Translator’s introduction

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left millions of people in

newly independent foreign countries. The death of a shared communist
ideology, ethnic diversity, and weak government authority led to a
number of conflicts. Tajikistan, East Prigorodny, Chechnya, Nagorno-
Karabah, Abkhazia, Georgia, and Transnistria exploded into violence
merely months after the end of the USSR.
Cultural and ethnic similarities as well as extensive intermarriage
between the East Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, and
Belarusians) ensured that there was peace between the largest
successors of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and 2000s. Nonetheless,
Ukraine's rule over a substantial Russian population caused numerous
issues.
When this book was originally published in Russian in 2018, four
years had passed since the peaceful Russian annexation of Crimea, the
pro-Russian Donbass Uprising, and the First Donbass War. At the time
of this book's publication in English, Russia and Ukraine are currently
fighting a much larger war, the Second Donbass War.
It is too early to pass judgement upon those who have fought or are
fighting for their nations. It is this translator's hope that the publication of
this translation will reduce ignorance and promote knowledge of Eastern
European affairs. It is only through understanding that man can attain
peace.
The footnotes and glossary in this book are my own. They are meant
to provide context and greater understanding for non-Russian readers.
The rest of the text has been translated as close to the original as
possible.
In any translation, there is always the question of how to translate
proper nouns. Place names like “Germantown” and “Salt Lake City” carry
connotations of an ethnic community or geographic features in English
that are not carried over in a direct transliteration of those names into a
foreign language. Similarly, the name of USA’s Javelin anti-tank missile
references a type of throwing spear in English, but means nothing in
Russian.
In translating this book into English, I have transliterated words
directly if commonly used (like “Grad” for a type of rocket artillery rather
than “Hail”) while translating words into their English equivalents for
seldom discussed weapons (like “Fly” for the RPG-18 from Russian
“Muha”). Certain place names have been fully (Krasny Most to Red
Bridge) or partially (Krasny Liman to Red Liman) translated into English
to give the places proper Soviet connotations as well as to match Vitaly
Fedorov’s English translation style in his own war memoir.
Names of organizations have been translated into English as closely
as possible. Russian acronyms are used for certain well known
organizations or vehicles such as the KGB or BTRs.
I thank everyone who was involved in this translation. Anatoly Karlin
and Aleksey Larkin both recommended this book to me as the most
comprehensive work on the First Donbass War. Kirill Kaminets and
Eoghan Angarin were both invaluable for their assistance in translation
and editing. I am indebted to Twitter users @yiihya and @usutav for
translating the maps and making the cover of this book respectively.

Peter Nimitz
 Dedication

This is the only book on the legendary struggle for Slavyansk written
by a soldier. The struggle is thoroughly detailed here from the first day to
the last as relayed by the memories of the participants, and
supplemented by photos and diagrams of the events.
This book is dedicated to the fallen defenders of Slavyansk.
 Glossary

BMP - Russian acronym for "infantry combat vehicle" , Eastern Bloc

equivalent of Infantry Fighting Vehicles
BTR - Russian acronym for "armored transporter", the Eastern Bloc
equivalent of Armored Personnel Carriers
Bumblebee - RPO-A Shmel, a man-portable disposable rocket-
assisted flamethrower
Cliff Machine Gun - in Russian "Utyos", a 12.7 mm heavy machine
gun weighing 25 kg with a range of 1.5 to 2 kilometers
Colorado - slur for Russian supporters in Ukraine, referring to the
shared orange-black color scheme of the Colorado Potato Beetle and the
Saint George Ribbon, as well as the Soviet military medal "For Victory
over Germany "
Donbass - technically a hydrological term referring to the Donets
River Basin, but usually used to refer to the predominantly Russian-
speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk
DPR - Donetsk People's Republic, the wealthier and more populous
separatist state in the southern part of the Donbass
Dushman - literally "enemy" in the Dari dialect of Persian, and used
by Soviet soldiers to describe their Afghan enemies in the 1979-1989
war
Fly - RPG-18, a disposable man-portable anti-tank weapon
LPR - Lugansk People's Republic, the less populated separatist state
in the northern part of the Donbass
Rheostat-2 – an artillery fire control vehicle similar in design and
armor to the BTR-D
RPG - Rocket Propelled Grenade
Russian All-Military Union - organization formed by Russian anti-
Communist exiles in 1924
SBU - Ukrainian acronym for Security Service of Ukraine, the
successor of the Ukrainian branch of the KGB
Vatnik - slur meaning a dumb, unsophisticated Soviet nostalgic
 Foreword

The events discussed in this book took place in our time and were
seen with our own eyes. Many of those now reading this book were not
mere witnesses, but active participants in these events.
Contemporary people have long become accustomed to stories of
heroism, struggles, and wars distant in time and place. At most, they
read these stories in books, watch them in movies, or hear them from
their grandfathers. They do not experience struggle and do not know
heroism.
The events in the Donbass and in Slavyansk are not the affairs of the
past and not fiction. They are a new and unexpected struggle which has
summoned forth new heroes in a new and unforgettable chapter of
Russian history. Those heroes among the living grace our present, and
those fallen shall always be remembered.
Despite the continued struggle between Russia and Ukraine and the
feats of heroism at Saur-Mogila, Donetsk Airport, and Debaltsevo; the
Battle of Slavyansk remains the most important battle for us. The
veterans – both volunteers and militiamen - of the Battle of Slavyansk
are considered an elite force in both Lugansk and Donetsk.
The battle is of interest for numerous reasons. Those interested in
military science will find it useful to study for lessons that can be used in
future wars. Those interested in culture will find it interesting as a factual
reference for events that will undoubtedly be popularized in fiction.
I sincerely thank everyone who provided information for this book; in
particular Igor Strelkov, Pavel Gubarev, Sergey Dubinsky, Daniel
Bezsonov, Sergey "Doc" and Konstantin "Cat". I am also especially
grateful to my beloved wife Anastasia for her efforts and support, as well
as the chief editor of "Black Hundred" Dmitry Bastrakov, whose valuable
comments helped greatly in the writing of this book.
Alexander Zhuchkovsky
 Chapter 1 - The Beginning

Date: 12 April 2014

Time: 9:00 am
Location: Slavyansk
Several dozen masked and uniformed fighters wait outside of the
interior ministry building as a dark green UAZ[1] car approaches. A fighter
removes a cable from the UAZ and ties it to a window grate near the
building entrance. Now tied to the grate, the UAZ pulls forward and rips
off the grate. The fighters smash the building’s windows with their rifles
and climb into the building one by one. Shots ring out.
The fighters swiftly reach the balcony of the interior ministry[2]
building. The Ukrainian flag is torn down, and the Russian flag is raised.
The crowd in front of the building is delighted by the change in flags and
cheers, chanting “Russia! Russia! Russia!”.
With the interior ministry building captured, the fighters begin to
construct improvised barricades. Locals bring tires, wood, shields, and
sandbags which the fighters stack around the building.
It was on this spring day, 12 April, that the defense of Slavyansk
began.
Until 12 April 2014, few Russians knew of Slavyansk, a city of
100,000 in the north of the Donetsk region. Even fewer knew the name
of Igor Strelkov. In the video footage distributed by world media at the
time, the leader of the Slavyansk fighters was only shown as an
unknown masked man. It would be another two weeks before Strelkov
gave his name and showed his face to the world. Strelkov, like
Slavyansk, would come to be a symbol of the Donbass Uprising.
The shots fired during the storming of the Slavyansk interior ministry
building had been fired into the air for style rather than at enemies for
battle. The Ukrainian police had not resisted the assault and surrendered
without a fight. No one had been killed or wounded. Nonetheless, these
were the first shots fired in the Donbass War. In a later interview, Strelkov
admitted that “All the same, I pulled the trigger that started the war.”
Unrest had gripped the Donbass for a month and a half before those
fateful shots were fired in Slavyansk. However, it was only on 12 April
that a real challenge was thrown at Kiev and the actual armed uprising
against the Ukrainian occupation began. The next day, 13 April, the
Ukrainian government declared the beginning of the anti-terrorist
operation (ATO) in the Donbass. Kiev had launched its attack on the
east. The war had begun.
At the time of this book's release (August 2018), the war in the
Donbass continues. Thousands have died in the war. Many Russians,
both Donbass locals and Russian volunteers, have joined the Donbass
militia to resist the Ukrainians. Slavyansk is still under Ukrainian
occupation and awaiting liberation.
It all started then - on 12 April 2014, on Cosmonautics Day.
Slavyansk was held by the Donbass militia for only two and a half
months. The militia was forced to retreat on 5 July to avoid encirclement.
Nonetheless those 85 days of siege will go down in Russian history and
legend. This book is about the events in and around Slavyansk. First
however, we must review the events that led to the siege of Slavyansk
and the Donbass War.
 Chapter 2 – New Russia and the Donbass

The Euromaydan protests began in Ukraine in late 2013. They were

driven by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich’s refusal to sign an
association agreement with the European Union. The “progressive” part
of Ukrainian society, journalists and students, protested. They accused
Yanukovich of betraying “European values”, selling out to Russia, and
seeking to join a customs union with a number of other former Soviet
states. The protestors held rallies in Independence Square in Kiev for
months even through winter.
By mid-February, Euromaydan was overrun by radical groups, mostly
from western Ukraine. The early peaceful protests had gradually given
way to violence and bloodshed. Sticks and stones replaced fists, and
were in turn replaced by Molotov cocktails. Finally firearms were used.
On 18 February 2014, the radicals provoked a bloody confrontation. Up
to a hundred people died in the gunfire.
The current Ukrainian government blames Russian special forces for
the deaths, but it has since been proven that snipers were shooting at
the protestors from a position opposite of the government lines. The
deaths at Euromaydan were beneficial for the new regime in Kiev, which
has now named the casualties the “Heavenly Hundred”. The casualties
became the sacred victims of the revolution, and provide the legitimacy
for the government that succeeded Yanukovich’s “tyranny”.
On 22 February, the Euromaydan revolutionaries seized key
government buildings in Kiev. Yanukovich fled first to Kharkov, and
shortly after to Russia. Radical Ukrainian nationalists, who by that point
were the main muscle for the Euromaydan protestors, were united in the
organization “Right Sector"[3]. Right Sector was headed by a native of
Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dmitry Yarosh.
With the beginning of large-scale hostilities in Donbass, Right Sector
and other Ukrainian nationalist groups formed paramilitary wings. Among
these were the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps, Azov, Donbass, Aidar, Dnepr,
and others. These units were called the volunteer or territorial battalions
(dobrobats and terbats respectively). Their ranks were filled with
Ukrainian radicals, many openly sympathetic with Nazi ideals. They were
known for their brutality in territory that they occupied as well as their
mistreatment of Russian prisoners.
 Unlike ordinary Ukrainian military units, the Ukrainian radicals sought
to suppress protests in Donbass from the beginning of the unrest. They
referred to Donbass residents as “vatniks”[4] and “colorados”[5],
referencing offensive stereotypes of stupid quilt-jacket wearers and a
beetle with coloration similar to that of the Saint George ribbon that was
popular with Donbass residents.
In March 2014, the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior Affairs and National
Guard of Ukraine made the radical units into official Ukrainian
government forces. They rushed to suppress popular protests against
the new government, and would be used against the militia in Slavyansk.
Euromaydan was openly supported by the West, with the USA even
participating in the rallies and coup d’etat in Kiev. The events were
obviously beneficial for the West. They marked Ukraine’s final split from
Russia and ended any hope of a customs union. It also left Ukraine as a
colonial puppet regime completely controlled by the USA. Ukrainian
hostility to Russia, as well as USA led sanctions, weaken our country
and benefit our geopolitical rivals.
One of the first decisions of the Supreme Council of Ukraine after the
coup was a change in the state language law. Prior to the coup, Ukraine
guaranteed use of languages used by more than 10% of a region’s
population. On 23 February, the new government repealed that law,
requiring exclusive use of the Ukrainian language.
As a result, regions with large numbers of Russian language
speakers began to join the anti-Maydan movement. It was this
movement which would evolve into large protests, the Donbass militia
and eventually an armed uprising.
While it is true that these events were the immediate cause of the
uprising, the roots of the struggle are much deeper. The region that was
normally called southeast Ukraine has nothing to do with Ukraine. The
region was never and will never be Ukrainian culturally or politically. The
Donbass is a part of Russia – New Russia.
Historically, New Russia was a large region to the north of the Black
Sea, annexed to the Russian Empire in the 18th century during the
Russo-Turkish Wars. The region was first administered by Russia as the
New Russia governorate, and parts were later called the New Russia
region and the New Russia kray[6]. Other parts of the New Russia region
included Kherson, Bessarabia, the Kuban, and Yekaterinoslav.
During the Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution, Ukraine
was controlled in part by Ukrainian separatists who wished to separate
from Russia and Ukrainize the Russian populations of New Russia and
Little Russia.

”Map of the New Russia Governorates” from an atlas published in 1800

After the triumph of the Bolsheviks, most of the lands of New Russia
were given to the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic for administration,
and the term “New Russia” was banned. The Bolsheviks united the coal
producing part of New Russia of the Donbass – short for Donets Basin –
as the Donetsk region. The Donetsk region was later split into the
Lugansk and Donetsk regions.
In February 1918, the Donbass Bolsheviks established the Donetsk-
Krivoy Rog Republic, which lasted no more than a year. Even within the
notably anti-Russian Bolsheviks, there were serious conflicts over the
organization of Ukraine. The founders of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog
Republic desired to be part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic and constantly clashed with the supporters of the Ukrainian
People’s Republic. The pro-Ukrainian faction won out in the internal
Soviet conflict due to support from Lenin and Stalin. Over time, the
leadership of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was removed and the
whole of New Russia became part of Soviet Ukraine. While Crimea
remained part of Soviet Russia, it was transferred to Soviet Ukraine in
1954.
Ukrainianization was carried out within Soviet Ukraine under the
auspices of the Soviet Union. As a result, the Donbass, Crimea, and the
rest of New Russia left the Soviet Union with Ukraine in 1991.
 Today, New Russia includes eight regions that are fully or partially
included in today's Ukraine: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Kherson,
Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa and Nikolayev. In all these regions
there were sizable anti-Ukraine protests and rallies as well as support for
reunification with Russia.
The national policy of the Bolsheviks, however destructive, was not
the sole reason for a Ukrainian identity separate from that of Russia.
Other important factors were from residual Austrian, Polish, and Catholic
influences in western Russian lands. The Poles had ruled much of
Ukraine during their long union with Lithuania. The Poles had Polonized
and Catholicized parts of the western Ukraine during their rule of the
area. After the Partitions of Poland, Austria became the ruler of the
Catholic Ukrainians of Galicia in what is now western Ukraine. These
Ukrainians remained in a state separate from the rest of the Russian
people from the fall of Kievan Rus’[7] in the Middle Ages until Stalin’s
post-WWII annexations in 1945.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, some among the Little Russian
population also embraced measures to Ukrainize the population, Mihail
Hrushevsky the most famous among them. Ukrainian press, educational
institutions, and the Catholic Church all worked systematically in this
project of nation-building.
Poland and Austria played a fundamental role in the emergence of
Ukrainians and political Ukrainian nationalism. The Ukrainian nation was
conceived not naturally, but artificially. Professor Pyotr Kazansky wrote at
the beginning of the 20th century that “We live in an unusual period
characterized by fake states, fake peoples, and fake languages”.
Fake nations were created by other states with a specific goal: the
fragmentation and disintegration of a competing state. Ukraine as an
idea and Ukrainian nationalism as a political project were purposefully
created to subvert and weaken both Russia and the Russian people.
President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma discussed this in his 2003 book
"Ukraine is not Russia”:
“Regardless of your attitude towards the events of the 1920s, we
would likely not be independent had it not been for the Soviet education
program’s support of Ukrainianization. Tens of millions would pass
through the schools of Soviet Ukraine. The education they provided
would prove to be the most important element in instilling a durable
Ukrainian identity.”
 Interestingly, Kuchma considered even his own Ukrainian
government insufficiently nationalistic. Political scientist Mihail Zygar’s
book "All the Kremlin's Men" describes a meeting of a Russian official
with Kuchma. In the meeting, Kuchma described more radical Ukrainian
nationalists as “…more Ukrainian than we are. Though they have much
to learn, the future belongs to them.”
The events of 2014 showed this Ukrainian future – the immolation of
Russians in Odessa and Mariupol, aerial bombardments and shelling of
Donetsk and Lugansk, and the murder of thousands of civilians in the
Donbass.
 Chapter 3 - Russian Spring

The Donbass – under both Soviet and Ukrainian rule – has always
been burdened by its administration in Ukraine. Even in Soviet times the
Donbass sought to be in the RSFSR. “Separatist tendencies” within the
Donbass did not begin in 2014, but have existed since the region’s
inclusion in Ukraine. The concept of “separatism” hardly applies to the
Donbass. Ukraine has been a separatist state since it illegally separated
from Russia in 1991. The separatists are not the Donbass rebels, but the
Ukrainians.
A century ago, when the Ukrainian Bolsheviks accused the founders
of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic[8] of separatism, the head of the
DKR Fyodor Sergeyev famously responded “we are not the separatists,
you are”.
What happened in New Russia in 2014 was not separatism, but
irredentism. This Italian term describes a government policy or popular
movement to unify a divided people into a single state. The term dates
back to 19th century Italy and the reunification of Italy after centuries of
division. Russian irredentism is the struggle of the Russian people to
reunite the Russian lands of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazahstan, and the Baltic
into a single Russian state.
Mass protests, rallies, and popular gatherings began in all regions of
New Russia in the spring of 2014. This spontaneous movement was
named the "Russian Spring". From the very beginning it was a pro-
Russian movement, with thousands of Russian flags flown openly. The
annexation of Crimea to Russia on 18 March inspired hope among the
Russians of Donbass and New Russia that they would soon rejoin their
motherland.
As we know, those hopes were not fulfilled. Only two of the eight
regions of New Russia held referendums of independence, and even
those two regions failed to gain recognition from the Russian Federation.
In spring 2014, no one imagined such a bleak end to the Russian
Spring. By early April, the “People’s Militia of Donbass” and the “Army of
the South-East” (at the time civic rather than military organizations) had
formed in Donetsk and Lugansk. They evolved from mass protests into
confrontational and increasingly martial forces. On 6 April the Donbass
militia occupied the main government buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk
without help from abroad.
The Russian Federation had not provided any assistance at that
point, nor would it help later during the defense of Slavyansk. The
Russian Spring was an entirely organic and popular movement that took
its weapons from the seizure of Ukrainian stockpiles. It was after these
seizures that the Donbass was ready for armed clashes.
The rebels proclaimed the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics
after they occupied the major government buildings in Donetsk and
Lugansk. They waited for the support of the Russian Federation,
expecting instructions on annexation referendums. No instructions ever
came. Instead Igor Strelkov arrived with the Crimean Company.
It is hard to imagine how events would have proceeded without
Strelkov’s arrival in Donbass. Perhaps the Russian Spring in Donbass
would have ended in defeat as it had in Odessa, Mariupol, and Kharkov.
It should be noted that it is absurd to blame the events of 2014 solely
on the USA or Ukrainian nationalists. They and others simply pursued
their own particular interests, which in this case conflicted with Russian
interests. Much of the responsibility lies with the Russian Federation as it
has pursued a weak foreign policy in the post-Soviet era. Russia
supported Yanukovich twice in ten years while neglecting the Russians
of Ukraine who wished to rejoin their motherland.
In the post-Soviet period, Ukrainian nationalism was not only popular
in its traditional strongholds in western Ukraine, but also increasingly in
the east. Russian state patriotism (not necessarily and often in
opposition to ethnic Russian nationalism) is represented by older people
with pro-Soviet views, and is unpopular with the youth. Mass media and
various NGOs supported anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian movements
and politicians, further eroding pro-Russian sentiment.
By contrast, the Russian Federation behaved passively in Ukraine’s
internal affairs. It limited its support to unpopular politicians like
Yanukovich and Medvedchuk, resulting in even more anti-Russian
sentiment among the Euromaydan-supporting fraction of Ukrainian elites.
The Russian Federation’s ignorance of their genuine supporters
within Ukraine was a result of the particulars of its implicitly statist
ideology. The Russian Federation views a resident of Ukraine as a
Ukrainian regardless of their language and identity, and denies the
existence of Russians outside the borders of the Russian Federation.
 Pavel Gubarev, one of the leaders of the Russian Spring, writes
about this in his book "Torch of New Russia":
“Ukrainian nationalists tirelessly work to Ukrainize the bureaucracy
and the education system, but officials of the Russian Federation behave
completely differently. They simply refuse to consider us Russian. They
did not let us study in Russian universities and schools. We found
ourselves in a tragic situation – the Ukrainians considered us foreigners
and Muscovites, while the Russian Federation saw us as Ukrainians.”
Viktor Yanukovich came to power with the support of the Russian
Federation and with pro-Russian rhetoric. Despite his rhetoric, the policy
of Ukrainization (the imposition of the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian
culture) did not stop in any region of Ukraine, including in the Donbass
and in Crimea. Yanukovich was a hypocrite - pro-Russian in words, but
no less Ukrainian than Yushchenko.
What happened in the Donbass in 2014 was entirely due to the
Russian population of the region. Ukrainian propagandists claiming to
see the hand of Moscow behind the uprising were wrong. It wasn’t until
months after the start of the uprising that the Russian Federation began
to intervene. Moscow did not initiate the revolution in the Donbass. It only
reacted to it.
 Chapter 4 - Information on the Fighting in Slavyansk

In the last few years, Russian publishers have released several

books about the events of 2014-2016 in the Donbass. The first People’s
Governor of Donetsk Pavel Gubarev published his “Torch of New Russia”
in 2015, and gives a great deal of attention to the events in Slavyansk.
Militiaman Vitaly “Afrika” Fedorov published his memoir “The Freedom
Fighter” in English and Russian in 2015, which discusses the fighting
near Yampol. Writer Mihail Polikarpov published his book “Donbass:
From Slavyansk to Debaltsevo” discussing the course of the war. War
correspondent Semyon Pegov published a book in 2016 called “The
Redheaded Separatist and I” about the Donbass commander Motorola.
Gennady “Correspondent” Dubovoy wrote “The Knights of New Russia”
in 2017; a collection of articles, interviews, and reports discussing the
conflict. Also in 2017, Alexander Barkov published his “New Russia in My
Heart”. Barkov’s book includes some anecdotes from the defense of
Slavyansk. Dmitry Steshin published his “Swift and Damned” in 2018, a
collection of Donbass war stories, including one of my own.
Yet after four years of historical and literary treatment of the Donbass
War, there was still not a work dedicated specifically to the defense of
Slavyansk. This author believes that the book you are presently reading
is the most complete and detailed description of the events in Slavyansk
in the spring and summer of 2014.
I do not claim this book is a comprehensive treatment of the battle as
such a treatment is not possible at this time. Certain incidents and
names are excluded from this book due to the ongoing nature of the
conflict in Donbass. Some of the people involved in the conflict are held
prisoner, reside in Ukrainian-held territory, or have vulnerable family
members.
Additionally, a lot of information on the battle currently available is
unreliable. Casualty counts and losses of materiel are always distorted
by the propaganda in any conflict, and the Donbass War was no
exception. The organization of the combatants at Slavyansk was organic
rather than bureaucratic due to the chaotic nature of the revolution, and
as a result it is difficult to identify those involved in specific incidents.
While working on the book, the author relied on both his own
memories (I arrived in Slavyansk on 19 May 2014) as well as interviews
with the participants in the defense. These interviewed participants
include military commanders, militia fighters, journalists, doctors, and
civilians. They are listed below with their position at the time of the battle:
-Commander of the Slavyansk Garrison and First Defense Minister of
the Donetsk People’s Republic Igor Strelkov.
- Chief of Staff of the Garrison Eldar Hasanov.
- Deputy Defense Commander of Slavyansk and commander of the
Kramatorsk militia Sergey “Grumpy” Dubinsky
- Deputy Commander for Armaments, Commander of the Yampol
Battalion Yevgeny “Pennant” Skripnik
- Deputy Commander for Counterintelligence Sergey “Abwehr”
Zdrilyuk
- First Prime Minister of the DPR Alexander Boroday
- Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Mobilization Board Pavel
Gubarev
- Garrison Communications and Information Specialist Sergey
Tsyplakov
- Company commander of the Semyonovsky Battalion Sergey
“Small” Derevyankin
- Commander of armored vehicles of the garrison Yaroslav “Ram”
Anika
- Commander of the air defenses “Thunderstorm”
- War correspondent Dmitry Steshin
- Militiamen Daniel “Goodwin” Bezsonov, Igor “Skobar” Ivanov, Dmitry
”Cedar” Zhukov, Gennady “Correspondent” Dubovoy, Yury “Henri”
Yurchenko, Andrey “Vandal” Savelyev, Valery “Buddy” Musienko, Sergey
“Malt” Solodov, Artyom “Shout” Gavziyev, Vitaly “The Ninth” Yermolov,
and many others

While researching material for this book, the author also referenced
material freely available on the internet. Most important was Igor
Strelkov’s “Slavyansk Diary” on the “Antique” (antikvariat) internet forum
from the end of April to early June 2014. Reports from Russia-friendly
media outlets such as Komsomolskaya Pravda and LifeNews were also
very useful. Statistics and official statements from the Russian and
Ukrainian governments were also used in the writing of this book, as well
as social media posts by various interested parties.
This book is divided into three parts. The first part covers the period
from 12 April to 1 May. It discusses the arrival of Igor Strelkov and his
Crimean Company, the situation in Slavyansk, the formation of the militia,
and the first clashes. The second part covers the period from 2 May to 3
June – the fiercest part of the fighting. This part discusses the heavy
fighting in Semyonovka, the struggles with enemy aircraft, and the men
involved. The third part of the book covers the period from 4 June to 5
July. It discusses the Ukrainian victories at Red Liman, Yampol, and
Nikolayevka, the difficult humanitarian situation, and the final breakout of
the garrison. In the conclusion, this book discusses the reasons for the
retreat from Slavyansk, the significance of the battle, and the future
adventures of the fighters.
Part I: 12 April to 1 May
 Chapter 5 - Crimean Company

The 2014 mass rallies in New Russia grew in number and in energy
after the events in Crimea. Russian forces had swiftly overrun the
peninsula and annexed Crimea to Russia. The annexation raised the
hopes of the inhabitants of New Russia, who expected the Crimean
scenario to be repeated in their respective regions.
Igor Strelkov and his comrades in Crimea also expected a Russian
intervention in New Russia. They actively participated in the liberation of
the peninsula, filling the vacuum of power prior to the arrival of the “polite
green men” – the Russian military proper. The Donbass militias viewed
their role as identical – to occupy government buildings, to organize local
residents to support them, and to prepare the area for the arrival of the
Russian army.
Strelkov and his Crimean Company were the first group of volunteers
to cross the Russian border into the Donbass. They would become the
core of the Slavyansk garrison, and later the Armed Forces of the
Donetsk People’s Republic. When they first arrived in the Donbass from
Rostov, they had 52 men. The complete list of these men was destroyed
in the retreat from Slavyansk. About a quarter were killed in battle, and
some wish to remain unnamed. Nonetheless, here are the call signs of
some of them:
Baloo, Chamomile, Bear, Motorola, Pennant, Terets, Grandfather,
Abwehr, Edward of Petersburg, Babay, Vandal, Cedar, Quiet, Fang,
Mole, Fritz, Argun, Eye, Mute, Odessa, and Shadow.
A fighter always chooses a call sign in a war as it is both easier for
his comrades to remember and an operational necessity. In order to
avoid confusion, call signs had to be unique within a unit. Otherwise,
multiple fighters would take the same popular call signs such as “Lynx”,
“Bear”, “Wolf”, “Doc”, “Sniper”, and “Dad”.
Most fighters discussed in this book will be referred to by their call
signs. A fighter’s real name is used only when he is dead, well known by
his own name, or with his permission.
After the Russian annexation of Crimea concluded, the more than
200 man strong special-purpose battalion led by Igor Strelkov was
disbanded. Over the course of the next two weeks, Strelkov reached out
to activists in Donetsk as well as other fighters, and organized a new unit
with the intention of entering the Donbass. The protests in Donetsk,
Lugansk, Kharkov, and other cities were ongoing; but organizers worried
that they would fade in face of government suppression and lack of
external support. Strelkov aimed to provide them the necessary support
and fend off any attempts at suppression.
15 men from Strelkov’s unit in Crimea remained with him through that
two week period. They were either unwilling or unable to return home,
and would work with Strelkov on recruiting new men. The leader of
Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, agreed to lend the group an unused
sanitarium near Yalta as a training facility.
The core of Strelkov’s group was comprised of veterans with
extensive combat experience, mostly in the conflict zones of the North
Caucasus and Central Asia[9] as well as those who had distinguished
themselves in the Crimean annexation. They were resolute and
ideologically committed, necessary for fighters who would be undertaking
a risky and dangerous enterprise.
There were others who offered to join Strelkov’s group, but he found
them wanting and dismissed them. A group of 30 Terek Cossacks asked
him for weapons, but refused to take orders from him. They preferred to
be “Free Cossacks” than to be a disciplined military force.
All candidates for Strelkov’s Crimean Company passed through two
interviews. The first with Sergey “Chamomile” Zhurikov, and those who
passed the first interview had a second with Strelkov. Strelkov recalled:
“I told the volunteers up front where we were going and what we were
going to do. I informed the volunteers that were going on our own,
without any official status. If things went poorly, no one would save us.
Some volunteers left at that point due to the unpredictability of the
situation and lack of guarantees. Of the remainder, some later turned out
to be unscrupulous even if skilled. A quarter deserted at Slavyansk. They
weren’t ready for the war.”
As a result, there were 54 men in Simferopol[10]. Among them were a
dozen fighters from the disbanded unit who had remained with Strelkov,
8 men from the First Regiment of Crimean Militia who Baloo had brought
along (including the famous Motorola), and six men from the Kiev group
– Chamomile, Vandal, Cedar, Mole, Fritz, and Fang. The rest of the men
in the Crimean Company were recruited in the barracks of the enlistment
office. They were from Odessa, Kharkov, Donetsk, and other parts of
New Russia. Only one of the Simferopol Cossacks remained – Terets,
the future commandant of Kramatorsk. Approximately 80% of the men
were citizens of Ukraine.
On the way to Donbass, two men left the company. At the time of the
border crossing, there were 52 men in the company. With assistance
from Crimean authorities, the group had armed themselves with non-
folding AK-74 assault rifles and Makarov pistols.
The men questioned Strelkov on when and where exactly the
company would go. Strelkov only answered them on the last night, at
11:00 pm on 12 April immediately prior to crossing the border. Once the
company had entered the Donetsk region, there was no turning back.
 Chapter 6 - They Came in Order to Fight

The Crimean Company was met by Pavel Gubarev’s associates

during the border crossing from Russia into Donetsk. Gubarev himself
was in Ukrainian captivity at the time, but his group of activists remained
the best organized in the region.
An important, though mostly invisible role in the uprising was played
by Sergey Tsyplakov. He was responsible for maintaining communication
between Strelkov and Donetsk, and he did so successfully with
encrypted messaging. Pavel Gubarev described Tsyplakov’s activities:
“For several months he (Tsyplakov) managed to hide his role in the
(pro-Russia) movement and avoided the attention of opposition forces.
Without Tsyplakov, our communications and with them our organization
would have collapsed.”

Sergey Tsyplakov
Tsyplakov talked about the situation in Donetsk on the eve of the
arrival of the Crimean Company in a conversation with the author of this
book.
 “In March – April 2014, the pro-Russia movement was at a dead end.
We failed to take over the region with non-violent protests, and there was
not enough strength for an armed uprising. By non-violent protests, I
mean, for example, work stoppages, mass street protests, etc to
paralyze the economy of the region (25% of the economy of Ukraine).
That would force the local elites to join with the protestors, similar to what
occurred in Crimea. However, we had two problems. The first was that
we didn’t have enough time and people to organize a large enough
protest. The second was that there was simply no one to negotiate with.
The Donetsk political elites are tightly knit and criminal, with many linked
to violent gangs. To negotiate with them would leave one dead and
buried in garbage.
At the same time, we were also incapable of armed resistance. Few
people at the time were willing to kill or die for the cause. Ordinary
working people are very law abiding. They are used to strictly following
instructions in factories and mines, so better at taking than giving orders.
While this makes for a good and peaceful society, it was necessary for
independent and decisive action in spring 2014.”
According to Tsyplakov, the activists and organizers in the protest
movement found themselves in a difficult situation by the end of March.
They had already “crossed the Rubicon" and violated all sorts of
Ukrainian laws, but they had not been able to create a revolutionary
situation. Tsyplakov recalls:
“After unsuccessful attempts to seize administrative buildings and the
capture of Pavel Gubarev, the protests began to slow down. Buildings
were stormed and then abandoned. The protests had flared, but then
dimmed. We needed to act more radically, to capture the SBU, the
Ministry of Interior Affairs, and the TV tower. We also wanted to take the
airport, hoping that that would trigger the arrival of the Russian Army and
ensure the safety of the Donbass.
The local elites were waiting to see what would happen at that point.
Some were waiting to see what the Russian Federation would do and
demanded guarantees of their position or safety. Others took a pro-
Ukrainian position, or remained neutral. We realized that it was
necessary to seize weapons and dictate terms to them ourselves. We
saw what had happened in Crimea and hoped for Russian help as well.
The Kiev junta had already moved forces into the Donbass between
20 and 30 March. Key participants of the protests had been arrested,
and repression had begun. In response, we continued organizing rallies.
 We again occupied the regional state administration and the SBU
buildings on 6-7 April. We were able to seize the weapons there, but
there were few of them. The Ukrainians had already removed most of the
weapons. We found 60 guns there, as well as more at the fort. Overall,
we had no more than a hundred guns. It is impossible to organize an
uprising with so few weapons. At the time, the People’s Militia of
Donbass was comprised of only a few hundred people and lacked both
discipline and leadership. They were all just waiting in their apartments to
be arrested.
We had committed serious criminal offenses, and by doing so
everyone was committed to going forward to the end. If we didn’t, the
consequences would be dire. We saw how the protests had ended in
Odessa and Kharkov. As we prepared for the worst, Igor Strelkov and his
men arrived, the Battle of Slavyansk began, and the militia escaped
defeat”.
Pavel Gubarev's group provided humanitarian cover for the transfer
of Strelkov and his men to the Donetsk region. The group included
Gubarev’s wife Yekaterina, Tsyplakov, and a militiaman known by his call
sign “Wild”. Yekaterina had met with Strelkov twice in Rostov and once in
Taganrog. There they had drawn up the plan for the armed border
crossing and subsequent actions.
Sergey Tsyplakov remained in Donetsk, and on 11 April received an
encrypted email from Yekaterina regarding the time and location of their
meeting with Strelkov’s group. Tsyplakov didn’t copy the message and
instead committed it to memory to lessen the risk of a leak of the
meeting. He drove to Shahtyorsk and informed Wild of the time and
place for the meeting. Wild was given the responsibility of meeting
Strelkov and escorting his group across the border.
Strelkov’s 52 men arrived in Rostov region on the evening of 12 April.
They left all of their identifying documents behind and crossed the
Ukrainian border at the agreed point. The Donetsk activists were waiting
with transportation. Strelkov had requested the activists to bring a GAZ-
66 military truck, but they were unable to locate one. The activists did
succeed in finding a driver and 5-ton truck from the “New Mail” company
to replace the requested GAZ-66[11]. The driver was unaware of what he
had gotten himself into.
The driver shook in fear after the arrival of Strelkov and his men. He
asked them if he would be driving or if they would take the truck with
them. The men told him that they could drive themselves, and that he
was not needed. The moment struck the activists from Donetsk, who
were impressed by the demeanor of the Strelkov group. Militiaman Wild
later recalled:
“Do you know how Strelkov’s men differed from the locals? They
smelled like war and exuded some unfathomable sense of determination.
They arrived understanding that they would fight and shed blood. They
were ready for anything.”
The name of the truck - "New Mail" - was very symbolic. Militiaman
Dmitry “Cedar” Zhukov, who had arrived from Kiev with Chamomile,
recalled:
“When we arrived in Slavyansk and began to get out of the van, I
almost choked with laughter. I remembered a story I was told in
childhood. In the story, a gangster is staying in a hotel. He is mailed a
package. In his hotel room, he opens the package, and it contains little
soldiers. The soldiers come to life and kill the gangster. We too had
come by mail, and I silently congratulated Ukraine on receiving this
“package”.[12]
After ensuring that the group had successfully crossed the border and
been transported, Strelkov asked the Donetsk residents where they
could best win popular support and control the region. Wild answered
“Slavyansk” and handed Strelkov a map, pointing out the location.
Strelkov studied the map and asked questions to clarify the city’s
importance. The decision of deployment had to be made quickly – the
Ukrainian military could detect them at any time. Due to the unrest,
Ukrainian forces had strengthened their patrols along the border.
 Chapter 7 – Slavyansk

Initially Strelkov planned the liberation of Shahtyorsk rather than

Slavyansk. Shahtyorsk was between Donetsk and Lugansk, allowing for
coordination of the pro-Russian militias in the two cities. It was also close
to the Russian border, important as it would allow receipt of aid.
However, we lacked active support from the masses in Shahtyorsk.
Donetsk and Lugansk were too large for Strelkov’s 52 men to occupy.
We needed a medium sized city with an active and sympathetic
population. With that, we could quickly and easily establish power.
Slavyansk was that city. It was small enough that Strelkov’s group
could be a major force, was located between the major urban centers of
Donetsk and Lugansk, and had a sympathetic populace eager for
liberation. There were several hundred pro-Russia activists already
active in the city amidst a population of approximately 120,000. The
activists were ready for action against Ukraine, and were backed by pro-
Russia militias in neighboring towns of Kramatorsk and Red Liman.
The city had a good defensive location and was an important
transportation hub. It is a western part of a large, densely populated
metropolitan area of approximately 500,000 people. The roads and
railroads of the important Kharkov-Rostov route pass through the city.
Under the control of the militia, Slavyansk became the shield for the
Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. It was later called “The
Slavyansk Shield”.

