” Me: “And you, Oleg, doesn’t anything confuse you in your logic?” He: “No” (laughs).

He was zombified to such an extent by Ukrainian propaganda in small things and details, he had such an impenetrable perception of the world that I immediately realized how strongly Ukrainian military personnel could be influenced by propaganda.

-Did the MGB receive a lot of denunciations from citizens?

-So many. I don’t want this to be called “denunciations”, people just showed vigilance. They understood that there was an enemy nearby, who tomorrow would give the coordinates of your own house, and then it would be attacked.

But, it’s true, there were denunciations and quite funny incidents. I remember the situation in Makeyevka, when some kindergarten worker wrote that her head was a member of the Right Sector. They began to figure it out. It turned out that she just wanted to take her position. We've sorted this out.

-They said that in the summer of 2014, Ukrainian DRGs entered Donetsk and fired mortars at certain objects in the city. This is true?

-No. These were mostly rumors. You understand, Ukrainian units were stationed on the outskirts in some adjacent settlements - next to Yasinovataya, next to Peski, next to Marinka, on some adjacent waste heaps. Of course, the enemy was approaching the city and striking. We found hiding places and constantly entered into military clashes with such breakout groups. Some of them were destroyed, some left. Naturally, the sabotage group had the opportunity to strike based on the coordinates they had. The range of an 82 mm mortar is about 2-3 km. 120 mm has more, but it is also not critical. This means that the mortar is located nearby, but the enemy is also on the outskirts.

-Was the Ukrainian underground on the territory of the DPR serious during your stay in Donetsk?

- Of course not. What is meant by the Ukrainian underground? There was no underground as such; there were attempts to form one, but we successfully fought against this.

There were attempts to penetrate the DRG and attempts to form some kind of agent networks. We regularly detained enemy agents. They are still detaining her and will continue to detain her.

The work regarding Ukrainian agents began almost from scratch. Even if there were attempts to turn around, we stopped them in a timely manner, although, in general, it was easy for the enemy to penetrate into the territory of the DPR. Same language, same skin color, same mentality. You take a minibus in Mariupol and come to Donetsk, and you don’t have to crawl through the front.

There are many paths to bring weapons. From a purely technical point of view, this is not difficult. You can organize first observation and then sabotage groups, which you keep in safe houses or form into a militia. If the filtration group with the participation of state security works well, then such an agent will be hired.

Such agents have been identified. There were even confessions. Our people were first recruited, and then they sincerely repented. Captured militias were often subjected to terrible torture by the Ukrainians. They were forced to write notes about cooperation. But people repented, saying that yes, they signed, but this was due to the fact that we wanted to return home.

Or, for example, a resident of Donetsk came to Mariupol to visit his wife or aunt. He was delayed. He was told that his relatives would be shot, agree to cooperate. Such a person came to us and said: I have relatives there, I will try to take them out, but just so you know, I signed an agreement to cooperate. Some agreed to cooperate for money, others were blackmailed and tortured. There were cases, for example, in Mariupol, when people were detained by the SBU, they were tortured, and then the corpses were thrown either into the street or into the river. This could also be done by militants from “Azov”, “St. Mary”, “Tornado” and other units that were based in Mariupol.

There were also a small number of motivated nationalists. But most of them had left by then. They formed the backbone of punitive nationalist units such as Shakhtersk, which later became Tornado, led by Abelmas-Onishchenko.

-Did you know Abelmas himself?

- Of course, I didn’t know. If I had known, I would have shot him. I had an employee who was wounded in a shootout with him. Abelmas was a bandit, and the fact that a significant part of the “Tornado” were nationalists and criminals from Donbass is quite logical and understandable. There was even a Donetsk company in “Dnepr-1” and in a number of other units.

But there were other cases of behavior of pro-Ukrainian elements. So the head of the Donetsk cell of the Svoboda party, I don’t remember his last name now, sincerely began to cooperate with us. He was detained by us. Provided appropriate assistance. The man, having looked at what those whose ideology he himself shared were doing to his city, immediately reoriented himself.

The Ukrainians tried to use the locals as fire spotters. Often it was for money. We identified and detained such people.

So I cannot say that there was some kind of Ukrainian underground in the DPR, since ideologically and politically the population of Donbass was quite monolithic in terms of sentiment.

Residents of Donetsk and Donbass in general have very strong local patriotism. And the point here is not even that someone was for the Russian World, and someone was for Kyiv, but that strangers come and start killing you. And you begin to defend yourself from them, no matter how ideologically you treated them before.