Getting to know Motorola

"PolitNavigator" presents to readers a chapter from new book “War at 16. From cadets to “saboteurs”, which was written by the youngest participant in the defense of Slavyansk in 2014, Andrey Savelyev.

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The 16-year-old Russian patriot from Kyiv was among the few residents of the Ukrainian capital who traveled to Crimea after the coup to support pro-Russian protests, joining the militia on the peninsula.

After some time, Andrei went from there to Slavyansk among the first 52 fighters and, together with Motorola, fought in the thick of it - near Semyonovka.

On Saturday in St. Petersburg, at the Museum of Novorossiya (Ligovsky Prospekt, 113), a presentation of Savelyev’s book will take place.

The author will tell in detail about each part of the book, of which there are 5: “Kyiv”, “Crimea”, “Slavyansk”, “Semyonovka” and “Exit from Slavyansk”, will hold an autograph session and answer questions from guests and viewers of the live broadcast.

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...At the beginning of April, replenishment arrived at the camp - a group under the command of Balu, about 15 people, almost all from Kharkov. Among them was the then unknown Motorola. Before arriving in Crimea, the guys took part in the Kharkov uprising in March 2014. Then pro-Ukrainian football fans were brought into the city to disperse local residents who came out to express support for Crimea and Russia. There was a shootout on the central Kharkov square, in which several of our people were wounded. Motorola, by the way, was also present there.

Upon the group’s arrival, I lit the bathhouse so that the guys could relax after a long journey, and that’s when I met a guy named Arseny. As he said, his colleagues in Chechnya nicknamed him Motorola. It had something to do with the connection.

I was almost the shortest in the group, but Motorola was even shorter than me. But he was quite quick, sharp and quite strong.

Once, according to my “vandal” habit, I broke the slingshot of some fighter. The only one who saw this “crime” was Motorola. And although this slingshot cost a penny, when they started looking for the culprit, Motorola did not give me up. Although he could just jokingly tell someone how the “little one” played with this slingshot and tore it apart.

We trained in the former pioneer camp until April 8–9. Already at the beginning of the month we knew that we would soon go to Donbass to help local pro-Russian forces. I, like many, thought that our Crimean group would enter the South-Eastern part of Ukraine according to the same scenario as in Crimea. That is, the end result will be the same - first we will fight, and then the Russian Armed Forces will come in and it will be “Donbass - Russia. Forever!".

But our expectations were dispelled by the wise Prapor, a veteran of Transnistria and Abkhazia. He knew firsthand what war was. Once I and several other soldiers were sitting by the fire and listening to Prapor. He loved to tell interesting stories from life or incidents that happened during the war. Once, when there was talk about our imminent movement to help Donbass, Prapor said:

- Do not harbor false hopes that you will fight together with Russian troops. You will fight instead of them! This scenario was present in Transnistria and Abkhazia. I know what I'm talking about.

Then we didn’t take Prapor completely seriously. But already in Donbass, under the bombing of aviation and large-caliber artillery, I clearly remembered his words.