With the liberation of Slavyansk, the militia would both defend the
Donbass on the border with Kharkov and have a base for future
advances to the west. The only issue with Slavyansk was that it was far
from the Russian border, making reinforcement and resupply difficult. At
the time, that did not seem like a problem since Strelkov expected a
repeat of the Crimean scenario. It would prove to become a serious
problem two months later, when the Ukrainian army completely
surrounded Slavyansk and Russia refused to intervene.
Slavyansk’s importance wasn’t merely strategic and tactical, but also
symbolic for the uprising. Its beautiful name, whose root is “Slav”[13], was
appropriate for a center of armed struggle aimed at the reunification of
the Russian people. This inspired a large number of volunteers from
Russia and Ukraine to rush to the aid of the Slavyansk garrison during
the months-long siege.
The city received the name Slavyansk in 1784. It had been founded
as Fortress Tor in 1645 to protect Russia from the raids of the Crimean
Tatars. There are two versions of how the name of the city was changed
to Slavyansk. The first is that Catherine the Great had looked from her
carriage while passing through, and exclaimed “What a glorious[14] little
town!”. The second is that the city was named Solevarsk for the nearby
salt lakes, and that the name Solevarsk gradually evolved into Solevansk
and finally Slavyansk.
 Having made the final decision on the destination for his company,
Strelkov commanded the soldiers to load into the truck. For about four
hours, the truck drove around the Donetsk region, trying to avoid the
central roads and police. The drive was hard for the men. Fifty fighters
were crammed into the truck, laying on top of each other in complete
darkness and suffocating from lack of air. Every 90 minutes they stopped
the truck and let the men out for air.
Early the next morning the "New Mail" truck delivered the group to
their destination of Slavyansk. There, the men were met by the future
people's mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov.
The Crimean Company stopped for several hours at the old Villa
Maria mansion on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street. The local police
approached the mansion and demanded to know what was happening.
They were quickly disarmed and locked away. Prior to their incarceration,
the police requested they be allowed to report to their superiors. The
head of the local police thus shortly arrived at the villa. He was indignant
at the situation, and demanded that Strelkov’s vastly superior force
surrender their weapons. Instead, Strelkov had him disarmed and
arrested. Later, after the city was secured, the prisoners were released.
On the morning of 12 April, a number of local militiamen arrived at the
villa. Strelkov made the decision to act immediately.
 Chapter 8 - Igor Strelkov

Igor Strelkov’s name is inextricably linked to the Donbass Uprising.

His personality and role will always be discussed in relation to the events
of the uprising, even centuries in the future. Even years after the events
in Slavyansk, disputes over Strelkov’s actions as the militia commander
and DPR defense minister continue. Especially heated are arguments
over the retreat from Slavyansk and the abandonment of other cities of
the republic to Ukrainian forces.
Strelkov's real name is Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin. He took the
pseudonym Igor Ivanovich Strelkov from his paternal grandmother in
2000 while serving in Chechnya. Since he fought under the name
Strelkov in the Donbass, he will be referred to as such in this book.
In the DPR, the militia addressed their commander by his name and
patronymic or as "comrade colonel". Among themselves they called him
Strelkov or “Number 1”.
Strelkov was born in Moscow in 1970. In 1992 he graduated from the
Moscow State Historical and Archival Institute. During the summer of
1992, he volunteered in the Transnistria conflict. From November 1992 to
March 1993 he served as a volunteer with Serb separatists in Bosnia,
first in a reconnaissance group, then later as a mortar man.
 Strelkov returned to Russia by June 1993, serving in the Moscow Air
Defense District through July 1994. From March to November 1995, he
served in an artillery battalion, taking part in the First Chechen War from
late March through mid-October. From August 1996 to March 2013 he
served in various FSB operational and managerial capacities. Under the
FSB, he participated in the Second Chechen War and resulting
counterinsurgency from 1999-2005. From 2005-2013 he was based out
of Moscow, though he was involved in various tasks in other parts of
Russia. In March 2013 he was transferred to the reserves as a colonel.
In February 2014, Strelkov went to Crimea, where he became the
commander of a volunteer special forces battalion that played a military
role in the reunification of Crimea with Russia. From 12 April to 12
August 2014 Strelkov was a commander of the Donbass militia, and from
16 May he was the Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People’s
Republic. Currently he lives in Moscow as the head of the “New Russia”
movement.
Strelkov’s views are closest to those of the “White Monarchists”. The
White Monarchists are committed to restoration of the Tsars, the
Orthodox Christian Church, and to the values of pre-revolutionary
Russia. They admire the anti-communist White Movement of the Russia
Civil War 1917-1922 and see themselves as their successors.
The soldiers at the Slavyansk garrison as well as Strelkov himself
wore V-shaped Russian tricolors on their uniforms identical to those of
the Volunteer Army. The Volunteer Army was part of the White
Movement in the Russian Civil War, and fought the Communists. Indeed,
the name of one of the units at Slavyansk was the Volunteer Battalion.

Military historian Yevgeny Norin wrote in his article “Fortress

Slavyansk” that:
“The defense of Slavyansk and the entire Donetsk Republic rested
largely on the personal qualities of this single man. The Russian political
arena and media sphere were already filled with a well-established cast
of characters, and yet the hero of Donbass was a completely new figure.
However, Strelkov wasn’t a completely unknown quantity. A small group
of veterans and military journalists were quite familiar with Strelkov…
War was Strelkov’s native habitat. He had grown from a bookish boy
into a specialist in small wars and paramilitaries. When not at war, he
had to make his own by participating in historical reenactments, decked
out as a monarchist Che Guevera with the epaulettes of the army of the
old Russian Empire. It says a great deal about Strelkov’s idealism and
nobility that he never became a mercenary, working indiscriminately for
any faction who paid. This idealism was noted by all who encountered
him. He was even known as a “worthy enemy” by his Ukrainian
opponents in Aidar Battalion[15]. This was the man who led the Russians
in Slavyansk: a hardened military veteran who had been an infantryman,
an artilleryman, a junior officer, and a special agent.”
 Strelkov and the Slavyansk garrison’s heroic resistance would inspire
a cult of personality within the Russian patriotic movement. The popular
website "Sputnik and Pogrom" made a poster depicting Strelkov with
several armed militiamen labeled "300 Strelkovites" styled in the manner
of the movie “300”. The poster became extremely popular. It was printed
and displayed on billboards in Kramatorsk and Donetsk, and was also
shown on the major television networks.

This newfound popularity jarred the reserved and dour Strelkov. He

wrote this about it towards the end of June:
“I don’t like this cult of personality which some have made of me on
the internet. It is unpleasant to read about oneself, and even more so to
read things about oneself that are not true. I am not as talented as some
claim. Our military successes here are due mostly to the enemy’s
passivity, indecision, and incompetence. I am uninspired by posters with
idealized images or praise for “the iron commander of the iron
Strelkovites”. I loathe braggadocio even if it afflicts others. I remain
skeptical of my own competence and know both my skills and my
limitations.”
Strelkov had many critics in addition to his numerous fans, focusing
on his shortcomings rather than his accomplishments. These criticisms
covered both his personal and military nature, in particular his conduct
during the retreat from Slavyansk. Some of the field commanders failed
to find common ground with Strelkov in the first few months of the
conflict, among them Igor Bezler, Alexander Hodakovsky, and Alexander
Zaharchenko.
The worst personal conflict that Strelkov had was with Alexander
Boroday, Prime Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Their feud is
a popular genre of online discussion regarding the events in 2014. The
bitterness of their feud was due to their long acquaintance – they had
known each other both personally and professionally for twenty years. As
they both became important figures in the war and left in late 2014,
mutual recrimination was perhaps inevitable. Strelkov left Donbass in
August 2014, while Boroday left in October. Strelkov accused Boroday of
treason and of working for the “Gravedigger of New Russia” Vladislav
Surkov. In turn, Boroday repeatedly criticized Strelkov as a schizophrenic
incompetent whose lack of experience led to the DPR’s defeats. Boroday
stated:
“Strelkov overestimated his capabilities in the Donbass. His
participation in other wars was limited to the tactical level. He had no
experience at the operational level and no knowledge of combined arms
theory. His biography makes him an honorable veteran, but not a
competent combined-arms commander.”

Boroday and Strelkov at a press conference in July 2014

The view of Strelkov’s personality as unpleasant is largely due to the
specifics of his interactions with critics such as Boroday who are already
inclined to view him negatively. During the defense of Slavyansk, the
only criticism that this author heard of Strelkov was that he was
sometimes too gullible, and that his inner circle took advantage of that.
The fighters themselves were very loyal to Strelkov. Yury Yurchenko, a
war correspondent embedded in Strelkov’s headquarters, described
Strelkov thus:
“He is an idealist and quite gifted in the art of war, but has an even
more important quality. He has the skill to convince men and inspire their
confidence. He is tough and decisive, but at the same time is also naïve
and gullible. This contrasted with others in his circle.
The Ukrainian military assessed Strelkov as an intelligent and
dangerous foe. I know this from my time as a prisoner of the Ukrainians,
as well as from reading the Ukrainian media and their assistant defense
minister Yury Biryukov.”
When asked about his lack of experience in combined arms and
leadership of large military operations, Strelkov responded thus:
“I had no experience of leading troops beyond that of small units in
Chechnya. The largest unit I commanded was a group of 150 men for a
few months in 2005. These men were under me only in the military
structure, not actual combat. I set goals and objectives for them, and
they accomplished them. In Slavyansk, I also set feasible goals and
objectives for the militia, and they achieved those. It is due to this that
the enemy’s plans were disrupted and that we avoided encirclement,
rout, and destruction.”
If the militia’s objective was to hold Slavyansk whatever the cost, then
Strelkov failed. But that objective was only set initially when Strelkov
expected an intervention from the Russian army. When the Russian
intervention failed to materialize, the objectives of the militia had
changed. They needed to preserve their forces in order to continue the
struggle. In this, Strelkov succeeded.
The claims of Strelkov’s lack of experience causing the failures of the
Donbass militia do not make sense when examining the entire situation.
There was no one else capable of leading the DPR defense. The first
period of the war was chaotic, with neither an army nor a state controlling
the situation. There were no large formations to command or operations
to direct. Only four Russian military officers deserted their posts to join
the Donbass militia, risking their careers and a court martial. Strelkov
dramatically expanded the size of the Donbass militia from several
hundred to several thousand. Few of the militiamen had any combat
experience or knowledge of military affairs. Lastly Strelkov possessed an
aura of charisma and authority unmatched by any other figures at the
time.
In early June, Strelkov described the goals of the enemy and the
Donbass militia as such:
“The enemy’s goal in this long-prepared “revolution” is chaos in
Ukraine and on the Russian frontier. For them, the bloodier and more
destructive the chaos, the better. Unfortunately, many Russians fail to
understand that there is no avoiding this chaos except through firm and
decisive military action. Too many try to resolve these festering issues
with homeopathic cures when only an urgent surgery can remove these
tumors from an increasingly unhealthy body. Our mission is to give
Moscow time to understand this and to agree to an operation.”
 Chapter 9 - Who Was Behind Strelkov?

Russian society and the media are still haunted by the question as to
who made the decision to send Strelkov's detachment to the Donetsk
region? Who gave the go-ahead for a former FSB (as you can imagine,
there are no truly “former” FSB officers) officer to initiate military action in
Ukraine? Did Strelkov act entirely on his own initiative, or was he
someone’s puppet?
Let us consider three possibilities.
First possibility: At the beginning of April 2014, Russian authorities
planned to send troops to Ukraine and implement the Crimean scenario,
at least in Donetsk and Lugansk. Similar to Crimea, they sent a small
armed group of special forces to prepare for the arrival of regular troops.
Second possibility: Russian leadership did not have any firm
intentions and plans for Ukraine, therefore it could not give an order or a
green light to Strelkov and his men for military action. However, patriotic
elements of the Russian elites were interested in aggressive actions
towards Ukraine. Those elites include the famous Orthodox oligarch
Konstantin Malofeyev, the head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov, and the
political strategist Alexander Boroday. Recognizing that the Kremlin was
hesitant but not opposed to aggressive actions, these elites took the
initiative themselves and authorized Strelkov to intervene in the
Donbass.
Third possibility: The decision to intervene in the Donbass was made
entirely by Strelkov and his men. They went to Donbass without any
orders or support from above, just as hundreds of Russians would over
the next few months.
All of these possibilities have serious flaws in their logic. On one
hand, it seems that nothing like this could have happened without the
approval of Russian leadership. On the other hand, there was never a
repeat of the Crimean scenario in Donbass. Since there was no repeat of
the Crimean scenario, there was no reason for the Russian Federation to
send Strelkov to the Donbass in the first place. The second possibility
appears equally unlikely. The reality of Russian politics is that power is
distributed vertically. There are no parallel power structures that can act
independently. This leaves the third and last possibility, which seems too
incredible to be true. Fifty-two armed men moved across the territory of
Russia without the support of the government.
Until there is more information on the thoughts and actions of the
Kremlin in 2014, all possibilities are conjecture and may be reasonably
doubted. It is because of this lack of clarity that numerous conspiracy
theories have emerged. Liberals believe that Putin hired Strelkov to start
a civil war in Ukraine. Patriots believe that Strelkov acted alone and that
the Donbass was betrayed by Putin and the Russian Federation.
I brought these possibilities up in a conversation with Igor Strelkov
during my research for this book. Strelkov was understandably reluctant
to discuss the topic and gave evasive answers. It is unlikely that we will
have many for quite some time. The only thing that Strelkov would say
about this was that:
“I made all the decisions myself, but we were in complete agreement
with Sergey Aksyonov. He understood perfectly that Crimea without New
Russia is a hostage in a cell without a key.”
Strelkov believed that if there was no war in the Donbass, there
would have been one in Crimea. This is perhaps another possibility for
the reason for the Donbass events – they were to divert attention from
Crimea. If true, fate proved grievous for the unfortunate residents of
Donbass. They suffer unrecognized and vulnerable to future attack while
Crimeans enjoy Russian passports and four years of reunification with
the motherland.
As for the above three possibilities of the background of the Crimean
Company’s arrival in Donbass, it seems to us that the second version is
most likely. Strelkov had a certain amount of independence both in the
Donbass and in Crimea, playing a key role in both operations. While
alone he could do little, the absence of an official Kremlin position
allowed the patriotic parts of the Russian elite to direct their own
Donbass policy. These elites included Aksyonov, Malofeyev, and
Boroday, who possessed Putin’s awareness if not his tacit support. The
Kremlin’s official positions were in limbo, influenced heavily by foreign
policy and economic concerns.
Aksyonov, Malofeyev and Boroday were directly involved in the path
to Slavyansk. Aksyonov in particular never hid his role. Aksyonov had a
good relationship with Strelkov and allowed Strelkov and his men to
move from Crimea to Donbass. Malofeyev was initially against sending
armed men to Donbass, but eventually financed the expedition. Boroday
was the least important of the three – he only visited Slavyansk a single
time.
Alexander Boroday is a political strategist sympathetic to Russian
patriotism. He served in both Transnistria and Chechnya during the
conflicts there. Boroday was the one who introduced Strelkov to
Malofeyev prior to the annexation of Crimea. Boroday had received great
acclaim in May 2014 after he became the first Prime Minister of the DPR
after the successful Donetsk independence referendum. He also created
the Union of Donbass Volunteers.
Boroday disagrees with Strelkov’s view of their role as insignificant:
“I supervised the activities of Strelkov, starting before Crimea and
ending after Slavyansk. When Strelkov and his group arrived in Rostov a
few days before their border crossing, we met at an airport café. I gave
him money for the operation, equipment, fuel, and other revolutionary
expenses.
This amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars of support for the
Strelkov detachment and the people's militia. It wasn’t government
money, and it is easy to guess where the money came from. The role of
this donor was very important. The donor was the main engine and the
main sponsor of all events.”
Boroday is referring to the Russian businessman Konstantin
Malofeyev. His financing of the militia is an open secret, but nonetheless
participants in the events of 2014 remain tight-lipped in discussing him.
The characterization of Malofeyev as "the main engine of the events"
is an exaggeration as Boroday cannot openly name others who were
involved. Malofeyev and others, whatever their patriotic sentiments, likely
received prior acquiescence to their actions from the Kremlin.
The course of events in the Donbass and the subsequent Russia-
Ukraine conflict could have very easily proceeded differently. While
Strelkov and his men were preparing their border crossing into Donetsk,
some “comrades” in Moscow decided to cancel or at least slow down his
actions in Donbass. Alexander Boroday recalls:
“After the trip to Rostov, we gave another batch of money to Strelkov
and agreed that he would seize Shahtyorsk. I returned to Moscow on the
eve of the border crossing. When I disembarked from my airplane in
Moscow I was greeted by a group of five people who had just returned
from a foreign trip relating to the events in Ukraine. I suggested to my
colleagues that we act with caution. They told me to recall Strelkov and
to bring him to Moscow. I left the airport, got into a car, and called
Strelkov on his cell phone. The call didn’t go through. I found out later
that Strelkov had turned his phone off. He had foreseen this
development, and had no intention of changing his plans for the
Donbass.”
Why did Boroday advise his "colleagues" (whom he does not name)
to proceed with caution and agree to recall Strelkov? According to
Boroday, he doubted the success of the Donbass uprising:
“After the Rostov trip, I returned to Moscow with a negative opinion of
Donbass protest leaders and had concerns about the outcome of their
cause. The support for Russian annexation was both less intense and
less widespread than in Crimea. It was also apparent that there would be
no repetition of the Crimean scenario in Donbass. Yes, a majority of the
people in Donbass wanted to join Russia, yes there were large protests,
but Russia herself hadn’t decided if the Donbass was worthy of
involvement. We wanted to wait for the outcome of the protests before
making a decision, and decided to slow Strelkov’s operation down.
Strelkov had his own opinions, and rushed forward.”
 Chapter 10 - Slavyansk Garrison

At 9:00 am on 12 April, the Crimean Company encircled the interior

ministry building in Slavyansk. Some of the fighters were down the
street, blocking off the paths to the building. Other fighters were in cover
on a building across the street. The rest stormed the building. Strelkov
recalled:
“The standard Grozny approach was employed during the assault.
The grates were torn off, and then the building was stormed. In
Chechnya we usually used a BTR[16] or BRDM[17] and the approach took
at most a few seconds.”
Having ripped off the window grates, the fighters entered the interior
ministry building. The Ukrainian policemen barricaded themselves in the
armory. Strelkov personally smoked them out by throwing smoke
grenades into the armory from an opening from the courtyard.

The Slavyansk militia’s seizure of the Slavyansk interior ministry

building on 12 April
The policemen ran out to the reception area and opened fire through
the windows, hoping to scare off the militia. Strelkov aimed over their
heads with his Kalashnikov, and returned fire with live ammunition.
Realizing that militia was a serious armed force, the policemen
immediately surrendered. After a brief interrogation, they were freed and
allowed to go home.
The militia tried to avoid bloodshed in the first few days. At the time,
they believed that the situation would proceed as it had in Crimea, with
no deaths. They did not wish to shed the blood of their future fellow
citizens. Nonetheless, they were prepared to do so if necessary.
In the next two hours, the militia occupied the city administration and
SBU buildings. By lunchtime, the militia controlled the whole of
Slavyansk. The SBU building, commonly referred to as “the hut” was on
Karl Marx Street and became the headquarters of the garrison.

Slavyansk barricades
From that day on, Slavyansk became both a center of anti-Ukrainian
resistance and the main vector for the spread of people’s power[18] in the
Donetsk region. Every day new volunteers arrived to join the militia. As
the militia grew, its numbers became sufficient to send armed fighters to
nearby settlements.
The militia took about a hundred Kalashnikovs, hunting rifles,
shotguns, and carbines during the occupation from the government
buildings in Slavyansk. In addition, another hundred handguns, mostly
Makarovs, were found. There were no heavy weapons, machine guns, or
anti-tank devices in Slavyansk – those would all have to be plundered in
battle or delivered from other cities.
On the first day, about a hundred men joined the militia. Thus, the
Slavyansk garrison already numbered one hundred and fifty fighters.
With these reinforcements and ammunition, the militia was able to
expand its area of control. On the second day a detachment of twenty-
eight fighters led by Vadim “Terets” Ilovchenko was sent to the
neighboring city of Kramatorsk to the south. They occupied the key
buildings in Kramatorsk, and Terets became the first military commander
of the city. He remained there until 3 June, when he was succeeded by a
local resident, artillery captain Gennady Kim.
Over the following weeks, Strelkov periodically reinforced the
Kramatorsk garrison. Kramatorsk was the second largest city after
Slavyansk which witnessed successful fighting against the Ukrainians. At
the time of the retreat from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, the garrison of
the latter consisted of five hundred fighters.
Elements of the National Guard, Right Sector, and regular Ukrainian
military forces advanced towards Slavyansk immediately after its
occupation. They moved into some of the nearby suburbs. As a result,
the suburb of Semyonovka was liberated only in the first half of May after
the Ukrainians were driven out.
The militia attempted to establish people’s power in Red Liman
(settlement 20 kilometers northeast of Slavyansk) on 12 April, and
succeeded in taking control of the police building and prosecutor’s office.
However, the buildings were vacated upon an agreement with the local
authorities. The local authorities agreed to meet the people’s demands.
The militia organized joint patrols with the local police to maintain order.
However, with the beginning of hostilities in Slavyansk, it was determined
that Red Liman should be controlled by Russians, and the militia seized
power there on 30 April.
There were no fighters dispatched from Slavyansk to Red Liman –
the militia there was a preexisting Cossack[19] formation. While formally
subordinate to Strelkov and the forces in Slavyansk, military coordination
between the two cities was difficult and discipline was lacking. By early
June, the traditional Cossack frivolity and neglect of their defenses led to
the fall of Red Liman.
In the second half of April, the Crimean Company had grown into a
battalion and was reorganized. The first company was led by Baloo, who
became the commissioner and was responsible for interaction with civil
authorities. Sergey “Abwehr” Zdrilyuk was made deputy commander for
counterintelligence. Chamomile was given command of the first shock
combat group, which initially included Bear, Motorola, Cedar, and other
fighters. “Gray” headed the commandant company. Recruits were met by
“Chechen”, who weeded out volunteers who were unfit for fighting and
assigned volunteers to units. Yevgeny “Pennant” Skripnik, a native of
Shahtyorsk and an old associate of Strelkov was made deputy
commander of armaments. He later commanded a battalion near
Yampol.
There was no conscription of local residents in Slavyansk. All fighters
were volunteers. At worst, local troublemakers were forced to the front
for hard labor as trench diggers and fortification builders. There were
never any requisitions of material from the local population either. From
the beginning, many locals donated their time, labor, and equipment for
the cause. Strelkov himself wrote receipts obliging the return of tractors,
excavators to their owners after they were used. Food, uniforms, fuel,
and other necessary items were either donated from local residents or
purchased with funds from Russian donors.
Ukrainian propaganda often describes the militiamen as mercenaries,
implying that they were fighters hired by the Russian government. This
was simply not true. Genuine mercenaries are hired with a contract and
paid wages. The fighters at Slavyansk were all volunteers and received
very little in wages. Only in June did the garrison pay the fighters, and it
was a mere $150. Even then, many of the fighters refused to take the
money on principle, as they were fighting exclusively for an idea.

Slavyansk garrison fighters

Of course, the militia wasn’t entirely comprised of honest volunteers.
Much as in Crimea, Strelkov found difficulties in dealing with various
criminals and ill-disciplined freebooters. Those difficulties weren’t limited
to those inexperienced in war, even veterans caused problems. Strelkov
said:
“Twenty four men, six of them officers, came from the Union of
Afghanistan Veterans. They said they were ready to serve, but requested
they be held in reserve near their homes rather than sent to the front line.
I thanked them, but told them that we needed men who would listen to
orders and fight where they were needed. Only three of them, only one
an officer, ended up in the militia. The rest decided it was too
inconvenient.”
Few of the Slavyansk locals were ready for a real war. It was only
after the first clashes and the shelling of the city that they realized how
serious the situation was. Some fled the city, but many served with
honor. Those who fought did so with the heroism and courage of those
unyielding Russians who we have seen in so many WWII films.
Everything in Slavyansk was done with little or no training. Even
important positions were filled with men who weren’t necessarily
competent or moral.
No society is politically monolithic, and Slavyansk was no exception.
While most locals were sympathetic to the militia, there were those who
identified with Maydan and the new government in Kiev. Some of these
acted as Ukrainian agents within Slavyansk. They would transmit
information to the enemy and direct artillery fire. Some were caught by
the militia, and either shot or imprisoned.
Like most of mankind, many of the Slavyansk locals were true
neutrals, caring more about the peacefulness of their small world than
any great conflict. The transformation of Slavyansk into a new Brest
Fortress[20] complete with a siege and regular artillery bombardments
greatly displeased them. In mid-June, some of the locals organized a
rally near the old SBU headquarters, demanding that the militia leave so
that the Ukrainians would stop shelling them. Strelkov said:
“In a state of siege, the military’s authority must be strong. However,
use of violence against the civilian population was minimal and rarely
required. Most of the locals were loyal, and there were only a few hostile
elements.”
Nelya Shtepa was the mayor of Slavyansk at the time of liberation on
12 April. She was a typical politician, duplicitous and inconstant. She saw
that most of the population supported the militia, so she feigned support.
However, at the same time she negotiated with the Ukrainian military.
After two weeks, Strelkov had her arrested and kept her in detention until
the retreat from the city.
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, a local resident and pro-Russian activist,
was appointed as the next mayor of Slavyansk. Ponomaryov possessed
a kind of Donbass peasant charisma that made him suitable for the role.
He even created an armed unit at his own expense. Unfortunately, he
was associated with the local criminal underground and eventually
became unmanageable.
It took little time for Strelkov to suspect that Ponomaryov had links to
the underworld and was participating in looting. After the first reports of
Ponomaryov’s illicit activities, Strelkov ordered Baloo’s platoon to disarm
Ponomaryov’s men. Sometime later, the men were rearmed. Strelkov
was forced to disarm Ponomaryov’s men again in late May, and had the
mayor arrested. Not wanting to cause a stir, Strelkov had Ponomaryov
placed under arrest rather than face execution. He was left comfortable
in the old SBU building until the retreat. When asked on his thoughts on
Ponomaryov, Strelkov responded:
 “I have no comment on Ponomaryov’s arrest. I will say one thing – his
aura of heroism was entirely a media fabrication.”
After the two unsuccessful attempts to establish an independent
civilian government in Slavyansk, the military had to take over. The militia
was able to quickly restore order and discipline. Crime almost
disappeared, especially after Strelkov conducted trials. A curfew was
imposed on the city, with loudspeakers mounted on cars driving around
the city, blaring that no one was to remain on the streets from midnight
until six am. The sale of alcohol was restricted from 10:00 pm to 10:00
am. Lastly, the Ukrainian political parties “Freedom”[21], “Fatherland”[22],
and “Democratic Alliance” were banned.
 Chapter 11 - For Russia!

The people of Slavyansk provided unconditional support to the militia.

It can be unequivocally stated that an overwhelming fraction of locals
supported the Russian annexation of the Donetsk region. When
Strelkov’s men arrived in the city, the locals greeted them with delight
and jubilation. At first, they thought that the Crimean Company was a
group of the "green men", Russian troops, whose arrival was expected in
every city and village of New Russia. Unlike the poorly armed local militia
(at best armed with trauma pistols and old rifles), the Crimean Company
looked like a serious force with their camouflage uniforms and new
weapons.
After a few days, the city realized that the men of the Crimean
Company weren’t professional soldiers, but volunteers just like their own
militia. As a result, the townspeople became even more supportive, as
they knew that all of their fates were tied together.
The Donbass people’s belief in the imminent appearance of the “Red
Army” (the name by which the locals still knew the Russian Armed
Forces) did not fade away. Journalist Semyon Pegov recalled in his book
“The Redheaded Separatist and I”:
“When I went to Slavyansk, I thought I would meet the same “green
men” who had appeared in Crimea. Specialists in masks, paratroopers,
and god knows who else from our military. At the time, it seemed like
they would appear from chaos like mushrooms out of a wet stump. I was
surprised when I arrived at the trenches at the front. There were no
athletic soldiers with steely gazes and daring attitudes. Instead, there
were tired and dirty men. Some were about twenty years old, their eyes
filled with insane heroism. Others were about forty, miners worn from
years of hard work. Both could be considered “vatniks” or “colorados”,
but they were definitely not GRU[23] special forces.”
The militias in Slavyansk, as well as throughout the Donbass, used
the flags of the "Donetsk Republic", the "People's Militia of Donbass" and
"New Russia". But for the most part they went to checkpoints and
barricades with Russian flags. Russian flags were hung on buildings,
government agencies, and houses. The Crimean Company didn’t bring
Russian flags with them - the local residents already had them.
 When the Russian volunteers asked the locals why they planted the
Russian flag rather than the DPR flag on the occupied SBU building, the
locals replied that they believed in Russia, not an independent Donbass
state.
At first, the Russian government didn’t interfere with the use of the
Russian flag or pro-annexation sentiments. It was only in early
September 2014 that Donetsk and Lugansk received a command to stop
using the Russian flag. At that point, the Russian government had
decided that it would not annex the Donbass to the Russian Federation.
The fighters in the Donbass began to use the flag of New Russia, but
those faded away as use of the official DPR and LPR symbols spread.
Russia’s plans for the Donbass had changed several times in 2014.
After serious fighting started in May 2014, the Russian government was
annoyed by Western and Ukrainian accusations of direct military
involvement in the Donbass War. They requested that Strelkov and the
Donbass fighters stop calling for the Donbass’ reunification with Russia
and only called for the federalization of Ukraine. Strelkov thought that
request was ridiculous, and ignored it.
The popular movement in the Donbass and Slavyansk was a Russian
national uprising. An uprising for the reunification of the Russian lands.
Nobody wanted to return to the "normal"(even "anti-fascist", "pro-
Russian") Ukraine. Ukraine was and remains hated by most Russians in
the Donbass. No one wanted an independent statehood either – whether
for Donetsk, Lugansk, or any other republic. The Russians wanted and
aspired to be part of Russia and Russia alone.
 Chapter 12 - Beginning of the Anti-Terrorist Operation and the
Defeat of Alpha

If the Crimean scenario was the dream of the inhabitants of

Slavyansk and all of New Russia, then for Maydanist Ukraine, still
smarting over the loss of Crimea, it was a nightmare.
On 13 April, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
decided to start an anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in eastern Ukraine.
Acting President Alexander Turchinov announced in a video:
“We did our best to avoid human casualties. But we are ready to
repel all invasions, terrorist attacks, and subversive acts with force of
arms. The NSDC has decided to launch a large-scale anti-terrorist
operation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We will not let Russia
repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of Ukraine.”
The Crimean scenario in the Donbass never materialized, but not
because of Turchinov and Poroshenko. It wasn’t due to the hundreds of
Ukrainians who were killed at the Donetsk Airport, Debaltsevo, or
Ilovaysk. It didn’t happen because the Russian government decided they
didn’t want to risk the economy for the sake of a reunified Russia.
Formally, the ATO lasted almost four years. In March 2018, Ukraine’s
President Poroshenko signed a decree ending the ATO and the
beginning of the Joint Forces Operation (OOS in Russian). The decision
was made shortly after a law had been passed in February called “Law
of the Reintegration of the Donbass”. In that law, Russia is named as an
aggressor, and Donetsk and Lugansk were labeled as occupied regions.
The transition from the ATO to the Joint Forces Operation resulted in an
organizational change. The Ukrainian government’s policy towards
Donbass under the ATO was determined by the Ministry of Interior Affairs
and the SBU[24]. Under the OOS, policy is set by the Ministry of Defense
and the General Staff.
What date can be considered the start of the Donbass War? Was it
12 April, when the Crimean Company liberated Slavyansk and fired the
first shots? Was it when Kiev announced the beginning of the ATO and
sent the first armed units to Slavyansk? Perhaps 20 April when Right
Sector made their first assault on Slavyansk? Or was it the first clash the
militia had with the enemy, when the first Ukrainian security official was
killed?
 The last event happened on 13 April, eight kilometers to the north
near the village of Semyonovka. Intelligence had reported a Ukrainian
military column moving towards Slavyansk. The Ukrainians had
managed to set up a checkpoint in Semyonovka with three BTRs and
paratroopers. Men from the Alpha special forces unit had traveled from
Poltava in a blue minibus and a black jeep to reinforce them. Among
them were Colonel Gennady Kuznetsov, and Right Sector commander
Konstantin Poddubny.
Poddubny led the Ukrainian paratroopers to Slavyansk, bringing their
BTRs with them. Upon their arrival at the outskirts of Slavyansk,
Poddubny got out of his vehicle and walked over to the Slavyansk militia.
The militia’s representatives listened as Poddubny screamed at them,
threatened them, and demanded that locals be free to leave Slavyansk.
Poddubny finished his tirade, declaring “Well, Muscovites, get ready (for
something bad to happen)!”
Poddubny then returned to his vehicle, obviously intending on
implementing his stated threats. Fortunately, Chamomile arrived at the
scene with his men. While outnumbered, the Russians had the element
of surprise. The Russian militia opened fire on the stationary Ukrainian
vehicles and BTRs. Most of the Ukrainian paratroopers and special
forces scattered, fleeing into the forest. One of the paratroopers
managed to get back into a BTR and return fire. It was at that point that
the militia disengaged from the firefight.
The Ukrainians suffered four wounded and one dead. Their dead was
the Alpha officer Gennady Bilichenko, and one of their wounded was
Colonel Kuznetsov. The militia had suffered no casualties. These were
the first real casualties of the war. Prior to this, the Ukrainians believed
they would quickly crush and disperse the militia with minimal losses.
Such a powerful rebuff on the first day of the ATO left them in a state of
shock.
One Ukrainian newspaper wrote mournfully: “For the first time in the
history of independent Ukraine, an officer of the Alpha Special Forces
died not at the hands of criminals, but in a battle with the special forces
of a foreign state."
A participant of the shootout told another newspaper that “Russian
special forces shot us with assault rifles at almost point-blank range”.
It was not just the locals of Slavyansk who believed that the Crimean
Company were “Little Green Men” rather than volunteer militiamen. The
Ukrainian authorities too believed that the militiamen were actually
Russian special forces. Strelkov wrote:
“With the defeat of Alpha in the first battle, the Ukrainians were
absolutely certain that they had been opposed by the coolest Russian
GRU special forces. After all, the men of the coolest anti-terrorist special
forces couldn’t be beaten by some militiamen.”
The first militia casualties in Slavyansk are usually named as three
locals who were killed in the first major assault on the city on 20 April.
However, the first real victim was Ruben Avanesyan. He was twenty-nine
years old, and a member of Pavel Gubarev’s People’s Militia of Donbass.
On 13 April, a group left Donetsk in two cars carrying valuable cargo.
Even though they were unarmed and out of uniform, they considered
themselves part of the militia. Near the entrance of Slavyansk, they were
attacked by two cars of Right Sector militants. One of the militia cars
successfully fled, but the car that Avanesyan was in was not so
fortunate. The militants sprayed it with assault rifle fire, killing Avanesyan
instantly and wounding two of his companions.
 Chapter 13 - On the Other Side of the Barricades

The first Ukrainian attempt to clear Slavyansk was undertaken on the

evening of 12 April. A unit of Berkut[25] from Donetsk was sent. Sergey
Tsyplakov said of the attempt:
“We expected that the Berkut would take their guns and confront
those who had shot their comrades at Maydan. However, our
expectations were wrong. Most of the Berkuts simply deserted. The
Ukrainian authorities directed the rest of the Donetsk Berkut to attack the
militia, undoubtedly hoping to incur bad blood between them.
On the night of 12 April, we were contacted by the remaining Berkut
in Donetsk. They told us that they didn’t want to fight against the militia,
but didn’t want to join us either. We made them an offer to block them
out, allowing them to report back to their superiors that they couldn’t
complete their mission. They accepted.”
As a result, the Berkuts returned to their base in Donetsk, and the
Alpha special forces were sent to pacify Slavyansk the next day.
Berkut had received broad acclamation from Russian patriots and
Donbass residents due to their confrontation with the radicals at
Euromaydan and their refusal to disperse pro-Russian protests in Crimea
and the Donbass. While many were righteous men, they were afraid to
act as an independent force. As a result, when the government
demanded that they kneel and beg for forgiveness, they did so.
There were many episodes of very unworthy behavior on the part of
Berkut in both Ukraine and the Donbass. One such episode, in early May
2014, was discussed by journalist Dmitry Steshin:
“I witnessed the shameful flight of the Berkut from Semyonovka.
While their comrades remained fighting, some tried to steal our car and
sounded a church alarm. In general, they behaved like pregnant teen
girls in a line to a venereologist’s office. I am still ashamed of them.”
Similar to the Cossacks, the reality of Berkut was very different from
the narratives that one can read on social networks or media. Many
Berkut immediately joined the people, fought bravely, and died in battle.
But they were by no means the majority. Many simply deserted, or
refused to obey orders.
In addition to the aforementioned episode with the Donetsk Berkut,
there was another incident of apathetic Berkut. A large number of Berkut
were deployed between Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. They too refused to
obey the orders of the Ukrainian government, and simultaneously
refused to join the militia. They told the militia that they had no interest in
fighting, and requested that they be left alone while waiting to be rotated
back home. They were true to their word, and allowed cargo, volunteers,
and wounded to pass through their checkpoint.
Many members of the Ukrainian military, Interior Affairs Ministry, and
the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) acted the same way. Igor Strelkov
says that upon contacting Ukrainian military officers, many took his cell
phone number and promised to change sides if the Russian army
intervened. They were unwilling to commit to anything while the situation
was still uncertain.
That was how the situation had proceeded in Crimea. As soon as the
Ukrainian military and special forces realized that the Russian army had
arrived, they declared their desire to serve Russia.
Pavel Gubarev recalled his conversation with one of the Alpha unit
soldiers during his transportation to Slavyansk on 7 May for a prisoner
exchange. The Alpha operative told him he understood perfectly why the
Donbass was fighting, and that he even sympathized with their cause.
Gubarev asked him why he didn’t defect. “Unit ethics” – the Alpha
responded – “what will my friends say? We’ve worked together for so
many years.”
“I looked at them and thought, these special forces –they are not
radical Right Sector neo-Nazis. They are normal, regular, apolitical
servicemen. I even witnessed a few times when Alpha troops were
disgusted by the National Guards and Right Sector men. If Russia had
acted like she had in Crimea, men such as the Alpha troops, seeing a
normal and legal state that they could serve, would have joined. We did
not have to be on the opposite sides of the barricades.”
On the one hand, Gubarev is right. If the situation in the Donbass had
proceeded per the wishes of the population, bloodshed could have been
avoided and most of the security forces would have joined the people.
On the other hand, the lack of Russian support does not justify the
reluctance of the Berkut and Alpha troops to support the Donbass
uprising. Neither claims of unit camaraderie nor “oaths to Ukraine” can
justify those who were too afraid to support the militia, and then fought
against the militia under the Ukrainian flag.
 Chapter 14 - Disarmament of the Paratroopers

The first Russians killed in action died on 14 April in Kramatorsk. The

militia aimed to occupy an old Soviet airfield in the city, and sent a
platoon with light firearms to occupy it. The airfield was fortified with
concrete barriers and strongpoints. It also had weapons depots that had
avoided looting. Unfortunately Alpha troops had already occupied the
airfield, and easily repelled the militia. Four militiamen were killed in the
attack.
The failure of the attack would allow the Ukrainians to build up their
forces at the airfield. By early May elements of the 25th Airmobile Brigade
and the 8th Regiment of GUR special forces[26] were stationed there,
including six BMPs[27] and five BTRs.
In the subsequent weeks, the Kramatorsk garrison was strongly
reinforced with men and materiel, reaching battalion strength by June.
But even with 500 men, the militia was unable to recapture the
Kramatorsk airfield. The Ukrainians at the airfield were too strong, and
were receiving a regular stream of supplies and reinforcements. Even
after the militia surrounded the airfield, the Ukrainians were able to
resupply by helicopter. Similarly, the Ukrainians were unable to take
Kramatorsk, and were repelled several times by the militia.
The unsuccessful 14 April attack on the airfield was partly offset by a
successful disarmament operation near Slavyansk. The episode had
comical circumstances, and is the subject of numerous rumors and
legends. Sergey Tsyplakov describes the events:
“Lyosha Mozgovoy called me and told me that he was bringing us
weapons. I reached out to the guys in Slavyansk and gave them the
necessary information on where and when to meet Mozgovoy. Three
militiamen came out to the rendezvous point, and ran into about 20 well-
armed men from a reconnaissance company of Ukraine’s 25th Airborne
Brigade. Our men bluffed the paratroopers – they demanded that the
paratroopers surrender their weapons, and claimed more militiamen
were in the woods. The paratroopers either didn’t want to fight, or they
were too afraid to call the bluff.
In the meantime, one of our men contacted Strelkov and made him
aware of the situation. He sent Chamomile’s battle group to the scene.
The battle group traveled through the forest and set up near the rear of
the paratroopers. It was at that point that the paratroopers agreed to lay
down their arms and surrender. They were then released.
Mozgovoy drove up later, and explained the situation. He wasn’t
actually bringing any weapons to the Slavyansk garrison – he had
spotted the Ukrainian paratroopers, and lacking the strength to disarm
them himself, instead gave their location to the garrison in Slavyansk. He
figured the garrison could disarm the paratroopers and take their
weapons.”

Aleksey Borisovich Mozgovoy

One of the few militiamen who had come for “the weapons” was
Pennant. The next day the SBU publicized a call between Pennant and
Strelkov. The call included a discussion of the encounter with the
Ukrainian paratroopers:
-“Hello, I’m reporting – this is one of the guys who came from Crimea.
They do not want to surrender. Volodarsky, a veteran, is trying to
persuade them, but I don’t know how. “
-“Do they have a lot of weapons?”
-“They have maybe 25 with them”
-“Well, threaten to put them under the ground. Has Chamomile
arrived at the scene?”
-“No, when will he arrive?”
-“Wait for Chamomile. After that, cut them off properly and set up
lethal firing positions”
 -“I blocked the road. I have here one, two, three ... I have five riflemen
with assault rifles, but I don't know these people. They are from
Slavyansk”
-“Chamomile will come to you now. Surround them completely and
block their escape. And do not be soft! Disarm them completely! We are
not in Crimea, damn it. Explain to them that we are not in Crimea.”
-“understood”
The militia took a military truck and two dozen small arms from the
paratroopers, including several silenced AKMs[28] and three RPKs[29].
Three of the captured paratroopers joined the militia: Artyom “Shout”
Gavziyev, Lyuty from Gorlovka, and “Azov” from Mariupol. All three
participated in the defense of Cherevkovka.
This unit was an airborne reconnaissance company from the 25th
Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The company had
been stationed in Crimea prior to the Russian annexation. It had been
reformed and sent to Amvrosiyevka, near the Russian border in the
Donetsk region. The militiaman Artyom Gavziev said in an interview with
the author:
“There were eighteen of us in the company at the beginning of April.
We patrolled the border in an Ikarus[30]. Our leadership at the time was
chaotic and uncertain what to do. All they did was wait for the invasion of
the Russian army. If the invasion happened, it is unclear how we could
stop it.
Then we went to the Lugansk region, to the town of Rovenki. There
our Urals were blocked by unarmed locals. They didn’t attack us – they
gave us food and water and asked us to not attack our own people. After
that we went to Donetsk in one Ural. At 4:00 am on 14 April we were
ambushed by a stud farm near Slavyansk. The militia greeted us. At first
there weren’t many of them, and they bluffed and waited for help. They
surrounded us after their reinforcements arrived. Chamomile came up to
us, a submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He showed us that he
was not going to use his weapon, and greeted us with a smile. “Hello
brothers!”. It was then I realized that we were not going to be shot, and I
went over to the side of the militia.
Lieutenant Colonel Sklyarov and Senior Lieutenant Zayats conducted
negotiations with Strelkov and Chamomile. Strelkov outlined that
situation for them – we were surrounded, the roads were closed, and that
resistance was futile. Nonetheless, he didn’t attempt to intimidate us – he
suggested that we drive to Slavyansk and talk in a more comfortable
area. We went to the Slavyansk city administration, and were told that
we could either join the militia and keep our weapons, or go home
without our weapons. Three of us stayed.”
The counterintelligence chief of the Slavyansk garrison, Abwehr, was
also present at the confrontation with the Ukrainian paratrooper convoy.
He talked to them in Ukrainian, and helped convince the Ukrainian
officers to not offer resistance. According to Abwehr, one of the most
effective ways of influencing Ukrainian military men was to tell them that
they (the Donbass militia) were not Russian occupiers as Ukrainian
propaganda claimed, but instead fellow Ukrainian citizens fighting
against the criminal Kiev regime.
After resting in Slavyansk and talking to the militia, most of the
paratroopers decided to leave. Abwehr recalled:
“They left, but promised to come back to join the militia. They said
they were unwilling to stay with the militia for various reasons – they
wanted to talk to their families, pick up personal items, etc. Two
paratroopers gave me their weapons and asked me to keep them until
they returned to Slavyansk. I told them that they should stay. If they went
home, their wives would forbid them from leaving, they would be
brainwashed with propaganda, or all else failing the military prosecutors
would arrest them. They left anyway, and of course never came back.”
Abwehr was right - ideologically motivated people in those days did
not hesitate to join the militia. They didn’t consult relatives, didn’t fear the
authorities, and fought without doubt in the righteousness of the cause.
Those who hesitated or thought hard on their decision as a rule
remained in Ukrainian ranks (or six feet under the ground) ever after.
 Artyom Gavziyev provided another example:
“I was the commander of the checkpoint in Cherevkovka. It was the
outermost post in front of Kramatorsk, and the closest to the Ukrainians
of my old unit – the 25th Brigade. We were separated from each other by
the “Slavyansk” stele. Until hostilities broke out around Kramatorsk, I
kept in touch with my former comrade Artyom Bezportochny, who
happened to be at the nearby Ukrainian checkpoint. He was originally
from Rubezhnoye, and we had been friends. We would cook for each
other when the other one of us was on duty. I constantly called Artyom
and tried to persuade him to join the side of the people. He and his
comrades took a long time to answer, and spent a long time discussing
amongst themselves how to proceed. They continued this until the
beginning of skirmishes between the checkpoints and exchanges of
artillery fire. Eventually, in June Artyom and the others were withdrawn
from their position. Ukrainian command had ordered Donbass natives to
be withdrawn from the front due to their unreliability.”
Throughout the Donbass, there were many similar stories. The war
divided not only the cities, but even military units and families. Old men
who had once been comrades in Afghanistan found themselves on the
opposite sides of the front lines.
This is what the Russian volunteer Vasily Saharov, who fought in
Kramatorsk, had to say:
“From the end of April through the beginning of May, the Donbass
militia and Ukrainian forces were actively negotiating. Both sides wanted
their enemy to surrender. However, no one wanted to surrender, so the
two sides reached an impasse. Then the clashes began and negotiations
ceased. The enemies still had each other’s phone numbers, and often
got in touch. Sometimes I was nearby men who were on calls, and they
had their phones on speaker. You could listen to the voices of the enemy.
As a rule, men called their opposing counterparts of the same rank. I was
amazed at the transformation of their behavior.
At first, when we had the initiative and the enemy thought that Putin
was going to send in Russian troops, their voices were pitiful and crying:
“Guys, don’t shoot, we are all Orthodox Russians. Why are you shooting
at our airfield with grenade launchers? We have wounded here, and
families at home… We are forced to shell the city with mortars, but we
don’t want to. Please, don’t attack us anymore…”
We listened to this whining every day. However, once the Ukrainians
realized that we were on our own, they transformed. Especially after they
received more artillery, their courage increased and their tone changed.
“You are doomed, you colorados! We will end you separatists! The
Donbass is finished, you are cut off from Russia! Surrender before it is
too late! Glory to Ukraine! Go back to Russia! All of Europe and America
are on our side!”
And so on. Let me remind you – we were talking with the same
people then as before. In May they called themselves Russians, and in
June they had transformed into svidomite[31] Ukrainians.”
Another column of paratroopers with armored vehicles was disarmed
by the militia the next day.
 Chapter 15 - Trophy Armor

The 25th Detached Dnepropetrovsk Airborne Brigade began to

advance towards Slavyansk in the early days of the ATO. It is considered
one of the best formations in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Many officers
and soldiers in the 25th Brigade had undergone training in the United
States, had participated in joint exercises with the USA’s military, and
had fought in Iraq.
Considering the reputation of the brigade, its poor condition in the
early days of the ATO was evidence of the weakness of Ukrainian forces.
It was the first unit to transfer technical equipment and weapons to the
militia, and several of its paratroopers joined the Donbass militia. At the
time of its arrival, the men of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not have
the slightest desire to fight the Donbass militia or to shoot civilians.
On 15 April, one column from the 25th Brigade was blocked by local
residents near Kramatorsk. A detachment from Slavyansk immediately
drove there and confronted them. The militia explained to the Ukrainian
military that there was no need to fight anyone there - “what was yours
has become ours".
The paratroopers didn’t consider resistance, and immediately gave
the militia everything they had brought: one BMD-1, a BMD-2, one self-
propelled Nona gun and three BTR-Ds. These were the first armored
vehicles that would later serve the militia well.
The militia put flags on the new captured vehicles to the thunderous
applause of the local residents. The locals shouted “Russia! Excellent!”
as the militia drove away for Slavyansk.
Several paratroopers from the column joined the militia at the time,
including senior lieutenant Yaroslav “Ram” Anika, who became the
commander of the armored group and artillery of the Slavyansk garrison.
As with most episodes in the Slavyansk epic, the descriptions of 15
April are filled with distortions and inaccuracies. One obvious
exaggeration is the claim that the 25th Brigade column was forcibly
disarmed when in fact the disarmament went smoothly. It was not
uncommon in the early days of the conflict for unarmed locals to block
Ukrainian forces with a crowd, and for the Ukrainians to halt in the face
of it. The Ukrainians (other than Right Sector) at the time didn’t want to
kill anyone. In this case, the militia was able to arrive quickly before the
paratrooper column was able to leave.
How this happened is described in an interview with Ram:
“In those days, we didn’t understand the situation in the Donbass.
Command sent us to the Donetsk region, so we just wandered along the
roads. We got lost, and ended up heading towards Kramatorsk. Locals
blocked our path to the city, so we got out of our vehicles and talked to
them calmly. Then the Donbass militia arrived, and offered to take us to
Slavyansk. The militia put Russian flags on their vehicles so that locals
would know who they were. In Slavyansk, Igor Strelkov explained what
was happening, and offered us an opportunity to join the people’s side of
the conflict. No one was forced to make a decision, so we stayed in
Slavyansk. I was immediately appointed to the position of commander of
the armored group, which was comprised of the vehicles we had brought
with us.”
The column of the 25th Brigade consisted of 60 soldiers and 5
officers. Ten soldiers and one officer, Ram, joined the militia. Three of the
paratroopers would distinguish themselves in the war. Their call signs
were Malt, Vergel, and Tick.
According to Ram, only those who were natives of Donetsk and
Lugansk regions joined the militia (Ram himself was a native of
Lugansk). The rest of the men in the column returned to Dnepropetrovsk,
the headquarters of the 25th Brigade.
Russian media picked up the story of the Ukrainian military column’s
defection that day. It was Ukraine’s second heavy blow after the defeat of
the Alpha Unit on 13 April. Acting President Alexander Turchinov
admitted that Ukraine had suffered a tactical defeat and instituted a
criminal case against the 25th Brigade for surrendering weapons.
On April 17, Turchinov signed an order to disband the brigade.
However, since the Armed Forces of Ukraine had few units capable of
combat, that order was quickly canceled. Ukrainian command carried out
a serious reorganization of the brigade. The ranks were diluted with
nationalist volunteers and more reliable Ukrainians from the western
regions. This was combined with a new program of Ukrainian ideological
indoctrination.
At first, the Ukrainians tried to distort the history of April 15. For
example, Sergey Sobolev in Ukraine’s Supreme Council said that the
Russian flags flying on the armored vehicles were a military trick as part
of an attempt to penetrate into Slavyansk. “It was our armed forces using
partisan tricks to infiltrate into Slavyansk” Sobolev fantasized. “This will
be known soon, and you will understand that our units had actually
achieved a breakthrough”.
This type of rhetoric would become a trademark of the Ukrainian
military in the following months and years. They would deny defeats, and
instead fabricate a narrative alternating between victories and betrayals.
Interestingly the armored vehicles seized from the 25th Brigade had
recently been based in Crimea, and had been transferred by Ukraine to
the Donbass within the framework of the ATO. Military commander
Dmitry Steshin said the following:
“I was present at the handover of the vehicles to the militia on 15
April. A few years later I learned some interesting details. The
Perevalnoye coastal defense unit's political officer Boyko told me that
these vehicles and crews were at the training grounds near Perevalnoye
in Crimea. They had seen the defections of Ukrainian military units to the
Russian Federation with their own eyes. In Perevalnoye, the military men
had received Russian passports before the deputies of the Crimean
parliament. Within two weeks, new Russian equipment and weapons had
arrived, and new military buildings were constructed. Having returned to
Ukraine and being sent to Kramatorsk, they immediately surrendered
since they expected a repeat of the Crimean annexation.”
It is worth noting the deplorable state of the Ukrainian military, which
was well reflected in the state of the Ukrainian army at that time. The
crews of the armored vehicles said they hadn’t been provided with food
for four days. They told journalists that “we decided to not fight the
people or defend the powers that be”.
 Yaroslav “Ram” Anika on the front of the BMD-1
Komsomolskaya Pravda’s war correspondent Alexander Kots recalls:
“We saw the local residents feed the ragged and useless Ukrainian
army. They took pity on the soldiers, bringing them warm clothes and
cigarettes, and even inviting them to spend the night in the huts. The
Donbass militia knew everywhere that they should not shed the first
blood as that would start a civil war. A war in which women, children, and
old people would die and the wounded would be finished off. However,
bloodshed could not be avoided. The blood-drenched veterans of
Maydan celebrated Easter at the Bylbasovka checkpoint. The first civilian
in Slavyansk died there.”
That death would happen five days later. In the meantime, the locals
were feeding (for the time being) the good-natured Ukrainian soldiers,
and the militiamen were eagerly counting the rich catch. There was a lot
to be happy about. In addition to the six armored vehicles, the 25th
Brigade column that had been captured possessed more than fifty small
arms (Kalashnikovs and Makarovs, two RPGs, three anti-tank guided
missiles, and five Igla surface-to-air missiles. The Iglas were particularly
valuable, and accounted for most of the anti-air kills in May and June.
Of the six armored units that the militia received, the most useful
were the two cannon-armed BMDs and the Nona with a 120-mm cannon.
Those vehicles were constantly on duty at the checkpoints and on Mount
Karachun (occupied 17 April). Later, the BMD-1 was sent to
Semyonovka to reinforce the militia there, while the BMD-2 was driven
around the perimeter of Slavyansk as a “nightmare to the Ukrainians” as
the militiamen called it.
The combat value of a BTR-D is contingent on circumstances. Their
primary use is to transport paratroopers, and they are not effective
fighting vehicles since they are only armed with machine guns. In the
Donbass War, the BTR-Ds were used as mobile strongpoints in their city
patrols, frightening Ukrainians with the clanking of their treads. Later,
they were stripped of their parts to repair other vehicles. Many Soviet war
machines share the same parts, making modifications and repairs easy.
In June, the militia installed an anti-aircraft gun on a BTR-D – its flat top
allows for add-ons to be simply installed.

A
BTR-D
 BTR-D with a mounted ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun
The captured Nona was faulty – a part in the breechblock was
broken. Initially, there were no specialists who understood what was
wrong with it. However, Artillery Colonel Sergey Zlobin fixed the
breakage after he returned to Slavyansk following the 7 May prisoner
exchange. The Nona became the best piece of artillery in the arsenal of
the Slavyansk garrison, and it was regularly used in artillery duels with
the Ukrainians.
The commander of the Nona, call sign “Hurricane”, was originally
from the city of Kirovskoye in the Donetsk region. Hurricane had been in
the Ukrainian army for a long time before the beginning of the Donbass
War. He had served as a Ukrainian technical advisor in Georgia, training
Georgian forces how to maintain and use self-propelled artillery. When
the 2008 Russo-Georgian War began, Hurricane was part of a Georgian
military column. He was reluctant to take a part in the conflict, but was
forced to head towards Tskhinvali by the Georgians at gunpoint. On their
way, Russian military aircraft bombed the column, and the Georgian
soldiers fled, abandoning their equipment. Hurricane was thus able to
avoid fighting his fellow Russians. Hurricane explained his motivation to
fight in the Donbass War: “I no longer wish to be sold like a slave in the
market.”

The legendary Nona self-propelled gun

The paratroopers who joined the militia on 15 April were of course not
the only Ukrainian military personnel supporting the Russians. Some
fighters deserted their units and joined the militia as individuals. Others
were captured (like two SBU officers) and chose to join the militia.
 Realizing the precariousness and uncertainty of the situation, the
Slavyansk garrison tried to avoid direct clashes with the Ukrainian
military for as long as possible. They instead focused on opposing Right
Sector and the National Guard. The Ukrainian Armed Forces themselves
also avoided fighting at first. The initial units sent to Slavyansk, the 25th
and 95th Brigades, were mostly natives of the southeast of Ukraine doing
their compulsory military service. They were reluctant to fight the
Donbass militia and the militia was unwilling to fight them. Realizing this,
the Ukrainian commanders soon integrated National Guard, Right
Sector, and SBU men into the ranks of the potentially disloyal units. This
ended the hopes of the Donbass militia, which hoped for massive
defections to their side. The Crimean scenario would not be replicated in
the Donbass. Igor Strelkov said:
“They needed legitimacy. Before the 25 May presidential election, the
military was generally neutral. But after Putin recognized Poroshenko as
the legitimate president, they began to fight. They had their own
commander-in-chief.”
On 17 April, the first attempt at a political settlement of the conflict in
the Donbass was held in Geneva. USA Secretary of State John Kerry,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Andrey Deshchitsa, and European Union representative Catherine
Ashton met to discuss the conflict. They decided to de-escalate it. All
illegal armed groups were to be disarmed, illegally seized buildings were
to be returned to their rightful owners, and the streets of Ukraine were to
be liberated.
The Russians and Ukrainians had different understandings of the
clauses to the agreement. To Russia, the illegal armed groups were
Right Sector and similar organizations. To Ukraine, it was the Donbass
militia. In general, politicians declare they are for all that is good and
against all that is bad, while never committing to any specific courses of
action beyond words and wishes. The meeting in Geneva was no
exception.
In the following months and years, high level political meetings on the
Donbass issue (such as Contact Group in Minsk and the Normandy
Four) would continue with regularity. They would have little effect on the
course of the conflict in the Donbass. Few trusted the reliability of any
party as all remembered the worthless guarantees of the European
foreign ministers to President Yanukovich the day prior to his overthrow
on 22 February.
 The militiamen were not impressed by the Geneva meeting, nor its
decree. People’s Mayor Vyacheslav Ponomaryov said at a press
conference in Slavyansk that he did not consider it necessary to obey the
decisions of the Geneva meeting. “The decisions made in Geneva were
made without our participation. We are here righteously. What does our
Slavyansk have to do with Geneva? If they want to disarm men, let them
disarm men in Geneva or Washington”. Ponomaryov emphasized that
the militia was not going to disarm.

Motorola on the trophy BMD-2

 Chapter 16 - Blood Easter

The second serious clash in Slavyansk occurred on Easter – 20 April.

The battle was provoked by Right Sector fighters, despite the temporary
truce for the holiday. The temporary truce was the first attempt of many
to pause military operations. These truces would become a tradition, but
none in the succeeding four years would work.
At 2:00 am on the morning of 20 April, four white jeeps with
Dnipropetrovsk license plates drove up to the checkpoint in the village of
Bylbasovka on the western outskirts of Slavyansk. One of the jeeps was
a technical with a mounted machine gun. There were about twenty Right
Sector fighters in the jeeps, including one of their leaders. At the time of
their arrival, there were about thirty unarmed locals around the
checkpoint.
The Ukrainian radicals got out of their jeeps and opened fire at the
checkpoint. Three civilians were killed immediately, and the rest fled. The
militia sent a rapid response group of eight men, led by Buddy. They
managed to repel the attack, killing two attackers and wounding four.
Two of the jeeps managed to turn around and leave, but several Right
Sector men threw down their weapons and fled by foot. One of the
wounded Right Sector men was captured alive, but died on his way to
the hospital. Another militant, Vitaly Kovalchuk from Vinnitsa, was
captured while fleeing to Kharkov in a vehicle.
 The militias seized two of the four jeeps. They had a large number of
small arms in them, including a Yugoslavian M53 machine gun, and a
map of Mount Karachun. The map was a black and white printout from
aerial reconnaissance with outlined areas. The militants’ objective had
been to recapture Mount Karachun from the militia, and to retake control
of the TV tower there.
Right Sector certificates were found during a search of the captured
jeeps, as well as business cards of Right Sector’s leader Dmitry Yarosh.
Journalists arrived at the scene and took the business cards as proof
that Right Sector was guilty of murdering unarmed civilians. Right Sector
denied its involvement in the attack, and the Ukrainian authorities
accused the militia of planting the business cards as fake evidence and
Russian propaganda. This is how “Yarosh’s business card” became an
internet meme, which Ukrainians used in cases when Russians were
believed to be distorting the facts. Nonetheless, the business cards were
indeed real. Dmitry Steshin describes the event:
“The attackers had the notorious "Yarosh's business cards" - I saw
them myself, and filmed the scene with one of Igor Strelkov’s cameras.
At that point, I understood how Strelkov had organized the defense of
Slavyansk. Unarmed watchmen would be placed at checkpoints for the
sole purpose of calling a rapid response group for help. It was the best
option given the lack of weapons and resources. I assume based on the
competent and victorious action of the rapid response group at the
Bylbasovka checkpoint that they (the rapid response groups) were well
prepared. Even the Right Sector sniper wasn’t able to stop them.”
The rapid response group’s leader Valery “Buddy” Musienko
describes what happened at the Bylbasovka checkpoint:
“On the night of 20 April, our group was guarding the church in the
village of Krestishye for the Easter holiday. We had been there for two
nights. Command called me, and reported that a battle was going on at
Bylbasovka, and that the people there needed to be rescued. Eight of us
jumped into a UAZ and sped off to the checkpoint. When we arrived, the
entire area was illuminated by the headlights of the four jeeps. We
entered the fray, and fought for twenty minutes, much of which involved
indiscriminate shooting. Two of the jeeps fled, and two remained. In one
of the abandoned jeeps, we found a Right Sector man with leg wounds
lying in the front seat and afraid to get out.
As was later reported, the incident started with four jeeps driving up
to the Bylbasovka checkpoint with their high-beam lights on. Pasha
Pavelko, the man on duty at the checkpoint, approached the first jeep,
and asked the passengers to turn off the light and show their documents.
There were three civilians near him, a father and his two sons. A burst of
automatic fire rang out and struck Pasha in the chest. Another burst
killed the father while he shielded his sons. We found a third dead civilian
later – he had been shot in the head by the sniper.
Those on duty at the checkpoint immediately contacted the rapid
response unit. Three militiamen arrived immediately and fought the Right
Sector men. They called for help, and command sent us. Once we had
consolidated into a single force, we were able to repel the attack and put
the enemy to flight.”
 The Right Sector vehicles
The three militiamen killed on 20 April in Bylbasovka were named
Pavel Pavelko, Sergey Rudenko, and Alexander Siganov.

At a 20 April press conference in Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov

said: “I don't consider them human. These are not people, they are some
kind of brainless creatures. In no case will I shake hands with them.
There will be no negotiations with any of the central authorities.”
Ponomaryov continued his speech, asking the Russian president to send
peacekeeping troops to the Donbass.
This was the first public appeal to the Russian authorities from
Slavyansk. Politeness ceased to be observed from that point on, and
comments on events became more and more emotional. Russians and
Ukrainians began to dehumanize each other. This happens in every war,
especially civil wars, as men have to justify hurting men who look and
talk like themselves. It is hard to kill a man, but easy to kill a “brainless
creature”.
After the April 20 attack on Bylbasovka, the Russian Foreign Ministry
made a statement about the violation of the Easter truce in Slavyansk
and the killing of innocent civilians. In response, Right Sector denied its
involvement in the attack. They cynically claimed that Right Sector
condemned any attempts to disgrace the Easter holiday, and that Right
Sector solely engages in legal activity. The SBU in turn claimed that
Russian special forces were responsible. To this day, the Ukrainian
authorities blame any uncertain circumstances on Russian special
forces. This principle doesn’t only apply to the military situation in the
Donbass, but also any social and political phenomenon within Ukraine.
Putin and the Hand of the Kremlin are blamed by Ukrainian authorities
even for housing problems in Vinnitsa.
Both the masses of the Ukrainian population as well the leadership of
Ukraine suffer from the disease of “Putinocentrism”. Ukrainians on social
media frequently blame Putin for things as mundane as the rise of utility
rates. Russia is blamed for everything, from the snipers at Maydan who
shot the “Heavenly Hundred”, to the collapse of the Ukrainian economy,
to the political opposition of Saakashvili and Savchenko. The truth is that
the Donbass rose up on its own and that it was the locals residents who
came out of their homes to fight the Banderists of central and western
Ukraine. After all, it wasn’t the Ukrainian military that instigated the first
casualties of the war, but Right Sector militants in Bylbasovka and
Semyonovka.
Eventually, even the best kept secrets are uncovered. In the case of
Bylbasovka, the Right Sector leader Yarosh himself told reporters what
had happened two years later. On 22 April 2016 Yarosh said that the
decision to attack Slavyansk had been made after the Donbass militia
had killed two unarmed Maydan participants who had gone to Slavyansk
to see the situation for themselves. “When we saw their bodies – we
were possessed by hatred for the murderers and desired revenge”
Yarosh said. He continued on to claim that Turchinov had proposed to
disable the television tower on Mount Karachun to curb the transmission
of Russian propaganda.
“We clearly understood that we didn’t have the strength for a long
battle. All we could do is observe, sabotage, and raid. Thus it was
necessary to act at night. We knew the militants didn’t have a large force
defending the television tower.”
The Right Sector detachment left Dnepropetrovsk late in the evening,
but unwittingly came across the checkpoint and started shooting.
Yarosh’s friend Mihail Stanislavenko was killed in the shootout, and the
Right Sector men were unable to take his body with them during their
retreat. Yarosh’s business cards were found on Stanislavenko’s corpse.
“He did have documents and my card. Yes they were real. Everyone
had left their identity documents and personal belongings back at home,
but he wasn’t an experienced fighter and kept the business card as a
keepsake.”

Yarosh’s business card

Skirmishes in the area around Slavyansk became a constant
occurrence after 15 April. From that day through early May the
skirmishes only rarely caused deaths and left only wounded. There was
an intense firefight between Ukrainians and Russians on 15 April at a
checkpoint near the village of Andreyevka. On 17 April a checkpoint near
the village of Sergeyevka was destroyed and the militiamen guarding it
were forced to retreat.
Such clashes occurred constantly during that period and the
succeeding two months. We will not discuss all of them in detail. They
would take up a lot of space, and the isolated skirmishes had little impact
on the course of events in Slavyansk. It is also difficult to obtain accurate
information about each of those skirmishes.
The second Ukrainian attempt to storm Slavyansk was made on 24
April. Early in the morning, the Ukrainians occupied a checkpoint near
the feed mill with BTRs. At the same time, they advanced towards the
village of Krestishye with several BTRs with the intention of seizing the
village prior to advancing on Slavyansk. A militia detachment
counterattacked in a furious firefight and forced the Ukrainians to retreat.
The Ukrainians suffered several dead and wounded, while the Russians
suffered one dead and one wounded.

The second assault attempt on 24 April

The dead Russian militiaman was a local resident, Alexander
Lubenets. He was five days short of his twenty-second birthday.
 Chapter 17 - Quiet Before the Storm

On 24 April, the Russian army began a military exercise in the Rostov

region just across the Ukrainian border. The Southern and Western
military districts participated in the exercise, and gave great hope to the
residents of the Donbass. They believed the exercise was preparation for
the liberation of the Donbass by the Russian military. The Ukrainians
were frightened by the military activity, and suspended the active phase
of the anti-terrorism operation.
Vladimir Putin’s comments gave the Ukrainians additional concern. “If
the current regime in Kiev uses the army against the country’s
population, then it is a serious crime against their people.”
For the week following 24 April, there was a relative calm around
Slavyansk. The Ukrainians made no attempts to storm the city. In that
week, there were a few interesting events. The first was the successful
shooting down of a Ukrainian helicopter, the second was the detention of
a European military bus by the Donbass militia, and third was the capture
of three Alpha officers at Red Liman.
The militia destroyed its first Ukrainian helicopter on 25 April at the
Kramatorsk airfield. Several combat helicopters were based at the
airfield, and alternated between supplying remote Ukrainian checkpoints
and carrying out air raids on Slavyansk. The militiaman Beard got onto
the roof of a house nearby the airfield and shot down an Mi-8 helicopter
with a Bassoon anti-tank missile[32]. The helicopter exploded as the
result of the hit. Two of the crew members managed to jump out of the
helicopter and survived – albeit with injuries. The helicopter’s explosion
also caused a nearby broken-down An-2 biplane to catch fire.
Also on 25 April, a bus tried to enter Slavyansk. The militia detained
the bus’s passengers, which included four officers from Ukrainian
General Staff and eight European military observers. Four of the
observers were from Germany, one was from Sweden, another from
Poland, one from Denmark, and the last from Czechia.
The authorities in Kiev called the detainees OSCE[33] observers. The
OSCE itself denied that the detainees were its members. Instead, it said
that the detainees were military observers from OSCE member states in
accordance to the Vienna agreement on “Increasing Confidence in the
Military Sphere”
 The Donbass militia suspected the detainees of spying for NATO[34].
Ponomaryov told reporters that documents found on the detainees
indicated that they were spies. Strelkov also commented on the spies:
“Their mission, according to the testimony of one of the Ukrainian
military men, was to carry out a reconnaissance of the border in order to
identify and inspect Russian troops. They are possibly using the disguise
of a diplomatic mission in an attempt to avoid arrest at the hands of the
militia. However, it is more likely that this was another stupid idea of the
Ukrainian command. The bus apparently didn’t know the location of the
militia checkpoints. When they arrived at a militia checkpoint, the
Ukrainians in the bus tried to hide their documents in a panic. This
suggests they didn’t expect to encounter any armed militiamen.”
In addition to spying, the foreigners had strange interests. According
to Pennant, one European officer had torn a page out of his notebook
and tried to hide it under the bus seat. The “valuable information”
(apparently gleaned from publicly available internet searches) included
notes on various Russian politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and whom
they had met.
The Slavyansk garrison announced it would exchange the detainees
for pro-Russian activists arrested by Ukrainian security forces. Strelkov
wanted to hold the Europeans for longer as a bargaining chip, but
Russian authorities insisted on release of all detainees. Strelkov didn’t
dare act in direct defiance of Moscow’s orders.
Negotiators from the OSCE arrived from Europe with Russia’s Human
Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin on 27 April in the Donbass. The
detainees were released later that day, and left the Donbass with the
negotiators.
 On 26 April Igor “Demon” Bezler captured three officers from the
Ukrainian Alpha special forces unit in Gorlovka: Major Sergey
Potyomsky, Lieutenant Colonel Rostislav Kiyashko, and Captain Yegeny
Verinsky. The officers were immediately delivered to Slavyansk, as
Bezler was still subordinate to Strelkov at the time. Ukrainians and
various liberals were outraged by the footage of the prisoners in
Slavyansk. The prisoners had been stripped to their underwear and were
blindfolded with bloody bandages. They looked bad, mostly because
they had resisted arrest and been beaten by militiamen in the process.
 Chapter 18 - Strelkov takes off the Mask

On 26 April, the Slavyansk garrison commander Strelkov showed his

face to the world for the first time. Moscow had ordered him unmask
himself. It was morally taxing for Strelkov. Strelkov wasn’t used to
publicity; all of his previous combat and operation experience were
secret.
It wasn’t only the personal exposure that worried Strelkov. Publicity
meant that something had gone wrong. In Crimea, Strelkov and his men
didn’t name themselves while liberating the administrative and military
facilities, and they later handed off their responsibilities to the regular
Russian army. In Slavyansk, things had gone differently. Until 26 April
Strelkov was convinced the Crimean scenario was being implemented in
the Donbass. The order to remove his mask meant that he was to play
the main role in the region, not the Russian army. Strelkov and his
volunteers were going to have to take responsibility for the war, and
there were no guarantees from the Russian government.
In the fall of 2014, in an interview with the newspaper “Tomorrow”,
Strelkov said:
“To be honest, I was not planning on engaging in politics, much less
as a famous figure. I got a lot done in Crimea. I went down to the fleet
headquarters alone to start negotiations for the surrender of the fleet. I
talked with their entire headquarters. I didn’t appear in any media, other
than perhaps some colonel’s photographs. I didn’t say if I was retired or
in the reserves, or declare who I was working for. Everyone was fine with
it – I solved problems that everyone benefited from. Some figured me for
a kind of colonel. No one knew my name. I planned to act the same way
in Slavyansk. I would find a charismatic local leader and then act as an
advisor. I did that at first with Ponomaryov. However, after that everything
went differently. Although I hadn’t found a proper political leader, Denis
Pushilin in Donetsk was told to fully support the militia. We had already
burned our bridges. We were there without documents, and there was no
possibility of retreat. As soon as I took the mask off and appeared on TV
with Pushilin, everyone knew who Strelkov was.”
On the same day, 26 April, Igor Strelkov, in his first interview given to
Komsomolskaya Pravda said:
 “I'm a realist. Russia has not yet provided us with a single assault
rifle, not even a single cartridge. The Ukrainian military and police are the
ones who have equipped us. I am deeply grateful to them, and we hope
that they continue to supply us. No one is going to start World War III
over Slavyansk.”
The last words were perhaps spoken ironically. Deranged “experts”
and political scientists were already screeching about the dangers of
Russian interference in the Donbass, and how it could spark a world war.
Reasonable people understood this was hysterical. Moscow State
Institute of International Relations professor Valery Solovey knew many
Western diplomats, and understood that the Western states were not
going to send forces to fight Russia in Ukraine.
Pavel Gubarev wrote about those days in his book "Torch of New
Russia":
“In Moscow, Sergey Glazyev demanded the introduction of a no-fly
zone over the airspace of Donbass. That is, the Russian Air Force would
ensure the Ukrainians were unable to use military aircraft in the
Donbass. He was harshly criticized in the media as a result for risking a
nuclear war. What nonsense! Why would the Americans fight a nuclear
war over some Ukrainians?”
By the end of April, the ATO command had reached a standstill with
all operations suspended in the Donbass. They had suffered numerous
setbacks: the defeat of Alpha unit in Semyonovka, the repulsion of the
Right Sector militants at Bylbasovka, the destruction of a combat
helicopter at Kramatorsk, the disarmament of a 25th Brigade column, and
the capture of three Alpha men in Gorlovka. In addition to the setbacks,
the Ukrainians feared a Russian intervention, and viewed the military
exercises around Rostov as preparations for an invasion. Lastly, the
setbacks around Slavyansk convinced the Ukrainians that they were
facing Russian special forces, not a group of volunteers.
On 25 April, Ukrainian authorities first publicly voiced that they might
abandon their attempts to storm Slavyansk, and instead besiege it. The
head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, Sergey Pashinsky,
said that this would deny the “terrorists” an opportunity to bring in
reinforcements.
On 30 April, Acting President Turchinov acknowledged the inability of
the Ministry of Interior Affairs to carry out the ATO and take control of the
Donbass. At the time, the ATO was still administered by Interior Affairs,
and not the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This formality was always
ridiculous – Ukraine used all her available means to reconquer the
Donbass in three years of war. There were several waves of forced
mobilization, aerial bombing campaigns, artillery bombardments, and
even Tochka-U ballistic missiles launches.
At the end of April, the Ukrainian leadership recognized that the first
stage of the ATO had failed and gave the SBU and Right Sector the
primary role in managing operations. Right Sector leader Yarosh and
SBU chief Valentin Nalivaychenko scheduled an assault on the Donetsk
and Lugansk regions for 2-3 May. SBU instructors prepared Right Sector
units for assaults on the Donbass militia’s checkpoints in Slavyansk. The
Ukrainian authorities tasked the SBU with reconquering the Donbass “at
any cost”.
Part II: 2 May to 3 June
 Chapter 19 - Great Storm

The beginning of active hostilities in Slavyansk coincided with the

Odessa[35] massacre on 2 May 2014, one of the city’s darkest days.
Several dozen Russians seeking reunification with Russia were burned
alive in the Odessa Trade Union House. Ukrainian radicals hurtled
Molotov cocktails into the building, starting a fire that killed forty-six.
Videos of the fire showed people jumping out of windows and falling to
their death, as well as charred corpses.
Although there had already been shootouts between the militia and
Ukrainian forces in the Donbass and widespread support for New
Russia, the Donbass population had not radicalized in total favor of
separatism.
That changed on 2 May. The people of Donbass understood what
Ukrainians are after the massacre in Odessa, and that Ukraine was
waging a war of destruction against the Russian people. The Odessa
massacre would prove to be a foreshadowing of things to come. The
Ukrainians would use artillery on homes, aerial bombing raids on cities,
and ballistic missiles against the people of the Donbass.
The residents of the Donbass joined the militia in great numbers after
2 May. First in hundreds, then in thousands – all driven by a burning
desire to avenge Odessa and liberate their home from Ukrainian
occupation. Most of the volunteers who arrived in May and June said
they decided to come on 2 May.
Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale offensive against Slavyansk
on the same day. Unlike the weak probes in April, this attack was much
better prepared. It involved hundreds of fighters, thirty armored vehicles,
and military aircraft.
 The Slavyansk garrison at the time numbered about one hundred and
seventy armed men. Half of the men were in the city center garrisoning
key buildings, and the rest were scattered around checkpoints in the city.
Kramatorsk had about fifty fighters, with about thirty in the city center,
seven each at the two checkpoints outside the city, and five at the
airfield.
At about 5:00 am on 2 May, units of the National Guard, Interior
Troops and Right Sector attacked the checkpoints on the outskirts of
Slavyansk and Mount Karachun.
A special siren was set off in Slavyansk to alert the residents of the
attack. The Ukrainians turned on their jammers, disrupting both civilian
and militia communications.
The Ukrainians attacked checkpoints around the perimeter of
Slavyansk with support from BTRs. Bylbasovka, Andreyevka, the feed
mill, the BZS gas station on the Rostov-Kharkov highway, the Slavyansk
railway station, and the fire station were all attacked. The Ukrainians
successfully took Mount Karachun, the railway station, the BZS gas
station, the Slavyansk landscape park, and the militia checkpoint at the
village of Vostochny. Two militiamen were killed at the Vostochny
checkpoint.
A few hours later, in the early afternoon, a civilian crowd tried to
prevent a Right Sector armored column from entering Andreyevka. The
Right Sector militants opened fire on the civilians, killing several. The
Right Sector column advanced without delay.
The Ukrainians also attacked Red Liman, but were unable to take the
city. One militiaman was killed in the defense in the outskirts of the city.
Donbass suburbanites under Ukrainian occupation fed a steady
stream of information to the militia. They let the militia know that Right
Sector militants were dressing up in civilian clothes and attempting to
infiltrate Slavyansk. The Right Sector militants were even wearing Saint
George ribbons to better disguise themselves.
The Ukrainians attacked the Artyom neighborhood in Slavyansk, near
fire station 38, in an effort to break through to the city center. The
Ukrainians came with a bus and two BTRs. The militia successfully
stopped the Ukrainian column in the Artyom neighborhood by cutting
down large trees and using them to block the road. While the Ukrainians
continued to fight despite the obstacles, they retreated after the militia
sniper Canada shot two Ukrainian fighters mounted on one of the BTRs
with his Dragunov sniper rifle.
Eleven Ukrainian helicopters were to be shot down in the Donbass
during the May-June period. The first three were destroyed on the
afternoon of 2 May. The first two were Mi-24 Hinds shot down over the
skies of Slavyansk by Donbass militiamen, and the third was an Mi-8
shot down in Red Liman.
The loss of three helicopters in one day hurt Ukrainian morale badly.
Each Mi-24 Hind carried a crew of three. Of the six men in the Mi-24
Hinds who were shot down over Slavyansk, only one survived – Captain
Yevgeny Krasnokutsky. He was seriously wounded and was taken by the
militia to the hospital. Militiaman Lynx had rescued the wounded captain
from the crash site. The Ukrainians had been there before he arrived, but
had abandoned the wounded captain. Many were affected by the
indifference of the Ukrainian military to their own man and touched by the
mercy bestowed by his Russian enemies.
At the end of 2 May, the militia had successfully repelled attacks at
most checkpoints and remained in control of central Slavyansk.
Ukrainian advances had been stopped from all directions, and by
evening the Ukrainians had withdrawn all of their armored vehicles from
the city.
It is difficult to establish the exact number of casualties that day. The
militia lost about ten men in the fighting, and more than twenty civilians
were killed. The Ukrainians lost about twenty five men, including five in
the attack on Mount Karachun and five in the downed helicopters.
One of the militiamen killed in the 2 May fighting was the thirty-three
year old Sergey Zhurikov, better known as Chamomile. He was killed in a
sniper duel in Slavyansk. Chamomile was born in Sevastopol and
worked as a parachutist. He had made more than 1,500 jumps in his
career. Before the war, he lived in Kiev. A deeply religious man, he
served as a sexton in Kiev’s Pechersk Lavra. He was in Crimea in early
April, joined the Strelkov group there, and followed them to Slavyansk. At
his mother’s request, he was buried in the Sumy region.
Chamomile had led a commando platoon in the first two weeks of the
defense of Slavyansk. It was this platoon (the core of the Crimean
Company) which defeated the Alpha unit on 13 April and disarmed the
paratroopers on 14 April. After Chamomile’s death, militiaman Bear took
command. Bear would later be killed in action, and replaced by the
famous Motorola.

Chamomile and Bear

 Chamomile is one of only three militiamen killed in Slavyansk on 2
May whose names are known. The other two were Valery Pavlov and
Andrey Afonin.
On the afternoon of 2 May, Russia convened an emergency meeting
of the UN Security Council in relation to Ukraine’s military operations in
Slavyansk. Alexander Turchinov responded in an address to the
leadership of the Russian Federation: “Stop the hysteria about the
events taking place in Ukraine. Stop threatening and intimidating us. The
purpose of the operation in the east is to protect the people and prevent
casualties among the civilian population.” Turchinov complained that the
military operations were not proceeding as quickly as he liked. By the
time of his address, it was clear the attack on Slavyansk had failed, and
that the Ukrainians had lost three helicopters.
The UN Security Council meeting led to nothing other than the
traditional expressions of concern and the ritual calls for constructive
dialogue. It was too late. Dialogue had given way to the language of
violence, and the opportunities for a diplomatic solution had faded away.
Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, accused
Kiev of punitive measures and failing to comply with the Geneva
Agreements. Churkin stated in his speech that:
“There were English-speaking foreigners among the illegal
ultranationalist formations and Ukrainian forces during the Ukrainian
attack on Slavyansk. English was even heard on the air.”
 Chapter 20 - Black Death

Taking Mount Karachun, a mountain southwest of Slavyansk, was

one of Ukraine’s main objectives in the 2 May attack. In the Turkish
language, “Karachun” means “Black Death”. The name for the mountain
was appropriate. It would host a significant portion of the Ukrainian
artillery that would shell Slavyansk over the following weeks, killing
dozens of soldiers and civilians.
Mount Karachun was an important strategic site. At 167 meters tall, it
gave its holder an advantage in the local area. In addition, it held a TV
tower, control of which allowed for the broadcast of propaganda. The
Ukrainians wanted it to broadcast Ukrainian television, while the
Donbass militia wanted it to broadcast Russian television.
A force of ten militiamen had taken the TV tower on 17 April and set it
to broadcast Russian television. After the Ukrainians took the TV tower,
the militia didn’t attempt to recapture it. Instead, Mount Karachun was
constantly shelled by the militia’s Nona. The Nona’s shells often hit the
cables of the 222-meter tall TV tower, destabilizing it. The tower finally
collapsed on 1 July. It wasn’t rebuilt until the end of 2016.
 On 2 May, there were only twelve militia fighters defending Mount
Karachun, ten locals and two Donetsk Berkut. They were armed with
rifles and three RPG-18 “Flies”, and commanded by a noncommissioned
officer with the call sign “Peregrine Falcon”. They were faced by a
Ukrainian company with four BTRs. While Peregrine Falcon and his men
were able to repel the first Ukrainian attack on Mount Karachun, they
were unable to repel the second and retreated to Slavyansk. Part of the
reason the militiamen were unable to repel the Ukrainians was due to the
failure of their grenade launchers. Most of the anti-tank weapons that the
militia had seized from Ukrainian armories were old, and they often failed
to work when they were desperately needed.
Five Ukrainians were killed in the attack on Mount Karachun, and
several more were wounded. The militiamen were able to retreat without
any losses. Having taken the mountain, the Ukrainians strongly
garrisoned it and constantly reinforced their forces there. That denied the
militia any future opportunities to retake it.
Strelkov would later take a great deal of blame for his failure to
reinforce the defenses of Mount Karachun properly, as the Ukrainians
used it to launch artillery fire down on Slavyansk for the next two
months. According to Strelkov, at the time the garrison simply didn’t
have enough men to defend the mountain and he didn’t anticipate a
siege of Slavyansk.
“In theory, if we had known Ukrainian plans, we could have held
Mount Karachun. But at the time it was impossible to predict how the
struggle for Slavyansk would unfold. I had no more than one hundred
and seventy men defending a city of one hundred thousand. We had few
weapons and no artillery, as the Nona was still out of order. Our only two
armored vehicles, the captured BMDs, couldn’t be sent to Mount
Karachun due to their vulnerability to the enemy helicopters which
constantly flew around the mountain. I understood at the beginning of
May that we would only be able to fight a proper battle within the city
itself. We expected the Ukrainians to repeatedly assault Slavyansk, so I
deployed some submachine gunners at checkpoints and kept the bulk of
our forces in the city center as a reserve that could quickly deploy to fight
a street battle at enemy breakthrough points.”
Strelkov believed, much like others, that the Ukrainians would launch
a massive direct assault on Slavyansk given their tremendous superiority
in manpower and material. He had underestimated the fear that the
Ukrainians had of the “Russian Special Forces” who were supposedly
garrisoning the city in large numbers and who had easily repelled all
previous assaults.
Strelkov’s belief was correct for most of the fighting between the
militia and the Ukrainians in the early days of May. The fighting followed
the same pattern: first the Ukrainians would approach a militia position
(checkpoint, the railway station, the fire station, etc) with several infantry
squads and three to five armored vehicles. Ukrainian snipers hidden in
forest plantations and helicopters would cover their approach. The militia
would block their path with concrete blocks and chopped-down trees,
which would start a firefight. The firefights would be fought with small
arms (there were few machine guns on either side and many RPGs
didn’t work). The Ukrainians, who other than nationalists were unwilling
to take losses, would then withdraw after suffering several casualties. If
they had been willing to take losses, the Ukrainians could have easily
overrun any of the militia positions that they attacked. The strongest
militia positions were held by three to ten men, none of whom had the
ability to stop armored vehicles.
That being said, Ukrainian determination was not to be
underestimated. They would show courage in later battles in May and
June once they organized serious attempts to storm Slavyansk. This
courage was reinforced by their eventual realization that the Russian
Federation was not sending reinforcements to aid the militia. Strelkov
says:
“Had I been in the place of the Ukrainians, I would not have besieged
Slavyansk. With total superiority in forces, I would have moved decisively
and destroyed the garrison, even at great cost. The greatest strategic
mistake the Ukrainians made in the Donbass was to embark on a siege
of Slavyansk. When I realized they would be besieging rather than
storming us, I was somewhat delighted. The enemy was wasting their
time, concentrating their forces on us while referendums were being
prepared and new forces raised in Donetsk and Lugansk. In light of this,
we completed our task successfully. The enemy lost three months that
he could have used to suppress resistance in both Lugansk and
Donetsk.
On the other hand, I expected that other parts of the militia would
have garrisoned ten cities as strongly as Slavyansk. If they had, there
would have been no humiliation at Mariupol, no failure at the Donetsk
airport, and no retreat from Slavyansk in July. Unfortunately, most of the
DPR militias remained inactive until July other than Bezler’s garrison in
Gorlovka.
At the time, after the Ukrainians had taken Mount Karachun, I didn’t
think it was such a big deal. In the first month it was still unknown who
was besieging whom. We were besieging the Ukrainians in Mount
Karachun and they were besieging us in Semyonovka. Given the
limitations of our forces, it suited us well.”
The militia was not only weak due to its limited armaments, but also
in numbers and military experience. While the Ukrainian army had many
flaws and did not want to fight, it was nonetheless still a regular army.
The militia on the other hand was comprised of volunteer detachments,
few with any experience with weaponry. This was compounded by the
lack of training and competent instructors. Strelkov compensated for
these weaknesses by bluffing. Knowing that his phone was being
wiretapped, Strelkov would exaggerate the strength of the militia in
private phone calls. He would reference well-armed companies where
there were only poorly-equipped platoons, hoping to demoralize the
Ukrainians with tales of an invincible force of Russian mercenaries.
Strelkov’s years of experience in the special forces had not been in vain.
 Thus the siege of Slavyansk and Ukrainian occupation of Mount
Karachun were preferred by the militia over a decisive Ukrainian assault
on Slavyansk. Had the Ukrainians launched a major assault on
Slavyansk, they would have undoubtedly taken the city. Nonetheless, the
siege and the continued artillery fire from Mount Karachun eventually
forced the militia to retreat. Without help from the Russian Federation,
the garrison in Slavyansk had ceased to be in a tenable position.
While this is well understood today, it was impossible to know at the
beginning of May 2014. There is reason to believe that even if the militia
had held Mount Karachun from the Ukrainian attacks, they would have
had to abandon the position. The Chief of Staff of the Slavyansk
Garrison (after 7 June) Eldar Hasanov said:
“The path from Slavyansk to Mount Karachun is long, and
resupplying the position with ammunition and food would have been
extremely difficult. The Ukrainians could attack the path with artillery and
aircraft, and would have forced us to create a line of defense. We didn’t
have enough men for a defensive line – we just had strong points and
response units. Even in a relatively small town like Slavyansk, our fifteen
hundred fighters weren’t enough to form a complete defensive line, much
less extend a line to Mount Karachun.”
 Chapter 21 - Data on Losses

The main source of information for those closely following the events
in Slavyansk was Igor Strelkov’s Slavyansk Diary on the Antique internet
forum. He posted regular entries and responded to questions there. The
Slavyansk garrison’s headquarters also published its own official
statements periodically.
Strelkov’s diary entries were based off of his intelligence data and
reports from his field commanders. Sometimes the data would be easily
verifiable – a fighter would report seeing the corpses of five dead
Ukrainian soldiers. Other times it would be unreliable – fighters would
claim they’d destroyed entire Ukrainian companies with a few thrown
grenades. Events in war develop too rapidly for commanders to
comprehend, skirmishes are chaotic for the involved fighters, and
individual passions of men color their later memories of struggles. As a
result, Strelkov’s entries often contained inaccuracies. His entries served
a propaganda purpose – they understated militia casualties to boost the
morale of the militia, and overstated the Ukrainian casualties to
demoralize the enemy. Any organization at war uses such methods of
propaganda, and the militia in Slavyansk was no exception.
Because of inaccurate records, it is not always possible to determine
the exact losses in course of the hostilities over different periods. In most
cases, data is approximate, and has to be accompanied with words such
as “almost”, “about”, and “approximately”. Strelkov discussed this:
“I am a military professional. I have fought a lot and I know how
losses are exaggerated. Sometimes these exaggerations are calculated,
but in general it is best to be skeptical regarding reports of large numbers
of defeated enemies.”
It is a similar situation with counts of destroyed vehicles, with
veterans and historians endlessly arguing over exact counts. For
instance, discrepancies can arise when several fighters in different
locations shoot at an air or ground target. Each fighter believes he was
the one who destroyed the vehicle, and reports the kill to his commander.
Thus it appears in their reports that several vehicles had been destroyed,
rather than just one. Strelkov experienced this situation with the two Mi-
24 helicopters that were shot down on 3 May.
 “We received reports that three helicopters were shot down, but could
not confirm the total. It turned out that two units had shot down the same
helicopter, and reported that helicopter as their own kill.”
This author found many absurdities and contradictions in Ukrainian
and Russian media reports while researching for this book. The media
relied on oral information from their local sources (fighters, local
residents, etc) as well as social media posts. Hence there was a
constant confusion – reports that the Ukrainians took a city that they
didn’t actually take, Russian attacks that never happened, settlements
that didn’t exist, units that were misnamed, etc. It takes a great deal of
diligence to understand what actually happened in the war – where
events happened, what occurred in the events, what time they
happened, and in what sequence they proceeded. Unfortunately
accurate information about some clashes can no longer be found.
 Chapter 22 - Failure of the Offensive

On the 3 and 4 May, the fighting around Slavyansk continued. The

Ukrainians committed even more forces to Slavyansk and reinforced
their artillery batteries on Mount Karachun. After a heavy artillery barrage
on the village of Yasnogorka (a settlement between Slavyansk and
Kramatorsk), the militia was forced to retreat.
On 3 May, the Ukrainians repeatedly attacked Kramatorsk. They also
tried to take Konstantinovka and Druzhovka, but those attacks failed due
to militia reinforcements from Slavyansk. In the evening, Strelkov wrote:
“The fighting in Kramatorsk continues, but our hold of the city is
unquestionable. The garrison there has only suffered minor losses (two
wounded). Slavyansk is now only partially under siege, as the Ukrainians
withdrew some of their forces here for the attack on Kramatorsk. We
have reoccupied posts on the borders of Slavyansk. The only important
positions the Ukrainians hold are Mount Karachun and the BZS
checkpoint on the Kharkov-Rostov highway. Ukrainian National Guards
and Right Sector militants have dug in at their new positions, but their
would-be infiltrators were caught while trying to enter Slavyansk.
Ukrainian losses are much greater than Turchinov admits. Turchinov
is honest that the Ukrainian military only lost five dead because most of
the Ukrainian forces and casualties are Right Sector gangsters or
mercenaries. In yesterday’s battle at Red Liman, our men heard the
wounded crying out in English and Polish. Our combat losses were about
four dead and ten wounded. There were other casualties, but all peaceful
civilians.”
The peaceful civilians were killed by a Ukrainian National Guard BTR
on the morning of 3 May. Among them was twenty-one year old nurse
Yuliya Izotova from Kramatorsk. She had finished medical school shortly
before the war, and was active in providing first aid to the militia. She
was traveling in a car with three others that was sprayed by 14.5 mm
bullets. Two passed through the back seat of the car and hit Yuliya. Her
funeral was held on 5 May, bringing thousands to mourn her and her
companions.
More civilians would be killed over the period of 3-4 May along with
other militiamen. The Ukrainians suffered heavier losses, and neither
side gained an advantage. The Ukrainians could not take the Russian
positions, and eventually settled into most of the positions they had taken
on 2 May. Those positions were Mount Karachun, the BZS checkpoint,
the feed mill, the fish farm, and Vostochny. The exception was the
railway station, which the Ukrainians abandoned soon after taking it.
Strelkov said:
“The enemy’s offensive operation had completely failed by 4 May.
The Ukrainians took none of the major settlements.”
Despite the difficult situation and increasing losses, morale was high
in the Slavyansk garrison. They were inspired by their successful victory
over vastly superior forces. All the militiamen from those first days of
fighting in Slavyansk talk about the euphoria that possessed them after
each repulsed attack. A fighter with the call sign “Afrikaner” wrote about
this experience in his memoir “The Freedom Fighter”:
“All the adrenaline is nearly splashing out of our ears; the mood is
euphoric. After all, we have won! We, ordinary civilians with light
weapons, have repelled the attack of the real militaries, artillery, aircrafts,
and armored vehicles. Even more than that, we have killed a bunch of
enemies, almost without suffering losses. Words cannot express the
feeling of being the winners that was engulfing us. It seemed that just a
little more, and we would go forward, sweeping away everything in our
path.”
Those watching the unfolding events in the Donbass from their
computer monitors experienced similar sentiments. Even the deputy
head of the Russian government Dmitry Rogozin tweeted on 3 May that
“I would change positions with one of the defenders of Slavyansk without
hesitation”.
However, the euphoria quickly disappeared - both in the Slavyansk
garrison and in Russian society. Small local victories turned into great
regional defeats over time, eventually leading to the rout from Slavyansk.
That was still two months in the future, and in early May the people of
Slavyansk were filled with optimism and hope.
Fighting resumed on 5 May. Twenty four militiamen led by
commander “Dad” raided the Ukrainian-held fish farm at night. The
Ukrainians had two companies and three BTRs defending the fish farm.
The firefight was chaotic and ended quickly. The Ukrainians threw
grenades at the militia, and forced the militia to retreat with two wounded.
It was impossible to know how much damage the militia inflicted upon
the Ukrainians.
 This firefight became known as the First Battle of the Fish Farm. The
Second Battle of the Fish Farm took place on 26 June, and ended much
more successfully.
Later on 5 May, fighters from Red Liman successfully shot down a
Ukrainian Mi-24 with a heavy machine gun by hitting the helicopter’s
most vulnerable spot – the main rotor gearbox. No one was hurt – the
pilot managed to land in a swamp and hide with the crew. Three days
later the Ukrainians sent an Su-25 attack aircraft to destroy the helicopter
and prevent its reuse by the militia. Strelkov wrote:
“The Red Liman company distinguished itself again today by shooting
down another Mi-24 with a machine gun. The Ukrainians have
recognized the kill, and the wreckage is in the water. My men have
already shot down four helicopters, and if damaged helicopters are taken
into account we have thinned the Ukrainian helicopter fleet considerably.”
Later that afternoon, the militia expelled the Ukrainians from the
Slavyansk spa. In a setback for the militia, the Ukrainians succeeded in
destroying the militia’s armored train at the Andreyevsky Crossing. The
militia had modified several coal train cars with firing ports, but the
Ukrainian air strike destroyed them.
 Chapter 23 - Struggle for Semyonovka

The main event on 5 May was the fighting in the village of

Semyonovka. Dozens of soldiers with several armored vehicles took part
in the battle, and many were killed and wounded. There are many
disputes over what happened in the battle. Both sides agree that they
were ambushed and that many were killed in the ensuing firefight.
However, they believed that it was they who were ambushed, and their
enemy who was ambushing them. In fact, the battle was an accident.
The militia detachments and Ukrainians coincidentally arrived at the
same crossroads at the same time.
On 2 May, militiamen set up a checkpoint on the outskirts of
Semyonovka, near the “Slavyansk” stele. This checkpoint controlled the
crossroads at the entrance to Semyonovka, and was the most important
position held in the area after the Ukrainian seizure of Mount Karachun.
On the morning of 5 May, a dozen militiamen under the command of
Bear moved to reinforce the crossroads. The militiamen were equipped
with small arms, while Bear carried a PKM[36]. After the battle began,
Motorola brought ten men with him to reinforce Bear’s group from the
west. Motorola’s group was only equipped with rifles, but their rifles were
fitted with underbarrel grenade launchers. Wolf and Dushman[37] brought
forty militiamen with them in their two groups from the east, and arrived
at the scene prior to Motorola.
Around 9:00 am, two Ukrainian columns approached Bear’s recently
arrived group at the crossroads on the main road from Kharkov, one from
the north and the other from the south. It was later discovered that the
two Ukrainian columns were acting independently.
National Guard units “Jaguar” and “Omega” approached from the
south with elements of the 95th Airmobile Brigade. They were about fifty
men strong, driving cars and supported by two BTRs. Fighters from
Alpha and the 80th Airborne Brigade approached from the north,
numbering about thirty and supported by two more BTRs.
 Dmitry Zhukov, call sign “Cedar” gave the most detailed discussion of
the battle:
“The Alpha special forces relocated to a new checkpoint north of
Slavyansk the day before the battle, after handing over control of the
Kramatorsk airfield to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Kramatorsk
airfield was connected to their new post by a short road that passes
through the eastern outskirts of Slavyansk and Semyonovka. Until 5 May
it was a no man’s land. Neither the Ukrainian military nor the militia had
the strength to claim control over the crossroads.
The objective of the Ukrainian special forces was to provide a safe
passage for an armored group with a high ranking officer through a
potentially dangerous area. The Ukrainians didn’t plan for an open battle.
Their strategy was to surround Slavyansk and gradually shell it into
submission.
Bear divided our group into two parts. The first, under command of
Bear himself, was comprised of eleven fighters. The second, which I was
in, was comprised of six men. The eldest of our group was militiaman
“A”, a veteran of the Afghan War. We drove to Semyonovka in two
separate civilian vehicles.
Our group was the first to arrive in Semyonovka. We encountered two
enemy BTRs there – they had just arrived at Semyonovka from the
airfield. We tried to destroy the BTRs with our RPG-7, but it failed to fire.
While we hadn’t hidden ourselves, the BTRs hadn’t noticed us. They
turned around in an intersection and drove back from where they had
come. Our group then moved away from the contact point with the BTRs.
Bear’s group arrived at Semyonovka shortly afterwards. It was at that
moment that a new group of Ukrainian special forces, BTRs, and
paratroopers approached Semyonovka.
The Ukrainian BTRs were only 100-120 meters away from Bear’s
group when he first spotted them on the bridge. Bear was an excellent
driver, and his skills saved his entire group. He made a U-turn, and sped
off in the opposite direction, his vehicle overloaded with militiamen and
weaponry. While the Ukrainians got some shots off towards him, none
hit. Bear arrived at the crossroads 20-25 seconds later. He got out of the
car, and roared “TO BATTLE!”.
Thus began the firefight. Our group came under heavy fire, making it
impossible to raise our heads. Bear walked out to the crossroads with his
machine gun, took cover behind a concrete electrical support pillar, and
single-handedly stopped the Ukrainian advance. Due to Bear’s covering
fire, we were able to move 50-60 meters away from the crossroads and
fight from a better position. Bear didn’t leave his position.
Alone with a machine gun, facing two BTRs and a group of special
forces, Bear’s ferocity astonished even the boldest among us. Not long
after the start of the firefight, reinforcements led by the future
commander Motorola arrived to help. The battle continued for an hour,
with the Ukrainian special forces unable to take the crossroads. Unable
to get a clear view of the militia due to the buildings and bushes, the
Ukrainians believed they were being fired upon from the chemical plant
on their right flank. However, they were mistaken - there were no
militiamen there.
The outcome of the battle was decided by the second Ukrainian
column that approached Bear from the rear. A sniper from 500 meters
behind Bear shot him five times, silencing his machine gun. While his
gun was silenced, Bear still communicated on the radio, asking for a
quick evacuation. It was easier said than done. There were dozens of
enemies around us, and Bear was bleeding badly.
While the Ukrainian special forces most likely would have refused to
continue the attack on the crossroads at Semyonovka, they could not
abandon their wounded. The two Ukrainian groups slowly advanced
towards the crossroads, forcing the militia away with heavy fire.
Eventually, the two groups of Ukrainians met at the crossroads. A video
from their special forces shows Bear lying on the asphalt. The Ukrainians
took his machine gun, but assumed he was dead and abandoned him.
After retrieving their wounded, the Ukrainians withdrew towards
Izyum[38].
After the Ukrainian withdrawal, the militia managed to retrieve Bear.
He was still bleeding, though not as badly as before. The sixteen year
old militiaman Vandal, from Kiev, brought Bear back to Slavyansk. He
was terribly wounded, but still breathing when Vandal found him. The
Slavyansk doctors spent 20 minutes trying to rescue Bear, but they
failed. Bear’s injuries were too grievous and he had lost too much blood.
A few days later, we buried Bear in a church in the center of
Slavyansk with two militiamen and a truck driver who burned to death in
his truck after it was shot by special forces. Only one girl died that day.
She was killed on her home's balcony by a stray Ukrainian bullet."

Cedar’s story is similar to that of the stories told by the other

participants in the battle. Cedar does not mention the groups of the Wolf
and Dushman - they were a distance away from Cedar and fired at the
Ukrainians from the other side of the crossroads.
 Another participant in the battle, militiaman Sergey “Poet” Shamberin,
describes the events as follows:
“Shortly before the battle, the commandant of the Semyonovka
garrison appointed me the leader of a rapid response group. Many in the
group later became famous – the heroes Noil, Viking, and Boatswain
among them. After Bear’s group was ambushed, our group of twenty-
seven men was sent to reinforce them. On our way to reinforce Bear, we
collided with Ukrainians from Alpha. While outnumbered approximately
three to one, we managed to defeat the Ukrainians tactically. Our
unexpected maneuvers fooled the Ukrainians into thinking we were
several times their number, and they retreated. As they withdrew, they
suffered heavy losses. It was our little Borodino[39], we won the battle,
but both sides retreated to their original positions.”
Lieutenant Colonel “T” was the commander of the sniper group in
Ukraine’s Alpha unit, and was wounded in the battle of the Semyonovka
crossroads. He gave an interview to a Ukrainian website regarding his
experiences.
“Unfortunately, the planning that led to the battle on 5 May was not an
example of military wisdom. The best time to launch anti-terrorist
activities in Slavyansk was immediately after the city was lost. While
Ukrainian units varied in morale, we were ready and hoped for orders
from above to attack. Our leadership was inadequate and instead waited
for almost three weeks while the terrorists grew in strength. We were
limited to defending the Kramatorsk Airport even as the terrorists shelled
us with impunity. They even shot down a helicopter right next to our
headquarters.
On 5 May, we handed Kramatorsk Airport over to the military, and
divided ourselves into two groups. My group, the first group, had been
tasked to advance in a column with two BTR-80s to Izyum and to find a
safe route for the second group. As it turned out, the second group left
Kramatorsk with Omega on a different route on the morning of 5 May,
and we ended up needing to meet them to aid them in passing through a
potentially dangerous crossroads.
The new commander of Alpha, “S”, ordered me to conduct
reconnaissance in the Seleznyovka-Semyonovka area while paying
particularly close attention to the road to Slavyansk and adjacent foliage.
We were to then move onto Semyonovka and meet the second group.
My group was given a military support group, a BTR from the 80th
Airmobile Brigade and two officers in an armored car from Omega. The
general told us “As much as you may fear them, it is time for us to show
our strength. I have done this more than once in the Caucasus. Give
them a blast from the KPVT[40] and the separatists will scatter, like they
always do.”
My partner and I were supposed to be at the head of the column with
our armored car and the two officers, followed by the BTR-80 from the
80th Brigade. I gave the commander of the BTR-80 my walkie talkie to
keep in touch, and we agreed that we would advance slowly, five meters
at a time. We suspected there would be an ambush.
We slowly approached Semyonovka, passing Seleznyovka. It was at
the moment that we approached the bridge to Semyonovka that we
heard the first gunfire. It was around 9:00-9:10 am. While we knew we
were being shot at by small arms, we couldn’t tell where the gunfire was
coming from. The enemy was hidden in the greenery, and we were
exposed in the open. Not wanting to leave the enemy unanswered, we
opened fire across a broad arc. At that moment we were passed by the
BTRs. Around 10:00 am our two BTRs stopped at the railway crossing,
and drew most of the enemy’s fire. Our first man was wounded even
before reaching the crossing.
I think the convoy’s lack of centralized command, as well as the
underestimations of the resistance of the Russian militants were the
main causes of the losses in this mission. An officer with general
authority over both columns could have organized better maneuvers and
made better decisions.”
The description of events given by Lieutenant Colonel “T” is
incomplete, but gives some understanding about the nature of the battle
in Semyonovka. Fighting with varying degrees of intensity lasted about
two hours. The Ukrainians had about eighty men with the support of four
BTRs, and were opposed by 60 militiamen. Of the militiamen, only half
actually fought.
Towards the end of the battle, two militia BMDs were sent to the
crossroads from Slavyansk. While they arrived too late to influence the
course of the battle, they assisted with the evacuation of the wounded.
Three Ukrainians were killed in the battle, and about thirty were
wounded. On the Russian side, five militiamen were killed and fifteen
men were wounded. The fallen were Vyacheslav “Bear” Rudakov from
Simferopol, Alexander “Wolf” Parhomenko from Simferopol, Valery
“Chechen” Parsegov from Konstantinovka, Vladimir Kuhno from
Slavyansk and Konstantin Ivanov from Nikolayevka.
Alexander “Wolf” Parhomenko
 Vyacheslav “Bear” Rudakov
Three civilians were also killed – local residents Georgy Govoruha,
Anatoly Kurochka, and Irina Boevyets. Govoruha and Kurochka were
killed in a car, while Boevyets was killed by a sniper while on her
apartment balcony.
After the battle, the Ukrainians left a unit of Interior troops at the
crossroads with two BTRs. Motorola was able to push them out of the
intersection without losses by mid-May. From then until the 5 July retreat
from Slavyansk, the militia held Semyonovka.
On the evening of 5 May Igor Strelkov wrote:
“There was a hard battle today, Five of my fighters were killed. The
balance of forces was grim – we were outnumbered five to one. The
fighters were at a four way intersection, and were ambushed by enemy
groups coming from two opposing directions. The enemy had four BTRs,
two in each of their groups. As a result, we sent our two trophy BMDs to
allow our survivors to withdraw and to evacuate the wounded. It was
their first “real” fight. Our armored group commander is a senior
lieutenant, a Russian, who joined us from the Ukrainian 25th Airmobile
Brigade, the first to do so far. He has served bravely and professionally.
Many others are privately willing to admit that they serve Nazis and
bastards, but continue to “stay true to their oaths.”
In an interview with journalists that day, Strelkov said that the forces
under Kiev’s control around Slavyansk outnumbered the militia by
several times, and that he needed reinforcements.
“If we do not hold the city, it is obvious that we will all perish. I
promised and my men promised that we would not leave Slavyansk. In
my estimation, the enemy’s strength around Slavyansk exceeds ours by
several times. By ourselves we cannot hold this city. We’ll hold it until the
end, but if there is no support we will be destroyed.”
In the same interview, Strelkov is asked a question about his political
curators in Moscow. He answered that while he keeps in touch with his
friends, none of them were part of the political elite.
 Chapter 24 - Legendary Militiamen

Militiaman Andrey “Vandal” Savelyev was the boy who pulled Bear
out while under enemy fire. He was only sixteen years old at the time.
Originally from Kiev, Vandal went to Crimea to join the militia and later
the Crimean Company after Euromaydan. Vandal was so persistent in
his requests to join the Crimean Company that Strelkov was unable to
refuse him, and took the boy into the group.
Savelyev had been in the spotlight years before the fighting around
Slavyansk. In October 2012, Kiev was celebrating Cossack Day. A
Ukrainian nationalist took a Russian flag from one of the celebrants, and
Savelyev chased after him with his comrades. They managed to retake
the Russian flag. The story reached the Kremlin, and two months later
Savelyev was invited to a reception at the Russian embassy. There,
ambassador Mihail Zurabov presented Savalyev a watch with an
engraving reading “From the President of the Russian Federation”.
Savelyev received his call sign “Vandal” during the events in Crimea.
He was overly aggressive in his inspection of a suspicious vehicle, and
inappropriately smashed the driver’s dashcam with the butt of his rifle.
Despite the embarrassing call sign, Vandal was a lifesaver in the war,
acting as a field medic and pulling many dead and wounded militiamen
from the battlefield.
Vandal was not the only boy who participated in the militia. Despite
the efforts of the militia to send the underaged back home, those who
were persistent or who exaggerated their age fought, just as in WWII.
For example, seventeen year old Miron lied about his age, served in
Small’s Company, and fought fiercely in the defense of the Semyonovka
Hospital. The boys were not inferior to the adults in their courage.
 Andrey “Vandal” Savelyev
Vandal was a medic in Motorola’s strike unit, an excellent unit
comprised of unusual but capable fighters. Internet users who closely
followed the events in Donbass know many of the unit’s veterans by their
names or call signs. There were heroes in other units as well, but
Motorola’s men became especially popular, in part because of the work
of Gennady “Correspondent” Dubovoy.
Dubovoy had worked as a journalist before the events in Donbass,
and was fittingly given the call sign “Correspondent”.
 Correspondent and Vandal
“I finally came to fight in Slavyansk on 15 May, a few days after the
referendum. I realized that my media work as editor of the primary
newspaper of the DPR (Voice of the People – Voice of the Republic) was
finished, and that all would be decided by force of arms. Many of the
famous militiamen who would become famous in the fighting around
Slavyansk were from Motorola’s unit. The fearless and charismatic
commander was surrounded by numerous men. Among them:
Boatswain and Brick – the anti-tank guided missile men who shot
down the first Su-25
North and Gypsy – killed in action on 3 June
Yermak and Small – the anti-tank riflemen
Rostov and Pooh – the automatic grenade launcher men
Artist and Fiftieth – drivers
Gambit – the machine gunner
Phoenix and Shepherd – the heavy machine gun crew
I knew these men well and will remember them to the end of my
days.”
 Boatswain and Brick
Correspondent joined Motorola’s unit and was at the front lines in
Semyonovka. His videos (published on the YouTube channel “Legendary
Units from Gennady Dubovoy”) and written reports became one of the
main sources about the fighting around Slavyansk. After retreating from
Slavyansk, Correspondent participated in the fighting on the Russian
border and other hot spots in the DPR.
Many perceived Correspondent as "Motorola's public relations man"
at the time, but Correspondent himself disagrees. According to him, he
sought to tell the world about the unit and fighters, not so much about the
popular commander. Correspondent recalls:
“The epithet "Legendary Motorola" became common after the
interview with Arsen, which I did after the fighting of 3 June for the
newspaper “Tomorrow”[41]. I deliberately did not glorify him. There was
no need for it, many others, such as Life News and RTR[42] were already
showing him. I avoided everything that could be avoided as PR and
propaganda, and instead focused on covering everyday life and battles.
With the principle of explaining an ocean with a drop of water, these
videos and reports were to explain the creation of New Russia.”
 Chapter 25 – Motorola

Motorola was the most famous Russian volunteer and member in the
Donbass militia. His name was widely known not just in Russia, but in
the entire world. Motorola’s real name was Arsen Pavlov. He was born in
1983 in the city of Uhta in the Komi Republic, and he became an orphan
at the age of fifteen. He joined the Russian military in 2002, and served
as a signalman in the 77th Moscow-Chernigov Marine Brigade. It was at
that time he gained the call sign “Motorola”. As a soldier, he took part in
the counterinsurgency in Chechnya in two six month tours. Prior to the
events in Donbass, he was a bricklayer and a car wash worker in Rostov.
Motorola participated in the protests against the new authorities in
Kiev from the very beginning. In February and March 2014 he was at
protests in Odessa, Zaporozhye, and Kharkov. By early April, he was in
Crimea as part of the First Militia Regiment, from which he transferred to
the Crimean Company. Motorola was made a commander after the death
of the previous commander Bear in Semyonovka. During the defense of
Slavyansk, his unit grew from a platoon into a two hundred man strong
anti-tank company. It was the most effective heavy weapons unit in the
militia, and inflicted serious losses on the Ukrainians.
Motorola first became famous in late May 2014 after a scandal with
Life News. On 20 May, Motorola led his men in an attack on a Ukrainian
checkpoint near Cherevkovka, a town between Slavyansk and
Kramatorsk. The fight lasted about an hour. The militiamen successfully
destroyed a Ukrainian BTR with their anti-tank guided missiles and anti-
tank rifles. Motorola filmed the attack, and sent the footage to Life News
for broadcast. After Life News displayed the footage on air, Ukrainian
media accused Russian journalists of active participation in hostilities.
 Arsen “Motorola” Pavlov
Ukrainian journalist Alexander Gorobets wrote an article titled “What
were Life News employees actually doing near Kramatorsk?”. The article
was supported by Russian liberal media, which dislikes Life News since
it is patriotic and militia-friendly media. Gorobets wrote that Life News
journalists not only aided terrorists, but commanded them in battle near
Kramatorsk. The next day, 21 May, Motorola videotaped a rebuttal and
stated that he was in charge of both the attack as well as videotaping the
battle. His helmet had been mounted with a “GoPro” – a camera
specially designed for filming while moving. With his camera, Motorola
video recorded many clashes in Slavyansk and handed out the footage
to Russian journalists for publication.
Motorola also gained fame through his use of psychological warfare.
The Chechens won themselves a fearsome reputation in their two wars
with Russia, so Motorola claimed there were Chechen fighters on the
side of the militia in Semyonovka (there were not). He would shout “Allah
Akbar!” in loudspeakers during battles, as well as broadcasting Islamic
calls to prayer every few hours. Small’s company imitated this tactic.
During their defense of the Semyonovka Hospital, they placed audio
speakers on the roof and broadcast Islamic prayers, making an ominous
atmosphere.
Motorola’s unit was headquartered in “Snowstorm”, a small building in
Semyonovka with a café and mini-hotel. In addition to defending
Semyonovka, his unit also acted as an experienced strike force that
could be utilized to attack Ukrainian columns and checkpoints.
Sparta battalion grew from Motorola’s unit in Slavyansk. After the
retreat from Slavyansk, Sparta would fight in the fierce battles at
Ilovaysk, Donetsk Airport, Debaltsevo, and Mariupol. By the fall of 2016,
Motorola was a colonel in the army of the DPR and remained the leader
of Sparta battalion.
In one interview, Motorola explained his presence in Donbass:
“I came in by train without thinking too much about it. Russians are
here, so I came. It was all clear to me at Maydan - the Molotov cocktails,
the police collaboration, the Nazi declarations against Russia. It was war,
and I did not see the point in waiting for the threat to grow.”
The military commander Alexander Kots, who spoke with Motorola
often (those close called Motorola "Motor" or "Motik"), characterized it as
follows:
“There are men who fight in bloody battles and survive, but with
broken souls and constant cynicism. And there are those who cannot
only love and war, but also keep possession of themselves. Motorola is
one such man – a fighter from God, a joker, and a lover of Russian rap.”
Arsen Pavlov was in his native element in war. Like hundreds of other
volunteers in the Donbass Uprising, Morotola had worked at a car wash
and other lowly jobs. The Ukrainians regularly mock the pasts of many
militiamen – workers, miners, taxi drivers, etc. It is narrow minded to
believe that there are not many talented individuals in the masses. While
these individuals may not appear talented in everyday life, they rise to
prominence in difficult and unusual circumstances. Military historian
Yevgeny Norin writes:
“He was a first rate soldier, even though he would have been unusual
in a regular army. Commanders of this type always rise in revolutions
and rebellions. Those who crack jokes about the car washer commander
do not know history. No one jokes about Jean Lannes, the peasant who
became a Napoleonic marshal, or Nathanael Greene, the blacksmith
who became a famous American general in the American Revolution.
Motorola is among such commanders who have risen on merits alone.
One feature of an irregular war is that the men who rise through the
ranks do so through personal qualities, and would have not been able to
make an impressive career in peacetime. Motorola lacked training in
military theory, and never claimed to be knowledgeable in the leadership
of large formations. Nonetheless, he was a capable tactical leader and
was certainly in his place leading small units. Even when leading units
that lacked everything from heavy weapons to communications to even
boots and camouflage, he managed to organize effective fighting forces.
With a few RPGs, anti-tank rifles, and an ATGM launcher, he was able to
mount effective anti-tank defenses. In the succeeding months, he even
launched successful offensive operations. The Ukrainians viewed
Motorola with contempt for his lack of military education, but that winter
their officers lost a battle against him.”
This is how Pennant remembers Motorola:
“Motorola was a short man. No one in the beginning of the conflict
could have imagined that he would become a legendary commander. In
the first month he was not noticeable – instead he was in the shadows of
the imaginary special forces. Then, as the real hostilities began, the little
man jumped out like a jester from a joke box. He showed the necessity
of urgency – to rescue, to save, to probe, to attack. The shadows of the
imaginary special forces soldiers melted away, and humble little sergeant
Pavlov took their burden upon himself. In him, one could begin to hope.
Even though Motorola was in the areas of the hardest fighting, his men
suffered the fewest losses – he never abandoned his men. At the start of
his popularity he had the beginning of star fever, but quickly overcame it.
He took criticism well and learned from it. He was a commander and a
man of great character.”
When Strelkov was recruiting his company in Crimea in early April
2014, Motorola was recommended to Strelkov by Baloo. Baloo was not
mistaken. Strelkov recalls:
“Arsen immediately made a very good impression on me. I realized
that he was a professional soldier, a military enthusiast, and a natural
warrior. He is of the type born for war. Such men are always the
backbone of any warring army, so I singled Arsen out from the other
militiamen and promoted him. When we obtained our first heavy
weapons in Slavyansk and organized our first heavy weapons unit, he
led it. He proved himself a hero, never hiding from shells and bullets,
walking around studded with shrapnel. More than once when he came to
me for a report, his helmet or armor embedded with metal fragments that
he refused to pull out. In this respect, he had few competitors in time
spent under enemy fire.
I really appreciated Arsen, always relied on him. His death did not
leave me indifferent. This was a man who did a lot for New Russia and
had rendered great services to the Russian people. A real volunteer and
a real soldier. His death was a large blow to the Russian cause.”
Motorola died in a terrorist attack on 16 October 2016 in Donetsk. He
was going up to his apartment on Chelyuskintsev Street when the
elevator exploded, perhaps from a bomb planted by Ukrainian saboteurs.
Three days of mourning were declared in the DPR in commemoration of
his death. On 19 October, his funeral was held. It was attended by over
fifty thousand people from all over the republic. People sincerely
mourned his loss – he was a hero of the entire Donbass.
 Chapter 26 - Pavel Gubarev

The first prisoner exchange in the Donbass War took place on 7 May
in Slavyansk. The three captured officers from Ukraine’s Alpha Unit were
traded for three participants in the Russian Spring: Igor Perepechayenko
(Deputy People’s Mayor of Slavyansk), Sergey Zlobin (Russian activist
from the Kherson region), and Pavel Gubarev.
Gubarev first became widely known during the large pro-Russia
rallies in Donbass from February through March 2014, and was the first
people’s governor of Donetsk. During his captivity, his wife Yekaterina
had ensured the entry of the Crimean Company to Donbass. After his
release, Gubarev became the main organizer of volunteers and supplies
from Donetsk to Slavyansk.

Pavel Gubarev
Pavel Gubarev was born in Severodonetsk in 1983, and graduated
with a history degree from Donetsk National University. He was involved
in various social and political movements in Donetsk, and worked in the
advertising industry.
 In February 2014, when protests started throughout New Russia,
Gubarev and his supporters created the Donbass People’s Militia. The
militia, originally created to organize protests in Donetsk, would
eventually grow over the succeeding months into a force of thousands of
local and foreign volunteers.
The designation of “militia” for the Russian participants in the
Donbass War lasted for several years. The Russian Federation, Russian
media, and general public referred to the fighters as militiamen even
after the creation of the armies of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s
Republics.
Gubarev spent all of his and his business’ money on the Donbass
unrest – totaling about forty thousand dollars. Most of the money was
spent on printing and distributing separatist propaganda, as well as on
safehouses and weapons.
On 28 February, Gubarev and his supporters went to a meeting of the
Donetsk City Council. There he proclaimed an “Ultimatum of the
Donbass People’s Militia to the Deputies”. The ultimatum stated that the
authorities in both Kiev and Donetsk were to be considered illegal.
On 1 March, Gubarev was declared the people’s governor at a large
pro-Russia rally. At the rally, Gubarev proclaimed:
“What some call southeastern Ukraine, I call New Russia. This land is
Russian to the core. It has never been Ukraine!”
In Gubarev’s 2015 book “Torch of New Russia” he writes:
“New Russia burst into reality at the beginning of 2014, as if through
some kind of portal from the glorious past. Her name was spoken again,
the name that had been diligently erased from our national memory
throughout the previous century.”
On 3 and 5 March, protesters in Donetsk twice seized the regional
state administration building and other institutions. They were not
occupied and held permanently until 6 April. Gubarev admitted their
primary objectives were to take the police and SBU buildings to seize
weapons. However, the people of Donetsk were not ready to cross the
red line into violence and bloodshed. It was still a month until the
liberation of Slavyansk.
On 5 March Sergey Glazyev, one of Putin’s advisors, contacted
Gubarev. Glazyev was overseeing the protests from Moscow, and told
Gubarev that the Russian Federation would not abandon him and his
supporters. The next day, Gubarev was arrested by SBU officers and
taken to Kiev. There he endured a series of interrogations and tortures,
spending two months in prison.
By the time Gubarev was brought to Slavyansk for a prisoner
exchange on 7 May, the Donbass militia had already “sniffed the
gunpowder”. There had been numerous firefights, and a number killed.
Gubarev describes that time:
“The romantic, early period of the Russian Spring in Donbass was
over. The gravity of bloodshed and everyday life came with the war.”
Strelkov had insisted on the prisoner exchange with the Ukrainians:
“His trade was carried out under my direction. I was negotiating with
the Ukrainians, and instead of Gubarev they offered me some others. I
insisted upon the trade for Gubarev, and that if we didn’t have him back
we would keep the Alpha Unit fighters. Gubarev was a valuable person
both for us and for our enemy. He was the first people’s governor and
political leader of New Russia.”
Recovering from his hard time in captivity, Gubarev and his team
worked hard to support Slavyansk from Donetsk. Strelkov ordered
Gubarev to begin organizing the resupply of the Slavyansk garrison.
At that moment Slavyansk existed quite apart from Donetsk. In the
capital of the DPR, there was no organized force that supported Strelkov.
There were instead two powers – the city authorities and police who still
acted in subordination to Kiev, and the parallel government organs of the
republic. This is as if the Interior Ministry remained in Slavyansk and
continued to operate under Kiev as normal. The absurd situation in
Donetsk was only corrected after Strelkov’s arrival in July 2014.
In addition, while the war was in full swing in Slavyansk, order had
begun to break down on the territory of the DPR and LPR. A variety of
“atamans” appeared among the militia. A number of commanders,
particularly among the Cossacks, began to form gangs rather than units
with which to fight Ukraine. Due to this anarchy, few thought of aiding
Slavyansk.
Gubarev writes in “Torch of New Russia”:
“My colleagues and I decided to totally support Strelkov and the
Slavyansk garrison. Unfortunately, not everyone who was brought to
power by the revolution did this. In the DPR, it was obvious that the most
honest and ideologically motivated fighters were rallying to the banner of
Strelkov. Those who remained in Donetsk gained strength, but remained
hired servants of the oligarchy. They fought for tangible assets and their
loved ones, not the republic. I remember that well known saying that
revolutions are made by starry-eyed idealists, but only cynical scum
enjoy their benefits.”

People’s Militia of Donbass checkpoint with a fighter and armored

vehicle
Gubarev created and led the mobilization board under the DPR
Ministry of Defense. The board received volunteers, screened them, and
sent them to Slavyansk. Within six weeks, they were processing an
average of thirty men a day. In addition, they organized a regular supply
line of humanitarian aid to Slavyansk collected from all over the republic
as well as from the Russian Federation.
After the retreat from Slavyansk, the mobilization board continued its
work. As the topic of New Russia disappeared from Russian media
discourse, Gubarev and a handful of others remained loyal to the ideal
for which he had created the People’s Militia of Donbass. In 2015 he
founded the “New Russia” movement and media group to broadcast to
the residents of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
 Chapter 27 - Victory Day

After the Battle of the Semyonovka Crossroads on 5 May, there was a

relative calm through mid-May. The Ukrainians continued to mass
artillery around Slavyansk, but would not start their terror bombardment
until the end of the month. Armed raids on the city continued, but the
militia repulsed them. It was necessary to ensure peace in Slavyansk in
order to hold a celebration on 9 May and a referendum on 11 May. On 6
May, Igor Strelkov wrote:
“It is a relatively calm day today. The Ukrainians continue to mass
troops. In addition to the two already present airmobile brigades,
National Guard battalion, Omega special forces detachment, Jaguars,
Falcons, and other forces – they’ve sent almost a full tank battalion from
Barvenkovo with 30 tanks. In addition, they sent a unit from
Krasnoarmeysk with a Grad[43] battery, a motorized infantry unit with 20
BMPs, four attached tanks, and six Acacia[44] self-propelled guns. If we
are attacked by such a force, the fight will go poorly, and we will not last
long. We will all make our stand together in Slavyansk. We are
preparing to test their strength.”
Radicals from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion[45] captured the first DPR
Minister of Defense Igor Hakimzyanov in fighting near Mariupol on that
day. He wouldn’t be released until a 15 September prisoner exchange.
Strelkov would replace him as DPR Minister of Defense several days
later. Vladimir “Tsar” Kononov would in turn replace Strelkov as the DPR
Minister of War after Strelkov’s departure from the Donbass militia later
that year. The celebration of Victory Day[46] in Slavyansk was unusually
solemn, as it was held in the epicenter of a real war. At the festival,
people sang the old song “This Victory Day with Tears in My Eyes”[47]
while crying. Some of them had already lost friends and relatives – not in
a distant war, but in their own city.
Several thousand residents gathered in the central square of
Slavyansk. There was a parade that included the five captured armored
vehicles. The recently freed Pavel Gubarev gave a speech, asking all
locals who could hold arms to take them. People’s Mayor Vyacheslav
Ponomaryov solemnly announced that the Ukrainians would not take any
more militiamen prisoner. “We will take them all down!” he declared.
 Vyacheslav Ponomaryov and Pavel Gubarev giving speeches on
Victory Day
At the same time, Moscow hosted a magnificent Victory Day parade.
The latest Russian armaments rolled through Red Square. Crimea
celebrated Victory Day with the whole country. The Russians of the
Donbass watched the formidable and mighty Russian army and asked
themselves: will this army help us? And why is it needed at all, if not to
protect its people and the national interests of the country? It has been
two months since the beginning of the unrest, and there wasn’t as much
of a hint of military assistance to the militia. The “Red Army” was
expected immediately after Crimea, then again after the Odessa events
on 2 May. Some convinced themselves that Putin wouldn’t send troops in
until Victory Day. “Putin, send in the troops” became one of the most
popular hashtags and memes on Russian social media. Our dreams
seemed very naïve when no Russian army troops arrived. Their arrival
had been taken for granted, not just by us but also by the entire world.
Victory Day was overshadowed by the tragic events in Mariupol. 9
May became the second black day after the events in Odessa on 2 May.
During festivities, ten people, civilians and militia, were killed in clashes
with Ukrainian radicals during the assault on the National Guard building.
The National Guard also launched an assault on the Interior Ministry
building, killing about twenty people in a firefight that destroyed the
building. Many of the dead had been policemen who had joined the
people.
 Sputnik and Pogrom wrote:
“The situation is strange. 9 May 2014 was marked by ultra-modern
technology rolling through Red Square, while in Mariupol local protestors
stop armored columns with the help of empty bottles and their mothers.
A tearful holiday.”
On the evening of 10 May, The Ukrainians near Slavyansk once
again attacked the Andreyevka checkpoint. They retreated after the
militia returned fire, and then launched an artillery barrage from Mount
Karachun. Four militiamen were wounded by the artillery and retreated
from the checkpoint. The Ukrainians didn’t seize the checkpoint.
After midnight, the militia artillery (at the time it was only the two
BMDs and the Nona) approached Mount Karachun and launched their
own barrage on the Ukrainian position from several hundred meters
away. The artillery hit an ammunition depot, causing several large
explosions that reached as high as a helicopter flies. The objective of the
militia’s artillery strike was to suppress the Ukrainian artillery and mortars
for a few days in order to hold the 11 May referendum peacefully.
Igor Strelkov achieved his objective. He wrote:
“By the morning, it was all quiet. I hope that my subtle hints to the
Ukrainians are understood. We have more than enough shells to send
direct deliveries to Ukrainian military warehouses.”
This was just another one of Strelkov’s trademark bluffs – the militia
was sorely lacking artillery shells. At that moment, the Nona only had
twenty more shells and the BMDs had only a few score between them.
The militia was only able to carry on counter-battery fire after an
ammunition resupply a few days later.
“We are strengthening. We only need to wait. On 10 May, the
Ukrainian junta will confirm its complete impotence if it does not attack
tomorrow. To allow a referendum in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk under the
watch of its main forces means that they intend to surrender.”
In this respect, the Ukrainians really did surrender – Kiev was unable
to disrupt the referendum. It was a small victory, but still a victory over
Ukraine. Donetsk and Lugansk didn’t become Russian, but the hated
yellow-blue flag[48] never returned.
 Chapter 28 - The Referendum

Referendums were held on 11 May on the independence of the

Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the parts of the Donbass
controlled by the militia. According to the DPR’s official reports, 75% of
citizens voted in the referendum, and of those 89% voted for the
independence of the republic. In the LPR, 75% of the population also
participated, and of those 96% voted for the independence of the
republic.
Despite the difficult situation in Slavyansk, sixty polling stations were
set up for the independence referendum. 80% of the locals voted, and
98% of them voted for the DPR’s independence. Here is what war
correspondent Alexander Kots wrote at the time:
“The day of silence in Slavyansk before the referendum ended with
many hours of shelling from the outskirts of the city. At 7:30 pm, the first
artillery fired from Mount Karachun – the highest point near Slavyansk.
The Ukrainian army stationed its main artillery batteries there – two
batteries of Grads and two batteries of self-propelled howitzers. Shells
were fired all over the city from the heights, causing explosions and
flashes on the horizon. It seemed like the Ukrainian troops were doing
everything they could to intimidate local residents and disrupt the
plebiscite. At around 1:00 am the artillery ceased firing. We found out in
the morning that the self-defense forces had taught the Ukrainian
artillerymen a lesson that night. It seemed as if the “firework show” would
ensure that people stayed at home, fearfully looking out their windows.
But as journalists have noted recently, there is no fear. The voters lined
up at the polling stations by 8:00 am.”

A militiaman voting in the referendum

In voting for the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic,
most locals hoped that it would prove to be a mere transitional period,
after which the authorities would conduct another referendum on joining
the Russian Federation. However, the Russian Federation had other
plans. Igor Strelkov already understood this. He had realized that the
Russian Federation’s plans had changed when he was ordered to
unmask on 26 April. By 11 May he had realized the Kremlin was closing
down the operation. Strelkov said:
“Prior to 26 April, I was sure that everything was proceeding
according to plan. Then we unmasked ourselves and were completely
disavowed. When the referendum was held, I knew for sure that we had
been betrayed. I spoke with the leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, and
he advised me to return to the Crimea. I asked him what would happen
to our people. He replied that I could bring them with me. Of course, I
could not do that. I realized that we were on our own, and had to act on
our own. We continued to bluff the Ukrainians as much as we could,
trying to keep up the pretense that there were hordes of Russians in
Slavyansk. We calculated that if we fought on long enough, we could
force the Russian Federation to support the Donbass. In the end, after
three months, the Russian Federation was forced to intervene, but only
after the retreat from Slavyansk.”
The day before the referendum, Sergey Aksyonov called Pavel
Gubarev. He asked him to convince the DPR leadership to postpone the
referendum a week. On 7 May even Putin called for a postponement of
the referendums, but both the LPR and DPR refused to reschedule. The
refusal of the LPR and DPR to reschedule the referendums is more
evidence that until mid-August 2014, the events in Donbass developed
independently (and sometimes in spite) of Moscow. The militia’s hard
fighting over the summer of 2014 eventually forced the Russian
Federation to come to the rescue. Gubarev recalls:
“It was especially striking that Moscow advised us to not rush the
referendum on self-determination. What did they mean by that? Were
they hinting that we won’t be recognized? The referendum could not be
stopped. There were many in the DPR who were convinced that the
Donbass would join the Russian Federation. Did I have a bitter aftertaste
in my soul from these requests from Moscow? No. It seemed like it was
some sort of diplomatic game or cunning Kremlin plan, not an
unwillingness of Russian leadership to get involved in the Donbass
through a military intervention. We didn’t know at the time how things
were to proceed. After the referendum, I had to admit to myself that we
couldn’t count on a Russian intervention. By mid-May 2014 Moscow had
more than enough reasons to send troops. Less than six years earlier,
the Kremlin had intervened in South Ossetia after only two days of
fighting and the murder of civilians. Here, in spite of the most outrageous
atrocities of the junta and the shelling of cities, Moscow limited itself to
indignant words.”
Strelkov wrote a week after the referendum:
“I completed my duty (as I set it for myself) 100%. The people were
able to hold a referendum and determine their future. Now the second
part of the duty remains – to not embarrass ourselves and to fight on as
expected, to the end, as well as giving an opportunity for those who have
not fulfilled their duties to work on completing them.”
The last part of Strelkov’s remark was aimed at the Russian military.
After the referendum, Strelkov accepted the post of Minister of
Defense for the Donetsk People’s Republic. On 12 May, he issued the
“Order of the Commander of the Armed Forces of the DPR”. In the
document, Strelkov announced the introduction of a “counterterrorist
operation” (CTO) and ordered all military formations and power
structures to be subordinated under the republic. In the last paragraph of
the order, Strelkov addresses the Russian Federation:
“Considering the extraordinary nature of the situation in the country,
the Kiev junta’s genocide of the Donetsk population and the threat of
intervention by Kiev’s armies as well as NATO, I appeal to the Russian
Federation to take adequate measures to protect the population of the
DPR, up to and including sending a contingent of peacekeepers across
the eastern border.”
No Russian Federation officials responded to this appeal.
After the referendum, Igor Strelkov sent a group of militiamen to
Donetsk under Abwehr to unite the scattered armed bands, end the
anarchy, and organize a real army capable of offensive action. This was
for several reasons. First, the political situation with authority split
between the dual powers of the independent republic and regional
leadership still loyal to Ukraine caused disorder and was difficult to
resolve. Second, the many militia commanders were jealous of his
power, and were not willing to relinquish their independence. Third, the
Ukrainian forces were concentrated around Slavyansk and didn’t
approach Donetsk. There was no serious fighting elsewhere in the
Donetsk region during the May-June period.
Abwehr and his group collected intelligence on Ukrainian troop
movements and dispositions around the Donetsk region. When Abwehr
provided the intelligence to Strelkov, he was told that it was useless to
him since the Ukrainians were already around Slavyansk. Strelkov had
sent Abwehr to Donetsk not to collect information, but to defeat the
Ukrainians as well as he could. Sergey Tsyplakov, who at the time was
still in Donetsk, says:
“They failed to build a second Slavyansk here. First they gave out
weapons to the wrong men. And second, they were unable to take over
and command the scattered militia units. “Take what you will” was the
belief of many of the independent commanders. They sought only to
gather more men and weapons around themselves to build power bases.
They used their power not to fight together against the enemy, but for
their own visions far from the original ideals of the Donbass Uprising.”
Sergey “Abwehr” Zdrilyuk was one of the fifty two militiamen who was
in the original Crimean Company that had arrived in Slavyansk on 12
April. Abwehr was from Vinnitsa[49] originally, and had graduated from a
military school in Simferopol. From 1996 through 2001 he worked for the
SBU. He was given his call sign of Abwehr[50] because he had worked in
the military counterintelligence unit of the SBU. Due to his experience in
intelligence work, Strelkov appointed Abwehr as his deputy commander
for counterintelligence.

Sergey “Abwehr” Zdrilyuk

While in Slavyansk, Abwehr worked on identifying and neutralizing
agents of the SBU and Right Sector, as well as developing and
implementing a number of intelligence operations. In 2014-6, Ukrainian
media erroneously wrote more than once that he had been killed, much
as they had for other militia commanders who proved to be thorns in the
side of Ukraine.
Abwehr left Slavyansk with the rest of the garrison on the 5 July
retreat. He continued to lead the DPR counterintelligence service
through the fall, after which he left for Crimea.
 In mid-May Strelkov sent Abwehr to Donetsk to organize forces under
the republic. He was given a signed order by Strelkov saying that
Abwehr was appointed by the commander of the People’s Militia to
resolve military and organizational issues in Donetsk. While Abwehr felt
he fulfilled his assigned tasks, Tsyplakov believed that Abwehr wasn’t up
for the job. Abwehr said the following in a conversation with the author of
this book:
“My task was to bring the scattered militia units together into one
organized military force. These units included “Stronghold”, “East”,
“Russian Orthodox Army”, “Berkut”, “Kalmius”, and various Cossack
units. After arriving in Donetsk, we formed a coordination center that
included a commander from each unit. Through it, we coordinated the
distribution of weapons and materiel, as well as the arrangement of
defensive positions around Donetsk. Of course, not everything went
smoothly. Many commanders acted obnoxiously. For example, the
commander of East Battalion Alexander Hodakovsky had a tense
relationship with the head of government Alexander Boroday. In general
though, the militia was organized and coordinated in two to three weeks.
In addition to military work, it was necessary to regulate the internal
problems within the DPR. I didn’t give any enterprising businessmen cuts
in mines or allow for them to put squeezes on rival businesses. As a
result, I made myself a lot of enemies in Donetsk. Some of the
commanders in the rear took offense to me, and complained to Boroday
and Strelkov, making execution of my duties difficult. I had gone to
Donetsk unarmed and with only two men because so many were needed
back in Slavyansk.
We collected both men and weapons in Donetsk, trading cars and
other valuables for guns. We managed to recruit five hundred militia
fighters and obtained two hundred personal weapons of various sorts.
The Ukrainians at the time were about 70-80 kilometers from
Donetsk, and therefore there weren’t any hostilities at the time.
Nonetheless, we mobilized construction workers and equipment, using
them to build checkpoints and fortifications. It was impossible to block all
the roads to Donetsk, but the main roads were under our control.
I made my headquarters in the former SBU building in Donetsk, and
worked there from mid-May to mid-June. It was that we organized the
defense of Donetsk as best as we could. In the second half of June, I
returned to Slavyansk.”
 However, the other commanders and fighters in the militia who
arrived in Donetsk from Slavyansk in early July remarked that Donetsk
and other cities in the DPR were unprepared to offer serious resistance.
The efforts of Abwehr and the Donetsk commanders had not been
enough. It was the hardened veterans of Slavyansk who were to
eventually galvanize the defenses of Donetsk and the entire republic
during the Ukrainian summer offensive.
 Chapter 29 - Militia Attacks

On 12 May, the artillery duels with the Ukrainians on Mount Karachun

continued. The Russians used almost all of their remaining artillery shells
in these exchanges. On Mount Karachun, something else exploded.
Rumors spread about hundreds of Ukrainians killed. Igor Strelkov wrote
the following:
“I think these are just rumors. There was a detonation last night on
Mount Karachun. This morning there was something on fire there. From
my experience, I can say that the shelling seems more effective from the
outside than it actually is. Until there is confirmation, I will trust official
Ukrainian reports from the OBS Agency of two lightly wounded over
reports sourced from what a single grandmother claimed.”
It was later determined that there were a lot of dead and wounded
from our strikes on Mount Karachun, although it was impossible to
determine the exact figures. The notorious OBS Agency was part of a
major problem in the dissemination of accurate information about the
Donbass War in the internet age. It is difficult to obtain reliable
information when everyone, not even eyewitnesses and participants,
consider it their duty to speak. This breeds unverified information and the
most ridiculous rumors from the “zone of psychosis” (in the words of
Dmitry Steshin).
Even witnesses and participants to events themselves often distort
information unintentionally. Otto von Bismarck is credited with saying
“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an
election.”. It is difficult to reconstruct military events, especially after a
long period of time has elapsed. Truth must be separated from fiction.
While working on this book, the author had to cut out many facts and
statements as they were based on what someone heard someone else
say or report. Certain events relating to the defense of Slavyansk
couldn’t be reliably confirmed, and had to be removed from the text.
Even the official reports on Ukrainian losses shouldn’t be relied on. The
Ukrainians hid losses both for propaganda purposes and to avoid
demoralizing their own troops.
An important source for information about Ukrainian actions and
losses were from intercepted radio transmissions as well as captured
Ukrainian fighters. They would often relate the true state of affairs within
the Ukrainian ranks.
The week following the referendum marked the Slavyansk “offensive”.
Russian and Ukrainian media reported that “The militia launched an
offensive near Slavyansk”, “Strelkov gave an order to advance”, “the
terrorists are attacking”, “Strelkov led the separatists into battle”, etc. The
reasons for the excitement were the successes of the militia as well as
the stronger anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of the Slavyansk authorities. On 13
May fighters from Kramatorsk attacked a Ukrainian column 20 kilometers
west of the city, in the village of Oktyabrskoye. The column was part of
the 95th Airmobile Brigade, and was carrying ammunition to resupply the
Ukrainian artillery on Mount Karachun.
The attack on the column was aimed at cutting the supply lines to
Mount Karachun, and preventing the artillery from continuing to shell
Slavyansk. It was a well-planned and executed ambush. Around 1:00 pm
the unsuspecting Ukrainians were attacked by a platoon of fighters from
Kramatorsk concealed in the foliage. A GAZ-66 truck carrying a mortar
was destroyed, as were two BTRs and two KamAZ trucks. One of the
KamAZ trucks was carrying infantry, the other ammunition. Seven
Ukrainians were killed and ten were wounded in the ambush. The militia
captured a Cornflower[51] towed mortar from a second GAZ-66 truck.
One militiaman was killed in the ambush – thirty-six year old Sergey
Grishin, a native of Dnepropetrovsk living in Makeyevka.

The BTR destroyed in the ambush

 Not long before his death, Grishin posted a quote from the movie
“Gladiator” on his Vkontakte page:
“Ultimately, we’re all dead men. Sadly we cannot choose how, but we
can decide how we meet that end in order that we are remembered as
men”.[52]
The ATO’s headquarters reported the following about the ambush:
“During a movement, a paratrooper convoy of the Ukrainian Armed
Forces unit was insidiously ambushed by terrorists with grenade
launchers and small arms. More than thirty attackers were deployed
along the river or hidden in the bushes prior to the arrival of the convoy.
The first shot from the terrorist grenade launcher hit the engine of a BTR
as it approached the bridge. This caused it to explode. Another BTR tried
to push the damaged BTR away from the village as it caught fire. The
convoy’s fighters returned fire. Two fighters were killed and three were
wounded from the first volley from the terrorists’ heavy weapons. In total,
six fighters from the Armed Forces of Ukraine were killed and eight were
wounded as a result of the long battle.”
The Ukrainians admitted in October 2014 that seven of their fighters
had been killed in the ambush.
On 14 May, the Slavyansk mayor’s press secretary, Stella Horosheva,
told reporters that eleven more Ukrainian militants were killed and thirty
four were wounded in action that day. Artillery duels and skirmishes were
ongoing, and losses of the warring parties were not always known, so it
is difficult to know if her numbers were accurate. They may have been a
deliberate bluff. Nonetheless, that day was a victorious day for the militia.
Horosheva said on the same day that the militia was taking an offensive
posture and had demanded that the Ukrainians leave Slavyansk.
Abwehr told the media:
“If the armored vehicles are not driven away and the checkpoints are
not removed – all will be destroyed and burned. I will have enough
strength and resources and my commands are obeyed. Commando
groups are ready to move, and some are already in position. I give you
twenty four hours to remove all of your forces.”
On the night of 16 May, the militia finally occupied Semyonovka. At
3:00 am, three groups with twenty men each (Motorola, Odessa and
Noil’s units) left Slavyansk and squeezed a platoon of Ukrainian soldiers
out of the village. The Ukrainians offered no resistance and quickly
retreated. The Russian took positions in Semyonovka, including two
checkpoints on the outskirts of the village and the hospital complex.
 The next day, 17 May, a powerful force was massed around
Slavyansk. Several hundred National Guards were sent to clear out Ray-
Aleksandrovka (a village east of Slavyansk near Nikolayevka). About
seven hundred other National Guards arrived with armored vehicles in
the area between the Red Liman and the BZS checkpoints.
As the route was blocked to civilian traffic during the day, there were
many cars stuck in the area. The militia had to temporarily halt firing on
the Ukrainians in order to avoid hitting civilians in their cars. The
Kramatorsk Company continued to haunt other checkpoints and other
strongpoints, and our artillery hammered Mount Karachun. The
Ukrainians responded by firing 120-mm mortars.
On 16 May, after the expiration of the ultimatum, a militia commando
group attacked the Ukrainian base near Izyum. The militia also attacked
the Kramatorsk Airport, causing a fire there and inflicting five casualties.
At the Semyonovka, the Ukrainians tried to advance on the militia
position with three BTRs and under the cover of mortar fire, but hastily
retreated after their BTRs took hits from a PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle. A
Ukrainian attempt to inflict losses on the militia with several BTRs was
thwarted by the militia’s artillery. There were several firefights in the area
near the Salt Plant, which together cost the Ukrainians several dead and
wounded while forcing them to retreat to the BZS checkpoint.
Motorola’s group snuck up on the BZS checkpoint that night, passing
the Ukrainian guards and approaching the motel where the Ukrainians
were sleeping. They fired a Bumblebee[53] rocket into the window of the
motel. While the Ukrainians reported no losses, it must be assumed they
were considerable – both from the Bumblebee explosion as well as
subsequent friendly fire. Motorola’s group quickly withdrew from the area
after firing the Bumblebee. While moving away, they heard wild screams
and fierce fighting around the BZS checkpoint for some time. Strelkov
believed that Motorola’s raid had confused the Ukrainians into fighting
each other.
On 18 May, fighting resumed with renewed vigor. The Russians
launched an attack on the Ukrainian checkpoint near Malinovka that
morning with mortars and grenade launchers. The checkpoint was
completely destroyed, along with two BTRs. The Ukrainians suffered
some losses, while the Russians only suffered one wounded.
In the afternoon, the militia shelled a group of Ukrainians from the
National Guard and the 25th and 95th Airmobile Brigades in a grove near
the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk road. Through their binoculars, the militiamen
watched with satisfaction as the Ukrainians scattered in panic. A total of
sixty 82-mm and ten Nona shells were fired. The Nona also shelled the
Ukrainians on Mount Karachun. After the attack in Malinovka and the
shelling of Mount Karachun, the Ukrainians sent helicopters to pick up
the wounded.
In the evening, the militia found out that there were National Guards
in Seleznyovka. A militia commando group snuck into the village, killed
six National Guards in a short firefight, and destroyed their KamAZ.
The BZS checkpoint was attacked again that day. A shot from an
RPG-18 “Fly” destroyed a Ukrainian BMD there.
According to radio interceptions, over thirty Ukrainian soldiers were
killed and sixty were wounded on 18 May. Most were killed in the shelling
of the grove between Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, although it is unknown
how many died there specifically. The Ukrainians lost three armored
vehicles and two trucks. Strelkov spoke on the successes of 18 May:
“The grove was packed with men like fish in a barrel, and they were
cut down in tightly packed heaps. It was the same in Malinovka – they
were very tightly packed.”
On that day, the Ukrainians launched another assault on Kramatorsk
with artillery support, but to no avail. They were able to break into the city
at two points, starting a firefight. The Ukrainian BTRs were unable to
advance past the bridge near the Energomashspetsstal plant. The
Ukrainians withdrew over the night of 18-19 May, enabling the Russians
to retake two lost checkpoints.
A military expert described the Kramatorsk events well. Boris Rozhin,
better known on LiveJournal as Colonel Cassad, analyzed the strange
and ineffective tactics of the enemy.
 “The intense skirmishes on the outskirts of Slavyansk were the junta’s
preliminary attempts to move into Kramatorsk. The assault was
supported by 122-mm howitzers deployed near the TV tower on Mount
Karachun which shelled the checkpoints at the outskirts of Kramatorsk.
The National Guard, supported by BTRs, tried to enter the city. The exact
number of attackers is not known. From scraps of publicly available
information, there were up to twelve BTRs and 250-300 infantry. The
National Guard was able to storm the cafeteria with artillery and BR
support, and then proceeded to advance to Hospital No. 3 before being
halted at the city hall. As the fighting continued, the Ukrainians were
thrown back to the airfield.
Later that evening, a second attack on Kramatorsk was launched
from the Yasnogorka side of the city. The attack included six BTRs and
an infantry force of National Guards. The attack tried to take the
checkpoints, but was weak and repelled by the militia. There is no
reliable data on losses from either side, but judging from the intensity of
the fighting there were certainly losses. The assault was an unusual one,
since the low quality of National Guard training as well as clearly
insufficient forces led to high losses and a failure to achieve given
objectives. It has been a month since the attack on 24 April, and
changes in tactics, other than murders of civilians, are not visible. At the
same time, the absence of helicopters is notable. Apparently the junta is
afraid of new losses, or the pilots refuse to fly into a fortified area where
there are an unknown number of MANPADs. There were no well-planned
attacks on cities, but instead haphazard pushes that led to unnecessary
casualties while failing to solve operational problems.”
On 18 May, Stella Horosheva reported that 10 Ukrainian soldiers had
been shot by National Guards after they expressed a desire to join the
militia. In turn, the Ukrainians claimed that those ten men (natives of the
Donbass) had deserted. Be that as it may, defections from the Ukrainian
forces were not a rare occurrence. There were frequent reports of
punitive actions taken against Russian sympathizers by National Guards
and Right Sector militants. There were even repeated reports of radicals
setting up blocking detachments to force unwilling soldiers into battle.
 Chapter 30 - Volunteer Movement

The situation of the volunteers in Slavyansk was becoming critical.

There was a shortage of both officers and men. On 17 May, Igor Strelkov
made his famous address to the residents of Donbass. The appeal was
recorded on video and distributed via the internet. The author of this
book sees this entry as a valuable historical document reflecting both the
spirit of the time and the state of the militia. The appeal characterized
Strelkov well both as a man and as a commander. His address was as
follows:
“Citizens of the Donetsk People's Republic!
I appeal to you all with a request. With a request to stand up to
defend your motherland, your homes, your families, your people. It falls
on me to ask you to do things that most do not. Standing up for your
motherland and her freedom have always been matters of honor, and all
who called themselves men have willingly answered her calls for aid
since time immemorial. However, I have to tell you the hard truth and say
harsh words that may offend your dignity. It has been over a month since
we, a small group of volunteers from Russia and Ukraine, answered your
calls for help. Over the past month, we have been engaged in an armed
struggle against the entire Ukrainian army. In that time, we have heard a
desperate call many times – calls for weapons so that you could fight for
your freedom, your right to read and speak your native Russian
language, the right to honor your ancestors – the heroes of WWII, and to
not be under the rule of Nazi criminals. Having heard these calls, we
obtained weapons. We took them from warehouses, captured them from
the Ukrainian military, and bought them from merchants for unimaginable
amounts of money. Now we have the weapons. They aren’t in the rear,
but at the front in the besieged city of Slavyansk. It is there that
volunteers are needed most, as well as in our garrisons at
Konstantinovka and Red Liman. The junta in Kiev has massed her
strongest forces there – two thirds of them – as well as the headquarters
of the so called “anti-terrorist operation”. The moment has come when
every Donetsk citizen capable of carrying weapons can hold one. Join
the militia to expel your tormentors from your native land. But what do we
see? Much, but not the needed crowds of volunteers. There are one
hundred and twenty thousand people in Slavyansk, and twice as many in
Kramatorsk. In total, four and half million people live in the Donetsk
region. True, not all of them are men of military age. Some are employed
in essential industries, some have family concerns or other
understandable personal circumstances. But to be honest, I did not
expect that there would be so few willing to risk their lives for their own
homes.
However, this is the case. I will even give examples. Three days ago,
a group of twelve Artyomovsk "Heroes" arrived. Having learned that they
would be fighting in Slavyansk and not at home in Artyomovsk, they
didn’t even take weapons. Yesterday, thirty five volunteers from Donetsk
arrived, and heard the distant sounds of mortars. Twenty five of them
returned home unarmed. And these are by no means the only cases.
While in Crimea, I heard stories from leaders of the protest that once the
miners rose up, they’d tear their enemies apart with their bare hands.
Maybe it happened once, but I haven’t seen it. A few hundred people
have stood up and fought. Tens and hundreds of thousands watch the
fighting quietly on television, sipping a beer. Apparently they are waiting
for Russia to do all the fighting for them, or for enough reckless
volunteers to die so that they might live a life more dignified than what
they have had under twenty-three years of Ukrainian nationalist rule.
Where are those twenty seven thousand volunteers whom the journalists
wrote about? I haven’t seen them. They could go home with a proud look
and tell admiring women “I joined the militia” – but are they capable?
There are more and more men in their forties and even older who grew
up and received training in the USSR. But there are very few young men.
Where are all of them? Are they in those bandit “brigades”, who, sensing
anarchy, raid all the towns around Donetsk? That is why militia
commanders are faced with the questions: is this volunteer an honest
citizen and a Donetsk patriot, or a bandit? The answer we give is simple:
a militiaman is one who has taken a direct part in hostilities with the
junta, in a time and place which his commander deemed necessary.
Without discipline, there is nothing, not just victory, but also order.
Donetsk needs defenders, and the militia needs disciplined volunteer
soldiers. If men are not capable, then we will have to call women. I gave
the order that from this day on they are to be allowed into the militia.
In this entire region, there have only been a few dozen professional
military men ready to lead combat units. This is a shame and a disgrace!
For two weeks I have been asking you to send me chiefs of staff and at
least five company and platoon commanders and I have only received
silence. No one has come. Companies and platoons are commanded by
privates and reserve sergeants. Some lead well, but at the higher ranks
you feel their lack of necessary military knowledge. They can learn over
time, but there are perhaps only a few days left until the fighting
becomes ferocious. There will be real battles in the future, with hundreds
killed or wounded. The enemy is demoralized, but he is still very strong.
He is supported by powerful oligarchs who pay huge sums of money for
every murder, every destroyed house, every crime against the Russian
people. To defeat him, you must fight. Let those citizens who are capable
prove their devotion to their native land and to their people. Come to the
headquarters of the militia, in Slavyansk, in Kramatorsk, in Red Liman, in
Konstantinovka, and in Gorlovka. There are commanders appointed by
me who will form units, train volunteers, and forward them to the army.
Although we look like a small and unimportant partisan unit, we fight and
win. The road will be mastered by walking it. God is with us!”
The negative societal trends that Strelkov had noted in his speech
were beyond the ability of one man to reverse. Strelkov's appeal didn’t
lead to a flood of volunteers, but did increase the volume of volunteers
trickling into Slavyansk. These would prove to be the most ideologically
driven men. Strelkov’s warning of greater battles and worse losses in the
future would come true within two months. By then, thousands of men
started volunteering, as the war had reached every major city in the
Donbass and the homes of all. It can be stated that 17 May, the date of
Strelkov’s speech, became the second most important day in recruitment
for the militia since 2 May.
On 17 May, the date of Strelkov’s public appeal, the author of this
book, Alexander Zhuchkovsky, call sign “Boatswain” (not to be confused
with the ATGM commander “Boatswain”) was in Lugansk. I had tried
coming to the Donbass on 26 April, but was detained by the SBU at the
border. They deported me and banned me from entering Ukraine for
three years.
I returned to my home in Saint Petersburg, but after the Odessa
events I decided to go back to the Donbass. I contacted Oleg Melnikov, a
resident of Moscow, who headed an organization called “Alternative”[54].
He got us in touch with Chechen War veteran Valery “Serb” Berezantsev
from Stavropol, and planned our journey to Donbass.
On 6 May we arrived in Rostov, and from there crossed a river ford
into Lugansk. For our first two weeks in Donbass we camped out in the
Lugansk SBU building. The SBU building had been occupied by the
militia on 6 April, and was prepared for a Ukrainian attack. After that, we
left for Aleksey Mozgovoy’s unit that was camped out in the forest. At the
time, they were unblooded and had yet to see fighting.
It was agonizing waiting in Lugansk. We didn’t understand what was
happening in Slavyansk, and spent our days guarding the Lugansk
barricades. The Lugansk militia grumbled about the inaction, and argued
about the necessity of offensive military actions against the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians themselves didn’t dare to attack Lugansk itself, as they
still believed the city was occupied with Russian special forces.

The author with other volunteers in Lugansk

On 18 May, I was in the SBU building and watched Strelkov’s video
message with Melnikov and Berezantsev. We decided to go to Slavyansk
immediately. We headed out to the barricades, and asked the militiamen
who amongst them would join us in fighting for Slavyansk. Twelve
agreed to go immediately, and a few dozen others said they would head
out in a day or two once they had said goodbye to their families.
Within an hour, we found a minibus with a driver who agreed to drive
us directly to Slavyansk. We called Gubarev’s people on the way, and
they agreed to provide us guides to show us a relatively safe road. We
arrived in Slavyansk that evening. We were given weapons the next
morning. Half of our group was given AKs, and the other half, SKSs. The
following day, the commander of the militia in Semyonovka Sergey “Kap”
Velikorodny took us to the front.

The author with Kap

I wrote about the circumstances of my arrival in Donbass on my
social media pages at the time. As a result, I received many messages
from those who wanted to come. We kept in touch with the people who
had helped us cross the border in early May, and with their help we
organized two border crossings. The crossings were in locations that
prevented the Ukrainians from detaining volunteers, and had signalmen
who would alert volunteers if there were Ukrainians nearby.
Volunteers would arrive in the Rostov region in Russia, usually near
the village of Millerovo. There, they would meet guides, cross the border,
then head off from Lugansk to Donetsk and then onto Slavyansk. By the
end of May, a few dozen volunteers had passed through that way. In
June, hundreds would follow. Unfortunately, not all made it to Slavyansk.
Many would join other militia units on the way – all were asking for
volunteers.
The weapons supply had similar issues from May through June.
Many were donated by comrades in the Russian Federation, but they
often failed to make it to Slavyansk. Instead, the militiamen in Lugansk,
Donetsk, and other areas took them for themselves, even though their
sectors were not active.
Oleg Melnikov and I coordinated the flow of Russian volunteers to
Donbass over the next year and a half. In that period, several thousand
people came to the Donbass to join the militia. These volunteers found
information on how to volunteer for the war on our VKontakte social
media page “Reports from the New Russia Militia” (originally “Bulletins
from Strelkov”), as well as the Russian nationalist websites “Sputnik and
Pogrom” and “Right View”.
We also raised funds through our connections and the internet to
supply the militia with uniforms, arms, equipment, and armored vehicles.
By August 2014, we had raised enough money to buy a BTR-80 and two
BRDM-2s and deliver them to the DPR. In total, we received sixty million
rubles in donations from Russia and abroad in the spring and summer of
2014, and eventually one hundred and thirty million rubles through
summer 2018.
The aforementioned website "Right View" is run by the Russian
Imperial Movement, an organization led by Stanislav Vorobyov and
Denis Gariev. The leaders were both residents of Saint Petersburg, and
run a military sports club there – the Imperial Legion. The Legion
recruited, trained, equipped, and dispatched about twenty groups to
Donbass over the course of the war. These groups varied in number
from as few as ten men to as many as thirty. Only two of these groups
arrived in time to participate in the struggle for Slavyansk. The second
group arrived two days before the retreat, and two of their fighters were
killed in action there.
In addition to our team, volunteers were also coordinated by Mihail
Polynkov’s organization “Volunteer” and writer Eduard Limonov’s
“Interbrigade”[55]. Thousands of volunteers who fought in the Donbass
passed through these and other organizations, and many more came on
their own. The total number of volunteers in the Donbass War is difficult
to assess, as no one ever led a count. According to very rough data,
between thirty-five and fifty thousand men served in the militia.
 Very few of the volunteers ever made it to Slavyansk. This was
because most of the volunteers came in June and afterwards, and the
militia retreated from Slavyansk in early July. Nonetheless, they were
needed where they were. After the fall of Slavyansk, the war spread
throughout the whole of the Donbass.
We highly commend the 2014 volunteer movement. Thousands of
people from across the Russian Federation and Donbass risked their
lives to fight for the freedom of New Russia. But they only came in large
numbers two months after the beginning of the struggle. They were
swayed by Strelkov’s harsh but fair appeal on 17 May even as Slavyansk
was suffocating for want of warriors and weapons. On the other hand,
veterans of the war speak with indignation that the number of volunteers
in the war was negligible relative to the 146 million people of the Russian
Federation and the 6 million people of the Donbass. Their indignation is
understandable, but speaks to their emotional assessment. History
shows that few men fight in wars, and volunteers are always a very small
fraction of any society. For example, in the Russian Civil War of 1917-
1921, no more than a million men on both sides combined fought to rule
170 million people.
On 6 May 2014 Igor Strelkov wrote:
“The people of Slavyansk and most of the Donbass are very much
looking forward to Russian help. The fact that few are volunteering to
stand up to defend an almost hopeless cause bodes ill for Russia. God
forbid if anything such as this happens to you. As you can see for
yourself, there will be few volunteers willing to help.”
Most modern men are not interested in fighting in wars, even if the
war is near their home. In the fall of 2016, British journalist Graham
Philips (affectionately known as Grisha for his active work in Donbass)
interviewed Russians on the streets of Rostov. He asked them what they
thought about the situation in Donbass. It turned out that few ever
thought about the Donbass, and that most didn’t care what happened
there. The people he encountered either shied away from giving Philips a
straight answer, or said that they didn’t understand the war since it
wasn’t on television.
Rostov isn’t a faraway city beyond the Urals, untouched by the war,
but a mere one hundred and fifty kilometers away from the front. It is the
closest major city to Donbass, and is home to many refugees. The
apathy that the people of Rostov show to the Donbass situation is not
unusual in Russia, nor was it even unusual in Donbass. After the war
had started in Slavyansk, many noticed that Donetsk was initially
unaffected. Even with daily casualties and artillery a mere fifteen
kilometers away from the city center, Donetsk was still full of dining and
entertainment.
In Slavyansk itself, two-thirds of the young men fled the city at the
start of the war. They left even before the women did. Of the remaining
third, most stayed at home, offering only verbal support to the militia. The
militia was annoyed, but this is how all societies are. It would be strange
for people to provide active support to separatists if even their own
country is declaring that they are rightfully ruled by others. The men who
did volunteer were the most ideologically driven.
It is important to understand that over the last few decades the
martial instinct in the Russian people has atrophied. The USSR instilled
values and traditions in the population emphasizing military commitment
and sacrifice. In the post-Soviet period, consumerism replaced these
values, and the martial instinct withered away. Yet in spite of this, it is
significant that those who did volunteer for the war quickly turned into
skilled soldiers. According to Pennant, this is due to human genetics. An
ordinary man, placed in a terrible situation, will become a fighter.
“As a man fights, his military instincts wake up. These instincts are
embedded in a man from childhood, passing from generation to
generation, sleeping until a certain moment. On a third or fourth day, a
man either deserts a warzone or remains. If he remains, his genetics
wake up, and grow like a flood from a small stream. I have seen so many
times directors, managers, technicians, and office drones become
warriors and commanders in a week. You would never believe that they
used to sit in offices and type on keyboards. One company commander
for instance, used to be a cashier. Who could believe it? He just sat at a
cash register in a Kiev supermarket. He was fined three times for
speaking to customers in Russian rather than Ukrainian. He had turned
against Ukraine long ago, and when the time came he went to war.”
After the publication of his 17 May appeal, Strelkov addressed
questions:
“It is not the result of complete passivity or despondency. It is the
opposite. I am trying to stir up those patriots who, after listening to
reports of victories and having not seen a single National Guard, have
decided that we have already won the war. I have to tell the truth.
Without effort, there will not be victory. If we do win, it will be with much
greater sacrifices than what we can presently give. I am sure of victory.
The only question is in how many will suffer to win it, and how many will
put off making the necessary efforts, hoping for the fortune of a Russian
intervention or a new Maydan in Kiev.”
Two days later, Strelkov confirmed that after his address, forty
volunteers immediately joined the garrison, and that even more were on
their way. On 22 May, about a hundred recruits came in a single day.
“There were many more volunteers after my address. On average,
only thirty to fifty people come to Slavyansk each day, with more in other
cities. In the last three days, we have received two hundred and fifty
armed volunteers, with twice as many in reserve, waiting for the
Ukrainian assault.”
On 1 June Strelkov stated:
“Every day, this city is on the verge of an assault and is shelled by
artillery. Nonetheless, fifty men arrive each day to volunteer. There are
deserters of course – about five percent – few for a volunteer formation.”
Most volunteers to Slavyansk were sent by Pavel Gubarev’s
mobilization board in Donetsk. It was essentially a military enlistment
office, disseminating information to attract new recruits as well as
processing volunteers. The volunteers were interviewed by the board.
Incapable volunteers were turned away, while volunteers with military
experience were highlighted. About 40% of the volunteers were citizens
of the Russian Federation.
While only six people were employed by the mobilization board, there
were a large number of volunteers who supported it. Every day for a
month and a half the board and its volunteers sent a bus of twenty to
forty men to Slavyansk. About half of the entire Slavyansk and
Kramatorsk garrisons came through the board.
The board didn’t merely organize transportation to Slavyansk from
the cities of the Donbass, but also organized the transportation of
Russian volunteers from the left bank of the Don in Rostov. Volunteers
were picked up by a bus in Rostov, taken to a border crossing, and then
taken to Donetsk. In Donetsk, they would be processed and sent on to
Slavyansk.
At first Gubarev used a forest base for this, close to the border, and
was forwarding on volunteers in cars provided by locals. As it turned out,
those locals were bringing the volunteers to the “Stronghold” and “East”
militia units. Since Stronghold and East were not involved in fighting at
the time, Gubarev set up a base in Rostov and organized transportation
himself. This ensured volunteers were brought to fighting units and not
intercepted by others. That greatly annoyed the commanders of
Stronghold and East, who would constantly cause strife within the ranks
of the militia over the next few months.
Through mid-May, the Slavyansk garrison was about 90% local
Donbass residents and 10% Russian citizens. By the end of May and
beginning of June, the garrison’s makeup had shifted – about 30% were
Russian citizens by that time. According to the statistics of the
mobilization board, by the end of June 40% of those who had
volunteered through the board were Russian citizens.
Gubarev said:
“At that time we were focused only on reinforcing the Slavyansk
garrison. Fighters were only sent to Slavyansk. Especially among the
Russian volunteers, it was considered more honorable to go to the front
than to sit in the rear in Donetsk. We sent a platoon worth of fighters to
Slavyansk every day, although about half of them would drop out for
various reasons. There were many different types of men.”
According to Gubarev, the volunteers included both very valuable
cadres as well as useless men. Although Strelkov insisted that everyone
could be put to work, Gubarev tried to get rid of useless men as quickly
as he could.
“The quality of human material varied widely, from veterans and
officers to criminals. I told Strelkov that I wanted to filter out the
unreliable elements, but Strelkov said that every man was needed, even
if they were just used for manual labor. I will admit that from the
beginning of the fighting, even men of dubious backgrounds fought
bravely at the front lines. It was a holy war that redeemed many.
About 20% of the men sent to the front were highly qualified for war –
veterans or retired officers. At first there were problems with their
distribution. For example, at the beginning of June, a major who had
been sent to Slavyansk by us gave me a call. He told me that he had
serious experience and knowledge of warfare, but that he was left idle at
a checkpoint. I immediately contacted Strelkov, let him know the
situation, and put the officer to proper use. After that, we worked to
ensure that qualified and experienced personnel were not placed in a
secondary or tertiary role.
We started to send men to Slavyansk with accompanying documents
which provided information about the volunteer, his military knowledge
and experience, and the results of our interview (which included a
psychologist). These reports made it easier for the commanders at
Slavyansk to organize the men properly.”
Among the volunteers, there were several foreign nationals with
Russian roots. One doctor came from France to treat the militia’s
wounded. Another French citizen who joined the militia was the famous
poet and playwright Yury Yurchenko. He was born in Odessa, grew up in
Kolyma, and left for Europe in 1990, and lived there with his family for 23
years until the Donbass events.
Yury Yurchenko arrived in Donbass at the call of his Russian heart in
the first half of June. In a conversation with the author of the book, Yury
recalls:
“On the morning of 10 June, I joined the Donbass People’s Militia in
Donetsk. I was immediately enrolled in the Slavyansk garrison, but prior
to departing on the bus to Slavyansk I was detained by Pavel Gubarev
with a German volunteer known by his call sign “Stirlitz”. We were asked
to help him open up internet pages in French and German. We opened
those pages in two to three days (New Russia Today and others). On 13
June we got onto a transport truck carrying medicine and left for
Slavyansk. On the 15th we were placed at the disposal of Hasanov, and
he sent me to Semyonovka on the 16th, under Motorola’s command.
Since I had never fought before and had no military experience
beyond hunting with a carbine as a child in the taiga of Kolyma, I was
refused my request to join a combat unit. It was explained to me that in
war, everyone must do their duty, and that I was of more use as a writer
than an untrained fighter. As a result, under the guidance of Hasanov, I
received my orders to be a war correspondent. The orders were signed
by Strelkov. I think that at the time I was the first man ordered to be a war
correspondent.
After my first post on Facebook about Slavyansk, I was contacted by
several Russian and foreign publications and offered work as a stringer. I
was delighted with the opportunity of extra money. But I thought that as I
was living, eating, sleeping, and taking cover with the militia; it wouldn’t
be right to make money on this. I would cease to be a part of them. I
refused the offers, and said I would only publish on the Facebook page
and the “New Russia” newspaper.”
Yury Yurchenko left Slavyansk during the retreat on the night of 5
July. For the next month and a half, Yurchenko took an active part in the
fighting. He was captured on 20 August near Ilovaysk by National
Guards. After enduring torture, he was released in a prisoner exchange
on 8 September and sent to Moscow for medical care prior to returning
to the Donbass.
During the first phase of the Donbass War, there were many idealists
and romantics like Yury Yurchenko. This is typical of any revolutionary or
liberation uprising. In the period preceding the formation of an army and
a state, the decisive historical forces are not institutions but people. As a
rule, these people are not officials or bureaucrats. They are the
freethinking, the idealistic, and the creative.
Another feature of revolutionary times is that those sorts of people
are always superseded. They die in battle, or are superseded by their
more pragmatic comrades. This is what happened to all of the leaders of
the Donbass People’s Militia from 2014-2016.
Yury Yurkencho states:
“The militia in 2014, and in particular the Slavyansk garrison, was an
army of idealists and poets. It is not a coincidence that both Mozgovoy
and Strelkov wrote poetry. Even if others were not poets, many were
certainly idealists.
During our onboarding into the militia, I asked to be given the name
“Poet” as a call sign. However, I was told that the militia already had
three men with the call sign “Poet”, and they would not approve me to be
the fourth. So I changed my call sign to “Henri”. Over the course of the
war, I was able to meet all three men with the call sign of “Poet”. All three
were idealists. It was different after Strelkov’s removal from Donetsk after
the First Minsk Agreement. It had turned into an entirely different war.”

Yury Yurchenko
The ideological and religious views of the Donbass fighters were very
different. The volunteers from Russia were mostly from the political right
– Orthodox Christians, nationalists, and monarchists. There were some
leftists who came from Russia to fight. In the Donbass, the political left
had always been dominant due to the industry in the region. Red workers
were the norm, and had been for a long time. Leftism in the Donbass by
the time of the war was more nostalgia for the Soviet Union than any
specific worldview. To the people of the Donbass, the anti-Soviet rhetoric
of Ukraine was simply a different kind of Russophobia.
In any case, all the volunteers were united by their shared opposition
to Ukraine. There were no political arguments at the barricades,
checkpoints or in the trenches. Igor Strelkov, in answering questions
about the ideological views of the militia wrote:
“It is regrettable that it (ideological diversity) matters. But on the other
hand, it would be harmful for an all-encompassing ideology to develop. It
is enough that many people of different views are unified in the struggle
for national liberation out of shared language, culture, and hatred of
Ukrainians.”
On 26 May a large force of volunteers was badly mauled. On that
day, more than fifty militiamen were killed in the battle for the Donetsk
Airport. Half of them were from Russia. Bloody footage of the dead in the
morgue were spread around the media. Many who saw the images
decided to not go to the Donbass.
 Chapter 31 - Artillery Terror

On 20 May about twenty Ukrainians backed by a BTR and a BMP

attacked the Russian checkpoint near Semyonovka in an attempt to
advance. The Russian repulsed the attack, wounding several Ukrainians
and damaging the BTR. The BTR broke down shortly after during the
Ukrainian retreat. The Ukrainian attack was only an attempt to probe the
Russian defenses and not a serious assault.
On the night of 24 May, a militia detachment attacked the Ukrainian
held checkpoint at Seleznyovka. One militiaman was killed in the attack,
but two Ukrainian BTRs were destroyed.
During the day, our artillery shelled the Ukrainians at the feed mill and
the BZS. Ninety 82-mm and twenty five Nona shells were fired at the
BZS, causing a powerful explosion after one shell scored a direct hit on a
Ukrainian ammunition stockpile. After the explosion, the Ukrainians
defending the BZS checkpoint retreated to the Red Liman checkpoint.
There was an ambush waiting for the Ukrainians on their retreat to
the Red Liman checkpoint. The ambush successfully destroyed two
Ukrainian BTRs. One Ukrainian BTR was destroyed by a hit from an
RPG, and the other was disabled by several rounds from the 12.7 mm
Cliff machine gun. The Russian infantry then attacked the Ukrainians
with rifle and machine gun fire while supported by the cannon of a BMD-
1. Due to the numerical superiority of Ukrainian armor, the Russians
withdrew as they were ordered.
In total, four Ukrainian BTRs were destroyed on 24 May. There is no
reliable data on Ukrainian casualties. Ukrainians acknowledged two dead
and four wounded, but there were probably many more casualties.
Starting from the 13 May defeat of the Ukrainian column at
Oktyabrskoye, Russians regularly raided Ukrainian positions with much
success. Demoralized by the raids, the Ukrainians quieted down for
several weeks, avoiding direct assaults and focusing on shelling the
Russians from a safe distance.
The militia attacks were particularly focused on the area around the
ATO field headquarters in the village of Dolgenkoye, 35 kilometers away
from Slavyansk. Ukrainian Major General Viktor Nazarov said the
following to the “Pyotr and Mazepa''[56] website in August 2018:
 “Just in the immediate vicinity of our headquarters, a mere 2 to 15
kilometers away – there were 13 terrorist ambushes from 20 to 30 May
alone. In June there were more than 30 ambushes in the area, more or
less every day.”
Despite this, the militia’s ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of
Ukrainian forces[57] was a bluff. The Slavyansk garrison could not launch
any offensives as the Ukrainian forces opposing them were too large.
The militia forces in other parts of the DPR were only beginning to be
formed, and there was no help from the Russian Federation. All that
remained was for the Slavyansk garrison to hold out as long as they
could, in hopes of either Russian Federation’s intervention or a full
mobilization of the Donbass for war. As they held out, they fought as best
they could. They prepared ambushes, launched raids, and dueled
Ukrainian artillery with the legendary Nona. The Nona almost single
handedly dueled with eight artillery batteries firing from Mount Karachun
and Raygorodok.
After 20 May, the Ukrainians began to terrorize Semyonovka with
artillery, and by the end of the month Slavyansk itself. The use of the
word “terror” to describe the artillery shelling may seem hypocritical to a
reader given that the militia constantly fired shells back at the Ukrainians
(“our heroic adventurers, their brutish invaders” as the memes say). If the
Ukrainians had fired their artillery exclusively on militia positions, it would
have been an honest war. However, the Ukrainians fired mostly on
civilian areas, using shells of all calibers on both the suburbs and the
most densely populated parts of Slavyansk. This was the real artillery
terror – actions that could not be explained by any military necessity. The
Ukrainians wanted to instill fear in the locals, encourage them to flee the
city, and to cause them to blame the militia for their misery.
Yegor Holmogorov wrote about the shelling of civilian areas:
“The “anti-terrorist operation” of Ukraine will go down in history as the
first operation of its kind in history. The “terrorists” shout “surrender -
otherwise we will kill the hostages”.”
Ordinary civilians, only familiar with war through WWII movies, were
shocked by the bombardments. One local resident said that children
stopped smiling in Slavyansk on 27 May after several people were killed
and injured by Ukrainian artillery.
The Ukrainians fired their artillery without targeting, instead choosing
to fire shells into the city by chance. The evidence for this is in a video
found on the phone of a dead Ukrainian soldier on Mount Karachun. In a
five minute video, which he published on YouTube, a group of Ukrainian
soldiers drink alcohol and joke around. They load their artillery batteries,
fire them, drink again, then laugh. One of the Ukrainian soldiers hums
“We hit Semyonovka, wooooo”. Another soldier responds “Well,
Andryushka[58] giving a fuck? Slavyansk is a crematorium. It was a pretty
little village, pity it isn’t anymore.”. Another drunken soldier says “We are
drinking, but we will fire. We are paratroopers, and will work, no shit,
without coordinates.”
The video was of Ukrainian Airborne forces, mostly likely from the
th
95 Airmobile Brigade. They were not radicals from Right Sector or from
the National Guard (which recruited ethnically conscious Ukrainians).
They were ordinary military personnel, soldiers whom the militia didn’t
want to fight, hoping that they would either defect to the militia or become
neutral.
By the beginning of July, there were sixteen thousand 122-mm shell
casings left on Mount Karachun according to Ukrainian media. Several
thousand more were found near the other Ukrainian batteries in
Raygorodok. Perhaps over twenty thousand shells had been fired at
Slavyansk from May through early July – almost five hundred a day.
On May 27, Igor Strelkov wrote:
“The worst thing is that the artillery officers on Mount Karachun are all
Russian. It is the Russians who are the most professional men of the
Ukrainian army, and they are fighting to ensure that their children and
grandchildren do not speak Russian.”
A few days earlier, the commander spoke in detail about the Armed
Forces of Ukraine:
“We have observed a truce near Slavyansk with the army for a long
time. But it is becoming more and more meaningless because it covers
SBU and National Guard checkpoints too. They (the army) search cars,
kidnap our people, and obstruct our movement. The siege is carried out
by the army, so do we need to surrender or something so that they only
shoot at the “mobilized”? Do you seriously think there are only potential
defectors in the army? There are parts (the 95th Airmobile Brigade for
instance), staffed almost entirely by westerners who are completely
brainwashed. They fight poorly and have little bravery, but they are quite
ready to “kill the Muscovites”. By the way, the artillery is fired by the
army. They fired yesterday, and the day before that. Some say that “boys
were forced to fight and you have to feel sorry for them.” Forced or not
forced, we are at war after all. In war, as in war.”
 It was interesting to watch how the Slavyansk locals responded to the
increase in hostilities. At first, they could not accept that Ukraine, the
state they had lived under for a quarter of a century, was behaving as an
invader rather than a liberator. “They wouldn’t dare” some said. “This
can’t be happening!” declared others. As the Ukrainians brought more
artillery to Slavyansk, they repeated their disbelief more and more.
Since mid-April 2014, the animosity between the Russians and the
Ukrainians had been growing. The more wounded, the more dead, the
more bitterness. Ukrainians were frustrated with the Slavyansk locals
who were sheltering separatists. It is not surprising that after a month
and a half they began to terrorize the city with all the weapons they had
available: combat aircraft, MLRS, and white phosphorus among them.
The Ukrainians had begun a war of destruction. This was especially
obvious in the last days of the siege, before the Russian retreat. The
Ukrainians surrounded the city with barbed wire, mined the outskirts, and
used their artillery to its fullest capability.
On 23 May the militia posted leaflets around the city. The leaflets
advised the residents of Slavyansk to evacuate. The Ukrainians had
started firing 152-mm howitzers at Semyonovka, destroying three houses
as well as militia positions. Ukrainian troops and paramilitaries were
massing for an assault with heavy artillery and aviation.
On the night of 25 May, Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and
Russian journalist Andrey Mironov were killed in their car by Ukrainian
mortarfire near Slavyansk. Their car was hit while stopped at a militia
checkpoint. They were the first journalists killed in the conflict. French
photographer William Rogulen was wounded.
On 26 May artillery began to hit not just the suburbs, but the core of
Slavyansk itself. Two civilians were killed, and five wounded. On 27 May,
mortarfire killed four civilians in the Artyom neighborhood. Fires blazed
every day from the shellfire.
Western media raised a wave of indignation after the deaths of the
journalists. Deputy Prime Minster of Ukraine Vitaly Yarema blamed the
deaths of the journalists on the separatists. This was the norm in the
conflict. Russians were always blamed for civilian deaths from shellfire,
no matter how absurd the claims. In Russian media, an ironic expression
spread – the Russians “fired at themselves”.
 Chapter 32 - Semyonovka Psychiatric Hospital

On 24 May, the first massive artillery barrage on the Semyonovka

hospital complex began. By that time, this author was at the front lines.
Our company was located in one of the five hospital buildings. Our
company was commanded by Sergey “Small” Derevyankin, a native of
Lugansk.
At the beginning of the conflict, Small joined Aleksey Mozgovoy’s
contingent. After the liberation of Slavyansk, Mozgovoy began to work
closely with Strelkov. He reinforced the garrison, and was later relocated
to Lisichansk. There, Strelkov regularly reinforced him.
Small arrived in Slavyansk in the fourth week of April. Small was
remembered as a fearless commander with a colorful appearance. He
had a large, jet black beard, a gravelly voice, and wore a round skullcap.
Many mistook him for a Chechen, but he was a Little Russian and
Orthodox by religion.

Sergey “Small” Derevyankin

Small led the Semyonovsky Battalion after leaving Slavyansk. It was
based in Snezhnoye, and was later moved to the southern front near
Mariupol. Small and his fighters took part in heavy bloody battles on the
Russian border and near Mariupol. They were at Novoazovsk, Shirokino
and some other settlements on the southern front. In mid-2016, Small left
the DPR Armed Forces. As of 2018, he lives in Donetsk, ready to rejoin
the army in case of a continuation of the conflict.
The Semyonovsky Company spent most of its time in the second half
of May building a defensive line. They dug trenches, erected firing points,
and built artillery shelters. In addition, they prepared the vulnerable for
evacuation – the insane, the weak, and the elderly.

Our group of volunteers from Russia and Lugansk was positioned in

one of those trenches at Semyonovka. Mortarfire was directed against
our defensive line at night, about 300 meters from the former House of
Culture. There were several Ukrainian artillery spotters about 500 meters
away from the trenches, but their exact location couldn’t be determined.
Oleg Melnikov got out of the trench, ran two hundred meters to the side
(to fake out the Ukrainians and not give away our actual position), then
opened fire on the hedges. The Ukrainians returned fire, and gave away
their position. A long firefight ensued. The Ukrainians retreated; with one
of their number either killed or wounded (we could see them dragging a
body through our binoculars). The mortarfire stopped, and Melnikov
returned to the trench.
 The author and two other militia fighters in Semyonovka
In the first weeks of the conflict, Ukrainian snipers and spotters
constantly appeared at the outskirts of Semyonovka. They usually hid in
the fields and foliage, but some pretended to be civilians and attempted
to sneak into the village. At the end of May, two of the disguised spotters
were identified and detained. To eliminate the Ukrainian snipers in the
foliage, we would launch grenades in their direction, and then shoot the
snipers as they fled.
In war, many men have bouts of luck and narrowly avoid death. I had
two such experiences in Slavyansk. The first was in Semyonovka on 24
May. My friend and I were sitting in the hospital cafeteria for an hour. We
had a weak internet connection, so it took a long time to download the
old Soviet patriotic song “The Sacred War”. We had purchased
loudspeakers the previous day in the Slavyansk market, and had set
them up on the roof. After the download was completed, we left the
cafeteria. A minute later, an artillery shell blasted a hole in the cafeteria
wall at the exact point we had been sitting and sprayed the entire
cafeteria with shrapnel.
 My second bout of luck was also in Semyonovka, and took place on
20 June. I was running away from a building, and it was hit by a tank
shell a few seconds later.
The artillery shelling made the evacuation of hospital patients difficult.
The entire perimeter was shelled for an hour on 24 May. We moved the
elderly to the basement to keep them safe. Many of them could barely
move, so they had to be carried on stretchers. Fortunately no one was
hurt. The hospital patients spent the night in the basement, and were
evacuated from Semyonovka the next day.
From that day on, the Semyonovka hospital was constantly shelled
from Mount Karachun. The artillerymen could see the hospital
themselves. Some of the militia stayed in the hospital’s food serving
area, but most moved to the House of Culture as it was on a hill and had
a better view of the surroundings.

Semyonovka Psychiatric Hospital

 Chapter 33 - Grumpy

Sergey “Grumpy” Dubinsky was a retired Russian military man. Born

in Donetsk, he spent most of his life in Russia. He received a military
education, and fought in both Afghanistan and the North Caucasus. He
had met Strelkov in the wars in the North Caucasus. Shortly before the
Donbass War, he went into the reserves as a colonel and lived in Rostov.

Sergey “Grumpy” Dubinsky

Grumpy arrived in Slavyansk in early May. As a career officer, he was
immediately appointed commander of the Kramatorsk militia. Grumpy led
several successful reconnaissance and military operations, destroying
BTRs and inflicting casualties on Ukrainian forces. After the retreat from
Kramatorsk, he formed the DPR’s GRU[59], whose successful intelligence
gathering led to numerous DPR victories. He returned to Russia at the
end of 2015 due to disagreements with DPR leadership. The GRU was
disbanded, and the DPR Republican Guard was formed from its core.
 Grumpy had known Strelkov since 2002. He renewed contact with
Strelkov immediately after the beginning of the events in Slavyansk, and
arrived there on 2 May. He was sent to Kramatorsk shortly after, and
started to form an intelligence unit.
Four intelligence departments were created. The first was agent
intelligence, the second a special forces unit, the third
counterintelligence, and fourth radio intelligence. In Kramatorsk from
May to June, Grumpy created a wide network of agents which continued
to grow even after the retreat of the militia to Donetsk. Information about
the Ukrainians flooded to the intelligence unit from all over the Donbass.
Over a hundred agents, mostly local residents, transmitted information
about Ukrainian troop deployments, numbers, and equipment.
The radio intelligence department intercepted Ukrainian
communications and provided secure communications for militia
commanders. Viktor Yatsenko, future DPR Minister of Communications,
established a closed internet connection for this. Through radio
interceptions, the intelligence department received information about
movements and plans of the Ukrainians when the Ukrainians failed to
protect their communications.
Here is what Grumpy told the author of this book about his work and
his interaction with other garrisons:
“I didn’t see the point of sitting in Slavyansk. I would be one more
officer organizing the defense of the city. I didn’t sit still and built up an
intelligence network with a radius of forty kilometers. I answered directly
to Strelkov, and in many respects fulfilled his functions as Minister of
Defense. I formed garrisons in Konstantinovka, Druzhovka, Dzerzhinsk. I
traveled to Lugansk, Donetsk, and Gorlovka. I worked with the
commander at Gorlovka – Igor “Demon” Bezler.
Lugansk was a complete mess at the time. The local commanders
wanted to work with us, but Demon didn’t want to work with Strelkov –
they had had a falling out during the Crimean events. I was able to work
things out with Demon, and also brought Mozgovoy’s Ghost Battalion
and Goblin Battalion under our command. The militia at the Izvarino
border crossing joined us as well.
I went to Slavyansk every other day. I brought weapons and
ammunition. From 20 May, all deliveries went through me. Every day, I
went to Konstantinovka and Druzhovka to check on the troops there, and
once a week I went to Gorlovka and Donetsk. I would leave in the
morning and return in the evening. In addition, I planned and carried out
military operations. It was a difficult schedule. “
One of those operations was carried out on 23 May near Dobropol.
Grumpy led a militia detachment to attack a Ukrainian army checkpoint.
They captured armored vehicles and eliminated thirty Ukrainians.
Grumpy told me about the course of the attack:
“We took two police cars and a GAZelle van from the Kramatorsk
Interior Ministry building. We loaded them with 22 men, and drove 78
kilometers through the Dnipropetrovsk region to approach the Ukrainian
unit that was stationed 15 kilometers from Konstantinovka.
We encountered three BMPs and a tank from the 93rd Motorized
Infantry at the intersection about 80 meters away from us. The
Ukrainians were in tents in the field. We attacked them with rifles and the
automatic grenade launcher. The Ukrainians fled, and three died in their
retreat. I got into one of the BMPs, Saeed in the second, and we fired at
the Ukrainian camp with them.
Unfortunately, we were unable to steal the armored vehicle due to
their dead batteries. After we were done shooting, we destroyed them by
throwing grenades inside them, and then left.
We later learned that thirty five Ukrainians had been killed in that
battle. We suffered three dead and three wounded. I was among the
wounded, being hit in the leg by a bullet. After the battle, we went to
Konstantinovka.”
One of the dead was Alexander “Saeed” Ishchenko from Pyatigorsk.
He was killed while getting out of the hatch of the BMP he had been
firing from. Due to heavy fire from the Ukrainians, the militia was unable
to retrieve his body. A week later, Grumpy’s men picked up Saeed’s body
from the Ukrainians. It was transported to Russia, and buried in the
village of Yessentukskaya.
One of the other dead men had come from Russia with Saeed. He
went by the call sign Hohol[60]. The other dead man went by the call sign
Tatar[61], and was from Konstantinovka.
The Kramatorsk militia carried out two more major operations during
their two months in the city. Grumpy didn’t personally take part in them.
The first operation was an ambush on 13 May near Mount Karachun that
has previously been discussed, and the second operation was a battle at
the Slavyansk stele on 7 June that will be discussed in the next part of
this book. In addition, many raids were carried out under the leadership
of Grumpy. Convoys carrying food and munitions to Ukrainian
checkpoints and the artillery batteries on Mount Karachun were targeted
in particular. Furthermore, the militia destroyed a Ukrainian military signal
interception station near Izyum located by the border with the Kharkov
region.
 Chapter 34 - By the Laws of Wartime

Two militiamen were shot for looting on 26 May: Dmitry Slavov and
Nikolay Lukyanov. Igor Strelkov signed the following execution order:
“By the decision of the DPR military field tribunal of 24 May 2014, it
was decreed that Dmitry Georgievich “Bulgar” Slavov and Nikolay
Aleksandrovich “Luka” Lukyanov be executed by firing squad for looting,
armed robbery, kidnapping, desertion, and concealment of criminal
activity per military regulations set out on 22 June 1941 by the Presidium
of the Supreme Soviet.
The verdict was carried out. I warn all fighters and commanders, as
well as the residents of Slavyansk, that crime will continue to be
punished decisively and mercilessly. The DPR militia command will not
allow criminality and lawlessness to grow. Criminals will inevitably be
punished, regardless of the status of the offender.”
The militia published this order on the internet, and also distributed it
in leaflet form in Slavyansk. This was in order to demonstrate the militia’s
seriousness in maintaining discipline and fighting criminality.
The court martial and executions shocked the liberal media of
Ukraine and Russia. They voiced concerns about human rights violations
and Strelkov’s authoritarian methods. The claims were absurdities. War
always requires authoritarian methods, including in judicial proceedings.
The reference to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet added to liberal
criticism. Igor Strelkov explained the need to refer to the Supreme
Soviet.
“Neither Ukrainian nor Russian laws have concepts for a state of
siege in war, so we had to turn to the only precedent of recent times: the
1941 Decrees of the USSR. In absence of a valid law, this was our only
legal framework in which to carry out a court martial in Slavyansk.”
Four military tribunals were held during the Siege of Slavyansk. Three
of them concluded in executions. The second tribunal featured a radical
from “Right Sector” who had gone to Kramatorsk with three knives. He
managed to stab a militiaman to death at one of the checkpoints. His
whole body was covered in Nazi tattoos. The third tribunal dealt with a
Slavyansk local who robbed apartments and homes at night. He was
also executed. The fourth tribunal involved a Slavyansk local with a prior
criminal history who was accused of aiding the Ukrainians in artillery
targeting. His guilt was unable to be proven, so Strelkov let him go free.
Eldar Hasanov said:
“Looting in Slavyansk was harshly suppressed. We checked
complaints from locals. Later, after the retreat from Slavyansk to
Donetsk, we came up with a mobilization program for material assets.
The militia took vehicles from organizations that could spare them, and
civilians knew that they couldn't steal them. If they did, they would face
punishments up to execution.”
For less serious offenses, the militia had forms of punishment other
than execution and imprisonment. Penal battalions were organized for
digging trenches and carrying out engineering work at the front lines.
One such penalty was meted out to Sergey Mironenko, the deputy
prosecutor of Slavyansk, who had demanded a list of those killed and
wounded in combat so that he could refer them to the Donetsk
prosecutor’s office (which at the time was still subordinate to Kiev).
Mironenko was sent to dig trenches in Semyonovka. No exceptions to
the law were made for anyone. The first months of the Donbass Uprising,
at least in Slavyansk, really did involve people’s power.
The penal battalions were filled with first time criminal offenders,
drunkards, malingerers, those who disobeyed military authorities, and
others. Sentences were usually three to ten days at the front lines.
Volunteers who arrived at Slavyansk had to work for three days prior
to receiving their weapons. This was because a number of volunteers got
scared after their first shelling and decided to leave the militia. This
enabled the cowardly to leave without causing too many problems for
their commanders.
The militia cleared Slavyansk of gypsy gangs and drugs. Liberal and
Ukrainian media predictably screamed about the gypsy pogroms by the
“Black Hundreds”. Strelkov says:
“The drug problem was easily defeated. I ordered the arrest and
execution of all known drug dealers. As soon as they found out they all
fled. The entire gypsy population fled too. I didn’t even have to shoot
anyone.”
The militia banned the use of alcohol among fighters. Violators were
sternly punished. Strelkov said:
“My decision to ban alcohol was from my very negative experiences
in previous wars relating to non-combat losses. In Chechnya for
example, soldiers would consume enormous quantities of alcohol.
Soldiers would die from carelessly handling weapons – usually from
shooting aimlessly or throwing grenades. The enemy used drunkenness
too – they would kill drunken sentries and overrun checkpoints guarded
by drunkards on duty. In Donetsk, we were unable to fully ban alcohol,
but in Slavyansk the policy was fully and successfully implemented.”
 Chapter 35 - Kulchitsky’s Helicopter and the Anti-Aircraft Service

On 29 May, the militia destroyed a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter near the

village of Chervonny Molochar with two MANPADS. Fourteen Ukrainian
soldiers were killed in the helicopter, including Interior Troops General
Sergey Kulchitsky. He became the first high ranking officer to be killed in
the war.
It was later discovered that Kulchitsky was the same Ukrainian officer
who had promised to kill Russians in cold blood a month and a half
earlier. Russian journalist Marina Ahmedova had interviewed an
unnamed officer in Kiev on 13 April 2014 for Expert Magazine. It was
General Kulchitsky. The following passage is from Kulchitsky’s interview:
“It is difficult to say which tactics we will use. In war, a good tactic is
one that leaves our soldiers alive and yours dead. We are not going to
fight a duel, but will strike in the dark. And on your land. No expense will
be spared. Your train stations will be destroyed. Why are you looking at
me like that? Don’t look at me like that. Why did you come? Putin will not
win this war, as he will understand once hostilities commence. It doesn’t
matter to me who of you will kill – either civilians or soldiers. Why should
I feel sorry for you all? Would you pity my mother? If you think the
Russian boot will stomp across Ukraine – you are wrong. If you suddenly
claim Crimea as Russian, terrorist cells will grow in the underground
there. We will poison your water and your wells. I will do it myself. I will
kill you all in cold blood.”
Instead, Russians killed Kulchitsky in cold blood on 29 May, along
with another thirteen Ukrainians. It was a painful loss to the authorities of
Ukraine and the ATO.
 Sergey Kulchitsky
The militia successfully fought the aerial threat throughout the entire
defense of Slavyansk. For two and a half months our anti-aircraft service
shot down at least seventeen aircraft, mostly helicopters. In April,
Strelkov had created a special unit for air defense. The militia seized five
Igla MANPADs[62] in the disarmament of the 25th Brigade of Ukrainian
Armed Forces. Five groups were created, one for each MANPADS, and
each group had three men. They were all placed under the command of
militiaman “Thunderstorm”, who had had experience with MANPADS
prior to the Donbass War. During the second half of April, he shared his
experience with the other fighters selected for the anti-air unit.
Thunderstorm was one of the most secretive militiamen in Slavyansk
due to his profession. The Ukrainians were aware of his threat to them,
and their media wrote about his death, hoping their words would become
real. Nonetheless, Thunderstorm successfully carried out his work,
withdrew from Slavyansk on 5 July with the rest of the militia, and
continues to serve the DPR army to this day.
In a conversation with the author of this book, Thunderstorm said the
following:
“The anti-aircraft service was comprised of five groups, each with
several people. Three of the groups spent most of their time in position.
Two groups covered Slavyansk, and one Semyonovka. The other two
groups were mobile and in “free hunt” mode. One of those groups was
periodically sent to Kramatorsk.
Prior to taking up a position to attack an aircraft, an anti-aircraft team
would first carefully reconnoiter the terrain to avoid getting shelled or
attacked by enemy infantry. At first, Motorola’s group constantly
accompanied us with about ten men so they could cover any necessary
retreats. Later, to avoid attention, anti-aircraft fighters would usually
move separately from the rest of the militia, and would wear civilian
clothing. Because of this, we were even once mistakenly detained by the
militia as Ukrainian spies.
Anti-aircraft groups tracked the movement of Ukrainian helicopters
from local residents and agents in other settlements. Upon receipt of this
intelligence, Strelkov and I would study the terrain on a map, determine
important points, and send an anti-aircraft group there for an ambush.
Sometimes we had to wait a long time. The group that hunted
Kulchitsky’s helicopter had started watching his flights from the beginning
of May – almost an entire month – prior to shooting it down.”
Most attacks on Ukrainian aircraft were successful, but there were
some misses. According to the anti-air chief, there were five misses and
two missiles were faulty. The most effective anti-air militiaman had the
call sign “Romeo” with five hits, and second most effective had the call
sign “Malt” with four hits.
According to Thunderstorm, the militia destroyed eleven aircraft in
two months. However, he admits there weren’t kill confirmations for
several aircraft. Let us list the aircraft hit during the entire Siege of
Slavyansk.
The first was an Mi-8 helicopter destroyed on 25 April by an ATGM.
Another Mi-8 was hit by machine gun fire from the militia at Red Liman.
On 2 May, the day of the big Ukrainian assault, two Mi-24 helicopters
were shot down by Iglas, one of them fired by Romeo, leaving five
Ukrainians dead.
On 5 May, an Mi-24 was hit by a large caliber machine gun. The
helicopter landed on militia controlled territory after the hits.
On 3 June, two helicopters (one an Mi-8 and the other an Mi-24) and
two Su-25 attack aircraft were hit. The Mi-24 was eventually repaired and
brought back into service in time to be hit again by the militia in July
during the Battle of Stepanovka. One of the Su-25s managed to return to
its base in Chuguyev despite a large hole in its wing. The fate of the
other Su-25 is unknown.
On 4 June, two Mi-24 helicopters were shot down. One of the
helicopters made a hard landing and was destroyed, but the pilot
managed to escape. An Su-24 was also shot down on that day by
militiaman Malt.
On 6 June Romeo shot down an An-30B plane over Slavyansk, killing
five of its eight crew members.
24 June Malt killed nine Ukrainian soldiers after successfully shooting
down an Mi-8 helicopter.
On 19 June militiamen hit an Su-25 near Yampol with an Igla. The
fate of the aircraft is unknown.
The anti-air service’s last successful hit at Slavyansk was on 2 July
when they hit an Su-24 with an Igla. The plane was badly damaged, but
managed to return to base.
Sometimes, the anti-aircraft missiles didn’t fire or missed the target.
Some of the Ukrainian helicopters had the ADROS optoelectronic
suppression system installed, which disabled the Igla’s tracking
capability.
The commander of one of the anti-aircraft groups was the successful
aircraft hunter Sergey “Malt” Solodov, a native of Mariupol. Malt arrived in
Slavyansk on 21 May. He had experience with Iglas from his time in the
Ukrainian military, and had been the commander of the MANPADS unit in
the anti-aircraft platoon of the 95th Airmobile Brigade.
Malt was interviewed by the author of this book:
“Our groups operated independently of each other. Thunderstorm, out
of a sense of caution, didn’t even introduce us to each other. I was first
entrusted with one missile. After our first successful launch, I was given
two. By the time my group left Slavyansk, my group had two launchers
and ten missiles. One missile had failed twice and turned out to be
defective.
We wandered around at random, sitting in gardens, and changing
positions numerous times in order to be able to make a shot. It is not
easy to hit a quickly moving target. As a rule, the target isn’t in an area
for more than 40 seconds. We only hit 50% of our targets in Slavyansk –
four shots out of eight missed. I never saw even one hit with my own
eyes since we left our position immediately after firing so that we could
not be found. Only later did we find out that the target had been hit or
shot down.
 To hit targets, you need good luck as well as skill. A lot of luck. For
example, the Su-24 that we hit on 4 June was due to the foolishness of
the Ukrainian pilot. The day before, the Su-24 had flown from
Cherekovka in the direction of Yampol. The group and I decided we
would sit in the same area in case the pilot flew the same path. We
waited the whole day, and in the evening the plane passed. On his way
back, we fired an Igla at him and hit. The hit was confirmed by Romeo,
who had seen the hit from Kramatorsk and confirmed that the plane
caught fire. He had also fired at the plane, but missed. The plane
managed to land – no one saw it fall.”
Much as in the case of battlefield casualty counts, aerial victories also
raised questions. The counts of destroyed aircraft differed between the
Ukrainians and the Russians. Strelkov said the following in early June:
“When I write that 10 helicopters were shot down or destroyed in our
area, then I know of the forced landings or crashes, as well as who shot
them. But for other alleged hits, such as those on 3 June I am not quite
sure. No one saw where they fell. They could have reached airfields in
the end. Until the crash sites are photographed, everything is in question.
The Ukrainians only confirm their losses when they cannot be hidden.
Helicopter losses are the hardest to hide, but even with them they fudge
the numbers a little. I know this for a certainty. If the militia did not
observe a plane crash, the Ukrainians would not report anything about it.
As with infantry, they are losing men every day, but only recently began
to admit their losses.”
In Kiev on 11 June, an authorized representative of the government
of Ukraine, Tatyana Chornovil, said the Ukrainians only had ten combat
helicopters left.
“At the beginning of the conflict, we had 19 helicopters. Now we only
have 10 helicopters. This is a small number for a country like Ukraine,
especially since it is at war.”
On 19 July the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Vladimir Groysman
said that fourteen aircraft had been destroyed during the anti-terrorist
operation in the east of Ukraine. It can be unambiguously stated that
during the defense of Slavyansk, the militia shot down seven helicopters
and one airplane, not counting the An-2 burned next to the Mi-8 at the
Kramatorsk civil airfield. The other aircraft hit by the militia were either
repaired or their complete incapacitation was hidden for propaganda
reasons.
 At the beginning of June, the war began to spread to the other cities
of Donbass. Ukrainian aircraft launched a raid on 2 June at 3:00 pm,
bombing the republican administration building and city square. Eight
people were killed in the bombing – three men and five women. Twenty
eight people were injured.
 Chapter 36 - Storm of Semyonovka

The Slavyansk garrison had anticipated a new assault since the end
of May. Reconnaissance data, field reports, and radio intercepts
convinced Strelkov of Ukrainian preparations for an assault. On 3 June,
the Ukrainians attacked Semyonovka and Red Liman with large forces.
The militia was able to recapture Semyonovka immediately, but the
fighting for Red Liman continued for two days. In the end, Red Liman
was taken by Ukraine.
It became clear later that the Ukrainians no longer intended to storm
Slavyansk. They had taken heavy losses attacking the city in April and
May, so the Ukrainians decided to try to squeeze the Russians out of
Slavyansk by encircling the city. Therefore, the Ukrainians methodically
and consistently attacked Red Liman and Semyonovka. At the end of
June, after the defeat of our forces near Yampol, the Ukrainians
advanced on Nikolayevka.
The assault on Semyonovka was conducted by the National Guard
and 9th Airmobile Brigade with support of aviation and armored vehicles.
In the morning of 3 June, the Ukrainian Interior Affairs Minister Avakov
declared that “the active offensive phase of the ATO has begun.”
At that time, Semyonovka was defended by about three hundred
militiamen. About eighty were in Small’s company based out of the
hospital, while the rest were in Motorola’s company in the village itself, or
on road checkpoints.
The Ukrainians began their artillery barrage at 5:00 am. For several
hours, Ukrainians bombarded Semyonovka with howitzers, mortars,
Grad launchers, and other weapons. Su-25s flew over Semyonovka
several times, firing rockets at the village. The few locals who remained
in their houses hid in their basements, while militiamen hid out in their
own shelters.
At 9:00 am the Ukrainians launched an assault on Semyonovka from
the direction of Seleznyovka. The Ukrainian forces were comprised of
several companies of infantry backed by tanks and BTRs. Militia snipers
in the village and in the House of Culture began to pick them off. Sniper
“Canada”, who was able to see the Ukrainian troops well in his scope,
was surprised to see that the Ukrainians had brought travel bags with
them. His impression was that the Ukrainians imagined that they would
have an easy fight, so they brought their personal belongings.
The first firefight lasted about an hour. The militiamen opened fire on
the Ukrainians with small arms and anti-tank weapons. After several
Ukrainians mounted on the BTRs were killed, the rest took cover in the
foliage and returned fire. The BTRs and tanks continued to advance. A
T-64 tank was damaged by a hit, as were two BTRs and a Humvee. The
Ukrainians were forced to retreat and evacuated the wounded.
Military observed Yevgeny Norin wrote the following sketch of the
firefight:
“Armored vehicles were overpowered by the concentrated fire of all of
the anti-tank weapons, which ranged from ancient anti-tank rifles to
modern rockets. There is even a known case when a Ukrainian tank was
seriously damaged by a bullet fired from a sniper rifle. The unknown
rifleman managed to shoot almost all of the optics available for a tank
gunner, as well as the anti-aircraft sight. The tank became material
evidence for the bitterness of the fighting as well as the quality of the
militia’s anti-tank fighters. In addition to the shattered optics, the tank
received several hits to the gun barrel as well as an accurate hit to the
back from a grenade launcher.”
The sniper that Norin mentions was Canada. It was Canada who fired
several dozen bullets from an SVD sniper rifle[63] at the tank. Canada’s
real name cannot be disclosed since his relatives live in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians withdrew around 11:00 am, and their artillery resumed
its bombardment of the village. Shells hit checkpoints as well as the
House of Culture. The Ukrainian tank aided in the bombardment. After
two hours, the infantry launched a new assault, again backed by
armored vehicles. Unable to break through the heavy fire from the militia,
the Ukrainians withdrew for a second time.
The shelling resumed and continued throughout the afternoon. The
destruction inflicted upon the village was tremendous. After that day,
Semyonovka was nicknamed “the local Stalingrad”. Among many other
things, the water supply and electric cables to the village were destroyed.
One local resident wrote on social media:
“It was very terrible today. We are still alive. We left the basement
after a while. We are tired. I can still hear the airplanes. The
bombardment was scary.”
 During the battle, two Ukrainian helicopters, one an Mi-8 and the
other an Mi-24, were hit and had to make emergency landings. The ZU-
23 anti-aircraft gun also hit two Su-25s. A few days after the battle,
Motorola told reporters about the hits on the attack aircraft:
“The assault was supported by aviation. They didn’t expect a serious
defense. The airplanes flew by at a low altitude. As the Su-25 turned
around, I ordered Brick to open fire. Brick calmly fired on the plane with
his PK machine gun. Fifteen minutes later we received confirmation from
reliable sources that the aircraft was hit.”
The sources were unable to confirm if the Su-25 was shot down.
Nonetheless, militiaman Vitaly “Brick” Chudolap, a native of Zaporozhye,
was the first man in Slavyansk to be awarded the Saint George’s Cross.
 Vitaly “Brick” Chudolap
Commenting on the events of that day in Semyonovka, Motorola said:
“Their tanks made it onto the bridge, and from there they fired directly
at militia occupied points. They shelled the hill, the heights, the hospital,
and our frontal defenses. The tanks destroyed some checkpoints. Their
indirect fire was poorly directed and inaccurate, causing mortarfire and
artillery shells to land among the civilian population. Both militiamen and
civilians were killed and wounded in the attack. Tanks, helicopters,
artillery, and mortars were used (by the Ukrainians).”
Here is a story published on social media two days after the battle
about the story of one militiaman who fought on 3 June:
“After the artillery bombardment, the tank advanced. The BTRs
supported the tank from a nearby hill, while the infantry followed. The
infantry were not visible to the militiamen at the checkpoints. They hid
behind cover, or followed the tank. The militiamen on the flanks could
see the infantry though. The infantrymen were youths – eighteen and
nineteen year olds. The infantrymen began to fall one by one as they
took fire from the militia.
The infantry halted as the militia opened fire on the tank with
everything they had. The tank stopped for a moment, then rolled on. Two
BTRs out of an unknown number rolled down the bridge. We went to a
knoll and hid from the tank. The tank moved forward with infantry, rolling
straight down the highway from the BSZ towards the Semyonovka
checkpoint. The tank blasted the checkpoints away one by one,
wounding militiamen.
The militia fired everything they had at the tank, but to no avail. It was
hit on the front armor, and its turret was even slightly damaged, but the
tank just kept rolling forward. The tank even rolled over some of the
checkpoints. Finally, the tank stopped, rotated its turret, and rolled away.
The aircraft had arrived.
As the tank rolled away, a BTR drew fire and burst into flames. The
infantry slowly withdrew over the hill. The wounded weren’t picked up as
the other infantrymen still feared snipers.
Two trucks from Kharkov approached the area and stopped at the
bridge. One was loaded with bricks, the other with drywall. They were
shot at and shortly caught on fire. The drivers escaped and were
eventually driven home. The trucks burned completely, and their shells
are still on the road. The Ukrainian troops are still lying there too.
After the tank left and the helicopters were hit, the Ukrainians blasted
our dugouts with their artillery. They were greatly offended by us. They
must have suffered heavy losses. I don’t know how many losses they
had. Who can say how many of their losses were real. No one can tell.
The next day the Ukrainians began to bombard us completely with all
weapons they had. There was a Grad, howitzers, and mortars. None of
us came out of the trenches for a day. The trenches were all blasted, the
gravel thrown around. The tire shop was burned to a crisp. Homes
burned. Everything was burned. The Ukrainian artillerymen were well led
and methodically shelled the town. They aimed and successfully hit
trenches. We couldn’t get food or use the toilet. Everything was done in
the trenches. As soon as we got outside, it was shells, shells, shells, and
more shells. Aircraft came too and launched three airstrikes. After their
defeat, they just threw shells at us.”
 The shells of the two trucks from Kharkov on the bridge
The militiaman is right that it is impossible to say how extensive
Ukrainian losses were that day. Ukrainian General Viktor Nazarov said in
one interview that the Ukrainians had suffered 57 wounded, but made no
mention of the dead. On the evening of 3 June, Strelkov wrote:
“Enemy losses in manpower are unknown. With the huge advantage
that the enemy has in all types of weapons, I consider this battle a real
triumph for the militia. It is a pity that men capable of feats worthy of
WWII have to save every cartridge.”
It is most likely that several dozen Ukrainians were killed in the two
attacks on Semyonovka. Among the dead was Taras Senyuk,
commander of the 1st Battalion of the 95th Brigade.
The Ukrainians only managed to take some of the bodies of their men
from the road. The rest decomposed in the sun. The entire village was
permeated by a heavy odor for days as a result.
The Ukrainians also launched airstrikes on Red Liman at the same
time as the attack on Semyonovka. 25 militiamen and civilians were
killed by their airstrike on the hospital, and another 10 civilians plus a few
more militiamen were killed in ground combat. The Ukrainians were able
to penetrate into the village, but the militia eventually repelled the attack.
Also on 3 June, the militia destroyed a Ukrainian BTR-80 near
Kramatorsk and a BMP on the western outskirts of Slavyansk.
Motorola said on 12 June:
“As they retreated, they abandoned the wounded and dead. They are
now lying along the road 250 meters from our checkpoint. The bodies
are rotting. We don’t have the opportunity to clear the bodies, and the
Ukrainians don’t even try. If you go over to the bridge, there are limbs
and other body parts lying around. This is how they treat their own
people. We are trying to pull the bodies of our own men away, even
though our guys are under fire.”
The militiamen in Semyonovka suffered seven dead and thirty
wounded in the fight. Several others would be killed on 3 June in other
areas during the defense. The dead were Vladimir “Gypsy” Yefimenko of
Donetsk, Yaroslav “North” Shestak from Donetsk, Maxim “Cube”
Kulinich, Anatoly “Figure” Myalkin, Alexander “Highlander” Goretsky,
Sergey Stebly from Kurahov, Andrey Solovy from Avdeyevka, Aleksey
Kasyanov from Donetsk, Igor Zabora from Donetsk, and Andrey “Mowgli”
Dreval.
Gypsy and North were both killed in a trench by a direct hit from a
tank shell. They had tried to stop the Ukrainian tank with a PTRS anti-
tank rifle and had successfully damaged it, but were killed in the unequal
struggle.
Gypsy and North had given an interview to Gennady Dubovoy the
day before. He said later that it was difficult for him to watch the interview
on video. Gypsy said in the interview:
“We defend this checkpoint with an anti-tank rifle as if it was 1944.
We are fighting for our Orthodox faith and for our people. Things are
slowly getting better. God bless you on your journey.”
Correspondent then brought the videocamera over to North.
“Say something for eternity” Correspondent asked North.
“What can I say? Everything has already been said.” North replied.
Gypsy and North were posthumously awarded Saint George
Crosses, the second and third recipients respectively.
 Gypsy and North
Cedar’s recollection of the events of 3 June:
“The fighting on 3 June was the first large-scale offensive against our
garrison in Semyonovka. Let me tell you about the most important part of
the fighting. The offensive was led personally by Lieutenant Colonel
Taras Senyuk, and ideological Banderist who had received an award
from USA for service in their Iraq Campaign and a medal from NATO for
their Balkan Campaign. In this battle, he was killed. It wasn’t the
Kadyrovites, nor Russian special forces who killed him, as Ukrainian
propaganda claims. It was guys from the Donbass who killed him,
probably North and Gypsy. Ukrainian media reported that Senyuk was
killed by a large caliber bullet that split his body armor in half. He was
killed in the area that North and Gypsy were shooting at with their anti-
tank rifle. Most likely, he was their kill.”
Cedar also said how the tank was hit:
“One T-64 was rolling towards our positions and blasting the militia
checkpoints at the crossroads away, while the other took cover behind
the bridge – only his turret stuck out. Mole aimed for a few seconds with
the anti-tank guided missile, then fired and hit the tank. The tank behind
the bridge saw where the anti-tank missile had come from, and fired a
shell at us. It hit three meters in front of our dugout, raising the ground.
Our survival was miraculous – the impact was so close it knocked my
belongings out of my pockets. The missile hit on the tank caused its
turret to jam. Yermak, Viking, and Brick kept firing at the tank – Viking
with his PTRS anti-tank rifle and Viking and Brick with their grenade
launchers. Finally, twenty five meters from our trenches, the tank
stopped.”
The most detailed description of the battle on 3 June can be found in
the article “Slavyansk. Semyonovka. Massacre” written and published by
Correspondent at the end of June.

Dmitry “Cedar” Zhukov

Here is an abbreviation of Correspondent’s article:
“T-64 tankfire against your checkpoint sounds like a hammer
pounding an anvil right above your ear. From the checkpoint, the militia
replies with anti-tank guns. Behind the tank is a bulldozer, four BTRs,
and another tank holding the rear. Militiamen attack the vehicles with
grenade launchers and 12.7 mm Cliff machine guns. Ukrainian infantry
are cut down by gunfire. They had been sitting on the armored vehicles
at the beginning of the assault, like rangers in an American war movie.
Some fall wounded to the ground. Others are dead.
An unnerving snake-like hissing fills the pauses between the loud
hammer-like ringing of tank fire. The hisses of howitzer and Grad shells
approaching. After about a minute of failed bombardment and the
rumbling of diesel engines, the armored vehicles cross the bridge.
Yermak fires an old WWII anti-tank rifle non-stop at the T-64 rolling up
to the checkpoint. He hits it again and again, but the tank keeps rolling
forward. It is difficult to disable even the treads of a tank with such an old
weapon, even at close range. Aircraft fly over, high above the village’s
defenses, among them an Mi-24 Crocodile Helicopter. You can’t hear
anything, or see anything. Your ears ring loudly. Yermak reloads the anti-
tank rifle, looks up, and prays “Lord have mercy…”.
The tank is rolling forward, and finally stops just 25 meters away. That
is it, this is the end, I think. And the tank stops. It wasn’t even on fire, it
was still intact, but stopped. If it hadn’t halted it would have rolled over us
and crushed us. It was like Stalingrad.
A 12.7 mm Cliff machine gun camouflaged in an abandoned house
on the right opened fire on the tank and hit the fuel line as soon as the
tank started moving again. There was a flash, followed by a column of
thick, black smoke. The tank turret quickly rotated to return fire. The
commander of the machine gun crew later recalled: “It was like a movie. I
was close to the tank sight and the huge muzzle. I could see wisps of
smoke coming out. It seemed that the shell meant as our fate was going
to come quickly. I went to the door. BOOM! The gunner and I dived into
the yard, narrowly avoiding death. Nothing happened to us. We were a
bit bruised and slightly shell-shocked, but that was it.”
From the left Yermak fired his RPG and scored a direct hit under the
turret. More fired at the tank, jamming the turret. The second tank rolled
up the road, its turret aiming at several targets. It then towed its
damaged comrade away. The damaged tank fired one last shot at a
checkpoint. It was not aimed – the shot was fired out of anger.
Nonetheless, the shot scattered the militiamen. Pilot was killed by
shrapnel.
In all my time in Semyonovka, the only time I was sickened was when
I filmed the bodies of North and Gypsy. The militiamen at a nearby
position had seen them take a direct hit from a tank shell. The blast had
thrown concrete blocks a meter high and split them. The corpses
(perhaps also thrown into the air by the shell blast) were mushy,
elongated, and twisted – almost like plasticine. When I was running past
their trench, I found that they had emptied almost their entire stock of
ammunition into the first tank. They only had three rounds left.
The feeling gnawed into me that due to North and Gypsy, the second,
undamaged tank avoided exposing itself to direct fire. The second tank
was by the bridge, safe from the militia, but less accurate in his aim.
A new militiaman was sent to take the place of the dead men to take
their anti-tank rifle. He was wounded in the stomach and a leg, but fired
three rounds at the second tank and was able to withdraw the rifle from
heavy fire.
 The aircraft attack again, rockets streaking across the sky to blast
asphalt and soil. Shrapnel from Grad shells screeches, adding to the
sound of the rockets.
As I return to the forward checkpoint, I hear “another Cargo 200[64]!”. I
run with the medic to the trench. The militiaman had been killed by
shrapnel from cluster munitions launched by the Ukrainian aircraft. His
right hand was severed, and his face was almost completely gone. He
had just recently talked to his wife on the phone.”
The dead militiaman who Correspondent refers to here was named
Valery. It is unknown who he was and where he came from. At that time,
many volunteers hid information about themselves.
Militiaman Boatswain offered the following opinion of the tactics of the
Ukrainian Armed Forces:
“Considering how many aircraft, men, and tanks participated in the
operation – it was a complete failure. They fought incompetently on 3
June. Their biggest mistake was letting their infantry ride on the armored
vehicles. We immediately chewed up their infantry from the flanks,
causing their spirits to fall. If they had just sped past us, ignoring losses,
they could have taken the center of Slavyansk that day.”
On the evening of 3 June, Strelkov wrote the following:
“The militiamen who died today did not want to be heroes. Perhaps
they wouldn’t have died if we had more weapons and supplies,
instructors, specialists, and even the basics of a rear. I was silent for a
long time about “Russian aid” because I understand that Slavyansk is
just a tiny speck on the tablecloth of history, and that there are many
subtleties in “big politics”. However, I do not understand one thing: why
was it possible to save several tens of thousands of Ossetians and
Kudars[65] – rushing to their aid at great risk – but for months no
desperately needed help has been sent to ethnic Russians? Does
Moscow really think that a few hundred haphazardly armed Russian
volunteers will be enough? I would like at least one official responsible
for the southeast in the trenches at Semyonovka. How many corpses
does it take to make a decision?”
As it turned out later, Moscow had already made its decision on the
Ukrainian issue. We’ll talk about it in the next chapter.
 Chapter 37 - Political Context

The fighting in Slavyansk had been going on for a month and a half.
The Slavyansk garrison had successfully survived several assaults
backed by artillery, military aviation, and armored vehicles. On 2 May,
forty six Russians had been burned alive. On 9 May a dozen Russians
had been killed. On 26 May at Donetsk Airport about fifty militiamen,
some citizens of the Russian Federation, had been killed. More had been
killed during the 2 June air raid on Lugansk. Unlike Crimea, which had
been annexed by Russia quickly and bloodlessly (not one person died),
rivers of blood flowed in the Donbass. It became clear to many that
Russia was not going to send troops, much less annex the region.
In order to understand what was going on in the centers of power
during those two months, we will review how the political situation within
the Russian Federation proceeded, starting with the operation in Crimea.
After the coup d’état in Kiev, the Russian Federation saw an
opportunity to retake the Crimean Peninsula. However Putin required a
legal formality for the use of the Russian military on the territory of a
foreign state. He received such a formality from the famous Yanukovich
letter. Yanukovich, the former president of Ukraine, had fled from Kiev to
the Donbass, and then to Russia. During that period, he was in constant
contact with Putin. The letter was written prior to the recognition of Petro
Poroshenko by Russia as the legitimate president of Ukraine. In the letter
written on 1 March 2014, Yanukovich requested that Putin use the
Russian military “for the restoration of law, peace, order, stability, and the
defense of the people of Ukraine.” Yanukovich was likely persuaded to
write the letter by Putin.
That day, Putin sent an appeal to the Federation Council titled “On
the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of
Ukraine”. The Federation Council unanimously decided at an
extraordinary meeting to “Give consent to the President of the Russian
Federation to use the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the
territory of Ukraine until the country had normalized its socio-political
situation”.
Also on 3 March, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s permanent representative
to the United Nations, showed a photocopy of the Yanukovich letter to an
extraordinary meeting of the Security Council after reading it aloud. The
original letter wasn’t shown to the public until a press conference in
Moscow on 2 March 2018. The text of the letter was identical to that
which Churkin had read four years before.
Putin stated the following in an interview with Russian journalists on 4
March 2014:
“We have a direct appeal from the current and legitimate President of
Ukraine Yanukovich requesting the use of the Armed Forces to protect
the life, freedom, and health of the citizens of Ukraine. We reserve the
right to use all available means we have to protect these citizens – ethnic
Russians and Ukrainians, and the Russian-speaking people living in the
eastern and southern regions of Ukraine in general.”
When asked by a journalist on whether or not Russian soldiers were
deployed in Crimea, Putin replied:
“They were local self-defense forces. Look at the post-Soviet states,
many have uniforms similar to Russian uniforms. You can go to stores
and buy them. No, those are local self-defense forces.”
Putin, of course, was lying. The "little green men" had appeared on
the Crimean peninsula as early as 28 February. Within a month Crimea
held a referendum on reunification with Russia and rejoined the Russian
Federation. The Russian government had shown how quickly and
clearly it could act when it had made up its mind.
During the time of the Crimean annexation, popular protests were
already in full swing in the Donbass. One of the reasons for the protests
as well as the anti-Ukrainian resistance was the expectation that Russian
troops would be deployed to New Russia. The Russian Federation’s
determination that it had the right to launch a military intervention in
Ukraine was in force for the duration of the events discussed in this
book. That is, there was no need for the Russian government to come up
with any new legal rationales for intervention. Putin could have decided
to use Russian Federation troops to defend the Russians of the Donbass
on behalf of the legitimate President of Ukraine at any time.
Hopes for a Russian intervention in the Donbass were also fueled by
the sharp changes in Putin’s rhetoric. In the previous years of Putin’s
rule, the “Russian problem” (the status of ethnic Russians within the
Russian Federation as well as abroad) was largely ignored. The Russian
government avoided even referring to ethnic Russians, except when
referring to the Russian language or the Russian world, and only then as
strictly cultural phenomena. The concept of Russian citizens was used
instead of ethnic Russians[66], much as the concept of a Soviet people
had been used in the times of the USSR. No one mentioned the need to
regather the Russians who remained in New Russia and other Russians
who remained outside of the borders of the Russian Federation after
1991. In March 2014, this changed dramatically. Crimea returned to
Russia, and the Russian government began to talk about New Russia
and ethnic Russians. The sudden change was enough to make the
heads of millions of ethnic Russians spin.
Vladimir Putin’s speech in the Kremlin after the annexation of Crimea
was a Russian nationalist manifesto. Putin had said nothing like it before,
nor has he spoken such words since. He referred to ethnic Russians
twenty times – “Russia should protect the interests of ethnic Russians”,
“the Russian people are the largest divided people in the world”, “Crimea
is a native Russian land”, etc.
A month later on 17 April, Putin spoke about New Russia for the first
time during a direct call with citizens.
“The question is to ensure the rights and legitimate interests of ethnic
Russians and Russian speakers in the southeast of Ukraine. Let me
remind you that in Tsarist times, this New Russia – Kharkov, Lugansk,
Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev, Odessa – were not considered part of
Ukraine. Those were territories that were transferred to Ukraine in the
1920s by the Soviet government. Why they did it, god knows. These
lands were taken after the victories of Potyomkin and Catherine II in
famous wars based out of New Russia. Hence New Russia.”
The rhetoric of Russian Federation officials was toned down after the
New Russia project was shut down. In those circles, the promotion of
“Russianness” disappeared, the “Russian Spring” was renamed the
“Crimean Spring”, and state media refused to mention Strelkov’s role in
the Crimean operation (he was one of the first men to occupy the
Supreme Council of Crimea). In Aleksey Pimenov’s 2017 film “Crimea”
that was financed by the Ministry of Defense, there was no mention of
ethnic Russians or the Russian Spring. When asked about his reasons
for that, the director replied “I did not want to offend the Ukrainians.” That
phrase contains the entire essence of the Russian Federation’s foreign
policy and ideology.
The Kremlin could not make up its mind what to do with the Donbass
rebels throughout April 2014. Numerous closed consultations were held
with Ukrainian politicians who could also not figure out what to do. Some
hinted that the situation should be decided by the Russian Federation.
One political scientist described the situation as the Russian Federation
and Ukraine playing hot potato with the Donbass.
The United Nations Security Council held several meetings in April. In
those meetings, the Russian Federation’s leadership worked on coming
up with a solution to the Donbass issue. Prior to the diplomatic
agreement, part of the Russian elite (albeit third or fourth level figures far
from decisive positions) continued their vocal support of the rebellion in
New Russia. These figures were men like Sergey Glazyev (a Putin
adviser), Konstantin Zatulin (Deputy in the State Duma), and the head of
Crimea Sergey Aksyonov. They were in touch with protest leaders in
Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolayev, Donetsk, Lugansk, and other cities.
Russian politicians urged them consistently to occupy the regional
parliament buildings, to gather local elected officials and have them
declare the illegitimacy of the Kiev authorities, and to request support
from the Russian Federation.
In 2016, Ukrainian prosecutors published a wiretapped conversation
that Glazyev and Zatulin had with New Russian protest leaders in the
spring of 2014. There is a point in the conversation where one of the pro-
Russian activists in Odessa (prior to the tragic events of 2 May) asks
Glazyev for specific instructions and expresses concern that the uprising
would be suppressed without real support from Moscow. Glazyev
responded to the activist that everything was under control, and that help
would be provided. Glazyev added that the Federation Council gave
Putin the authority to use the military abroad. “This is very serious, and
they will support you. Do not worry” Glazyev says.
The protests and rebellions in Ukraine were not done just out of blind
hopes for a Crimean-style annexation, but also because important
people from Moscow promised support up to military intervention. Pavel
Gubarev, the people’s governor of the Donetsk region, was among those
who spoke with Glazyev. Gubarev recalls:
“I left the treasury building around nine in the evening, and went to a
safehouse. Then, for the first time, Russia made her presence felt.
Sergey Yuryevich Glazyev called me on my cell phone. The call literally
inspired me. Glazyev said he supported our actions. Those simple words
gave me a new strength. At the same time we unsuccessfully tried to
hold a Skype conference with Konstantin Zatulin. The internet messed
up. Such were the first two contacts with Moscow.”
Sergey Glazyev has established himself not as a man who is
indifferent to the fate of New Russia, but as a man who never had any
real power to begin with. He was just an agent of greater men. When the
New Russia project was of interest to the Kremlin, Glazyev received
approval from Putin to curate the situation in the Donbass and to act as
events unfolded. After the Kremlin’s interest in New Russia had ceased,
Glazyev was reassigned to different affairs.
Supervision of the Donbass situation was transferred to Putin’s
assistant Vladislav Surkov, who had been responsible for dealing with
Ukraine since the fall of 2013. From the beginning of 2014, Surkov had
been engaged in secret diplomatic talks with the Ukrainians, and had
unofficially traveled to Kiev for negotiations. After Moscow decided to
move forward with a political settlement with Ukraine rather than a
military intervention, Surkov became the executor of the so-called “Minsk
process” – enforcing agreements that had been concluded in September
2014 and February 2015. The agreements were for ceasefires, the
withdrawals of heavy weaponry, and other military issues. During the four
years of the war, not a single point of the Minsk Agreements have been
fulfilled.
Alexander Boroday became the right hand of Surkov in the Donbass.
First he led the Donetsk People’s Republic, then returned to Moscow
after transferring power to Alexander Zaharchenko. Boroday says:
“During the spring of 2014, the Kremlin was very hesitant regarding
the Donbass situation. I can’t say that I was happy with the final decision.
I was in favor of proceeding in the Donbass as we had in Crimea, and
was a supporter of making the maximum advances – all the way to Kiev.”
According to Boroday, Zatulin and Glazyev had little influence on the
events in New Russia.
“The role of Zatulin was minor in my subjective opinion. At least I
didn’t notice it. Glazyev also had a very limited role. In the first stage of
the Russian Spring, he joined the patriotic movement with enthusiasm,
but he could do little. There were a lot of people who sincerely wanted to
do something, but they were quickly told what they could and couldn’t do.
Patriotic activity quickly ended, and the bureaucrats got busy.”
The first attempt at a political settlement was already made on 17
April at a Geneva meeting which was already discussed earlier in this
book. There was no agreement in Geneva, and there were no serious
effects from it.
Vladimir Putin answered questions from citizens on the same day,
including questions about the Donbass. By that point, Strelkov and his
men had been in Slavyansk for a week. One questioner asked Putin
about the presence of Russian soldiers in the Donbass. Putin replied:
“It is all nonsense – there are no Russian troops in the east of
Ukraine, no special forces, no instructors. They are all locals. And the
best proof of this is that the men, as they say, took off their masks.”
Putin was referring to how the leader of the Lugansk militia and the
first head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Valery Bolotov, had
publicized his identity on 6 April. Bolotov’s revelation confirmed that he
was a local. It is possible that Bolotov was ordered to reveal his identity
by Moscow, much as Strelkov was ordered to on 20 April.
It was an ill omen that the Kremlin forced Bolotov and Strelkov to take
public leadership roles. In Crimea, those who had led the initial actions
(including Strelkov) didn’t openly identify themselves until the Russian
military was ready to take over for them. It was different in the Donbass.
Apparently, Putin already needed to convince the West that there were
no Russian soldiers there. By having Bolotov and Strelkov unmask
themselves, the Kremlin signaled that the separatists were popular
forces acting independently, and who had nothing to do with the Kremlin.
In the same event, Putin advised the residents of the Donbass to “not
fall into some kind of euphoria” because of the Crimean annexation and
to “proceed realistically”. The reality, according to Putin, was that
Crimea’s ethnic composition supposedly differs from that of the Donbass.
Crimea was almost entirely populated by ethnic Russians, while the
Donbass was not. “The ethnic composition there is about 50/50,” Putin
said, apparently meaning that half of the people of the Donbass are
Ukrainians. This is clearly not true, as the 11 May referendum showed.
The absolute majority of inhabitants of the Lugansk and Donetsk
People’s Republics voted for independence from Ukraine. Most wanted
reunification with Russia. Even assuming that Putin was right, and that
Russians were only 50% of the population of the Donbass, it is not clear
why this would mean that the Russian people would not need to be
protected.
Also on 17 April, Putin recalled that the Federation Council had
granted him the right to use the Russian military to protect Russian-
speakers in Ukraine. “I really hope that I will not have to exercise this
right” Putin said at the time. Putin hadn’t made up his mind at the time,
but in the end he did nothing. His inaction was shocking to the Russians
in New Russia, who hoped for Putin as the faithful hope for God.
 The following day, 18 April, the Security Council of Russia met. It is
unknown what decisions were made there. According to various sources
it was during that meeting that the course to a political settlement with
Ukraine was formalized. This course would later be called the Minsk
process.
The fateful day for New Russia was 7 May. On that day, the President
of Switzerland and then OSCE Chairman Didier Burkhalter came up with
a solution to the Ukrainian crisis. The solution involved four points: a
ceasefire in the Donbass, a de-escalation of tensions, the establishment
of a dialogue between Kiev and the South-East, and presidential
elections in Ukraine. Burkhalter said at the Kremlin:
“There is absolutely no interest in turning the Ukrainian question into
a crisis in relations between the East and West.”
Putin agreed with him. After the meeting and negotiations, Putin state
the following in a press conference:
“We ask that federalization supporters and representatives of
southeastern Ukraine postpone the referendum scheduled for 11 May of
this year.”
Thus, it is possible to conclude that Moscow had already decided by
7 May that it didn’t support the DPR and LPR independence
referendums, and that if they were held, it would not recognize the
republics or annex them into the Russian Federation. It is also notable
that Putin called the Russian volunteers who had fought and died for the
return of the Donbass to their motherland as “federalization supporters”.
On 25 May, Ukraine held presidential elections. Petro Poroshenko
won, and was recognized as the legitimate president of Ukraine by the
Kremlin. After his election, Poroshenko stated that he expected that the
decree allowing Putin to use the Russian military on Ukrainian territory
be rescinded. On 25 June, the Federation Council rescinded the decree.
Hopes for a Russian military intervention in the Donbass faded
almost completely after that point. Those who held out faith for a Russian
intervention deluded themselves with notions of Putin cunningly following
a plan which would result in Russia outmaneuvering the West and
solving all of the problems of the Donbass as well as possible.
At the time the Russian Federation’s government propagandists were
decrying the idea of a Russian military intervention, fearing that it would
result in a clash with NATO and a Third World War. Therefore, those
propagandists argued (in spite of Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO),
that it was impossible for the Russian military to intervene, no matter
what happened. .
Strelkov viewed those who held to delusions dimly. On 8 June, he
wrote:
“I would not shoot freaks that talk about how it would be politically
and economically difficult for Russia to defend the southeast. We already
have a standard punishment here – a penal sapper company in
Semyonovka. They dig trenches under fire. That is where I would send
them. For a week. To remember that they are first and foremost ethnic
Russians, and only after “citizens of Russia.”
To be fair, Russian Federation troops were eventually deployed
(unofficially) to the Donbass. This was much later though, after
Slavyansk had been abandoned and hundreds more Russians had been
killed.
The so-called “Minsk process” began in September 2014, but its
foundations were laid in early June when Moscow decided to negotiate
with Ukraine rather than conquer her. In the Donbass, Russian
Federation officials attempted to make inroads as peacemakers. Viktor
Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician and godfather of Putin, visited
Donetsk several times in June even as heavy fighting continued in
Slavyansk. Medvedchuk was met by the head of Stronghold, as well as
the future head of the republic Alexander Zaharchenko, the Prime
Minister of the DPR Alexander Boroday, and Pavel Gubarev. Stronghold
soldiers guarded Medvedchuk during his visit to the DPR.
In 2017, during a talk with Russian citizens, Vladimir Putin described
Medvedchuk as follows:
“I believe that he is a Ukrainian nationalist. But he doesn’t like that
definition, and instead considers himself a Ukrainian patriot. It is no
secret that his father was an active member of the OUN, convicted by a
Soviet court, and spent time in prison and exile. He was born in his
father’s exile in Krasnoyarsk region. He has his own viewpoints and is an
ardent supporter of Ukrainian independence, but his values are mostly
taken from the works of Ukrainian nationalists who wrote in the 19th
century. Older writers such as Grushevsky, Franko, Dragomanov – and
Chernovol from our time. They all took the view that Ukraine should be
independent, but federalized.”
Medvedchuk expressed to the leaders of the DPR that all should
move towards peace, ending the fighting with diplomacy. Boroday told
Medvedchuk that Donetsk was ready for negotiations with Ukraine, if
Ukraine was willing to discuss the autonomy of the Donbass within
Ukraine. Pavel Gubarev recalls:
“It was then, in early June, that I first heard from Medvedchuk what
would be implemented in the Minsk agreements of early September.”
Gubarev was also invited to a meeting with Putin’s assistant Vladislav
Surkov in June. Gubarev refused to go since he was occupied with his
work in the Mobilization Department. But it confirmed that it was now
Surkov who was handling the Donbass affairs for Putin, rather than the
more sympathetic Sergey Glazyev. Gubarev recalls:
“The fact that Moscow recognized Poroshenko’s election on 26 May
was a severe psychological blow to us. How is it that we worked in futility
to set up our own elections in Donetsk? Russia, in the end, nullified all
that we had achieved and sacrificed in the Donbass.”
While Ukraine was preparing the inauguration of a new president –
and the Ukrainian military the inauguration of a new commander in chief
– a humanitarian catastrophe was developing in Slavyansk. The
wounded were too numerous for the hospital to treat, and the
undertakers could not cope with all of the dead.
Part III: 4 June to 5 July
 Chapter 38 - Defense of Slavyansk

The Ukrainians ceased their attempts to storm Semyonovka after the

heavy fighting on 3 June. They focused on completing their encirclement
of Slavyansk and launched other operations. Let us recall how the
hostilities around Slavyansk had unfolded, and consider the military
situation of the garrison at the beginning of June.
In mid-April, only the most radical elements of Right Sector and other
Ukrainian nationalist organizations wanted to fight and kill. For two
weeks, the two opposing parties tried to convince each other to stand
down. The Ukrainian military asked for the militia to lay down their
weapons and to submit to Kiev, while the militia asked the Ukrainian
military to join the side of the people. When negotiations failed, there was
limited fighting, and even that was done with extreme caution. The first
clash happened between the militia and SBU’s Alpha Unit. Clashes with
the military were avoided, and elements of the 25th Airmobile Brigade
were disarmed twice without loss. For a time, the militia didn’t attack
military checkpoints at all, and the military was reluctant to commit to
battle.
Active hostilities and skirmishes only began when Right Sector and
National Guard forces attacked militia checkpoints and sent saboteurs
into Slavyansk. Later, the Ukrainian military began to get involved in the
fighting. Strelkov said:
“The Ukrainians behaved cautiously, probing point by point, to see
how far we were willing to go and how Russia would behave. In the first
month of shelling there was no bombardment of Slavyansk. The villages
nearby were shelled, but Slavyansk itself wasn’t touched until the end of
May. Since there was no Russian reaction to the shelling, it became
more and more aggressive. Armored forces and aviation began to be
used. In early June, after Poroshenko’s election and Putin’s statements,
the Ukrainians were finally convinced that there would be no Russian
intervention. If the first probe at Slavyansk was at the beginning of May,
then the next one was the attack on 3 June. Between the two attacks
there were medium-intensity battles and skirmishes which the militia
usually won by inflicting serious damage on Ukrainian forces.”
 The Ukrainians made their first attempt to storm Slavyansk on 20
April with a fairly small force. Their attack was repulsed at the cost of
three dead militiamen. The Ukrainians attacked again on 24 April, again
failing but killing another Russian. The third assault on Slavyansk, which
had considerably more men, was carried out on 2 May, killing about ten
militiamen and about twenty civilians. The third assault also featured a
number of skirmishes on 3 and 4 May. Since direct assaults on
Slavyansk had failed, the Ukrainians decided to proceed with an
encirclement and siege of the city. Semyonovka was an important
objective for the Ukrainians, as it controlled high ground near Slavyansk.
That is why the Ukrainians chose to assault it on 3 June.
June and early July were the most difficult times for the militia and
Slavyansk. The situation in the Donbass as a whole was rather grim. In
April and May the uprising was moving from strength to strength – the
militia constantly expanded its reach and took more and more territory. In
June and July this trend reversed. The militia retreated, the Ukrainians
advanced. The Ukrainian military assembled colossal forces in the
Donbass, gradually cutting the uprising off from the Russian border and
seizing parts of the region. This demoralized the Slavyansk garrison.
The militia often won little victories and inflicted damage to Ukrainian
forces, and many continued to hope for Russian support. But the mood
was already fatalistic. The fighters lived in daily expectation of a
Ukrainian offensive, and expected to die in a final last stand in Slavyansk
with the rest of the garrison. Sergey Tsyplakov recalls:
“Almost everyone was feeling some kind of fatalism. Everyone was
feeling differently about the situation, unlike those who were outside of
Slavyansk. Some became relaxed in their attitudes to life and death,
desiring only to show off their daring. Perhaps it was a human reaction to
neutralize fear and despair. Those besieged in Slavyansk felt like suicide
bombers. They would say goodbye to each other as they went off to
different positions. “Maybe we won’t see each other again” they would
say. Strelkov himself incited such sentiments. In his speeches he would
make it seem that we were winning (to raise the spirit of the fighters) and
that we were all going to die (to win sympathy and support from Russia).
It felt like a besieged fortress – the “Stand at Slavyansk” we called it. We
might all die, but we must stand, stand, stand to the death. We stand
believing that new forces were being assembled around us, and after
standing for long enough that the Russian invasion would begin. Many of
the militiamen at Slavyansk were older. They wanted revenge – for the
betrayal of 1991, for the robbery of the 1990s, for elections without
choices, for the American puppet government, for years of
Ukrainianization and mockery of their history. For them, it was their last
attempt, their last chance to fight for the country they lost in 1991.”
Slavyansk’s defense was a network of strongpoints. The city was
sprawled out over a wide area, which made it difficult for the small militia
force to hold. A continuous line of defense was impossible to man. A
third of the garrison’s forces in men and materiel were sent to forward
positions in Semyonovka and elsewhere. A third were sent to Yampol
and Nikolayevka. The remainder, less than six hundred fighters, was
stationed in Slavyansk itself.
Strelkov identified areas in which Ukrainian breakthroughs were
expected and fortified them. In the beginning it was just barricades made
of tires, concrete blocks, and scrap metal. Later, they became fully
fledged covered trenches with embrasures. As new volunteers arrived in
Slavyansk and were organized into new infantry companies, new
strongpoints were built inside the city and along its perimeter.
Since there was no fully developed defensive line in Slavyansk, or
even any proper military organization (there wasn’t even a proper army),
the militia couldn’t plan offensive operations. The militia was limited to
partisan-style operations – ambushes, sabotage, and raids – followed
immediately by retreats. These were tactics aimed at “killing by a
thousand cuts”. They were the only tactics possible for a force facing a
vastly superior opponent.
The militia commanders around Slavyansk constantly proposed
offensives to the garrison headquarters, but most of them were rejected.
There were just not enough forces or organization. The main task of the
garrison was to defend Slavyansk. All military actions were aimed at
deterring the Ukrainians and inflicting damage upon them. The actions
were carried out at the company and platoon level. Operations by forces
larger than a company were extremely difficult to organize, and were
risky. Unlike the Ukrainians, who had virtually unlimited numbers, the
garrison suffered greatly from the deaths of even five to ten fighters.
The Slavyansk garrison (including Kramatorsk) was about 1,500
strong in early June. By early July, it was up to 2,500 men. The main
defensive positions were in villages and towns around Slavyansk:
-Semyonovka – up to four hundred fighters under the command of
Sergey “Kap” Velikorodny
-Cherevkovka – up to eighty fighters under the command of
Alexander “Hera” Girich
-Vostochny - up to two hundred fighters under the command of
Vladimir “Tsar” Kononov
-Red Bridge (a village between Bylbasovka and Andreyevka) - up to
three hundred fighters under the command of Valery “Buddy” Musienko
-Kramatorsk - up to five hundred fighters under the command of
Sergey “Grumpy” Dubinsky
-Yampol – up to two hundred fighters under the command of Yevgeny
“Pennant” Skripnik
- Nikolayevka - one hundred and twenty fighters under the command
of Igor “Sapper” Ukrainyets
About six hundred fighters were stationed in Slavyansk itself. Half
were at checkpoints, and the other half in city buildings. The
commandant’s company was under the command of Mihail “Gray”
Nikolayev, and was positioned in the Slavyansk Aviation Technical
School next to the garrison headquarters. A company under the
command of Artyom “Torah” Averyanov was in the UkrTelecom building.
In addition, there were two separate units in Slavyansk that carried
out law enforcement. The first was the Counterintelligence Service under
the command of Abwehr, and the second was the Military Police under
the command of Viktor “Nose” Anosov.
 The Anti-Air Service in Slavyansk had been active since the end of
April and was under the command of Thunderstorm. It had up to twenty
fighters. There was also a commando group under the command of two
militiamen with the call signs “Father” and “Vadim”. They were based out
of the old Jehovah’s Witnesses’ church on the outskirts of Slavyansk.
The Ukrainians had about ten thousand personnel around Slavyansk
in early June. By July, they had seventeen thousand. For the most part
they were troops from the 95th and 25th Airmobile Brigades, one regiment
of National Guards, and various SBU units. The Ukrainians set up five
numbered checkpoints on the key roads to Slavyansk in addition to their
various firing points and “secret” bases. Checkpoint 1 was at the Fish
Farm, Checkpoint 2 was at the feed mill, checkpoint 3 was at the BZS,
checkpoint 4 on the road to Red Liman, and checkpoint 5 was near the
Slavyansk stele at the exit to Kramatorsk.
Fifty Ukrainian artillery pieces and two Grad rocket launcher batteries
were positioned around Slavyansk by early June. They constantly
shelled the city and its surroundings. Tanks also fired on the city from a
distance of 1.5 to 2 kilometers. Ukrainian howitzers fired on the city from
a safe distance – too far for our mortars to return fire.
All Ukrainian units were first brought to the Barvenkovo station in the
Kharkov region, 40 kilometers from Slavyansk. From there, they were
sent to combat positions in the Slavyansk and Red Liman districts.

In May 2014, the Ukrainian media reported that separatists killed a

priest in Druzhovka. This is what actually happened:
On the night of 9 May, fighters in the Druzhovka garrison were
contacted by the Kramatorsk garrison and told that there was a
Mercedes that had driven past their checkpoint and was approaching
them. As the car approached the Druzhovka checkpoint, the militia
signaled to it to stop. The Mercedes did not respond to the signals and
drove through road spikes. The militia opened fire on the car, and the
Mercedes rolled over. When they looked inside of it, they found Pavel
Zhuchenko, a well-known priest in Druzhovka. He was well-known since
he had been excommunicated from the church two years before.
Several weapons were found in the trunk of the Mercedes. In
addition, a laptop found in the car contained Zhuchenko’s
correspondence with Right Sector leader Yarosh, Maydan leader Paruby,
and SBU chief Nalivaychenko. The correspondence provided a lot of
important information about the plans and moods of the Ukrainians.
A GPS navigation device was on the windshield of the car. It showed
the former priest’s starting point for his journey: the Barvenkovo station,
the mustering point for Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of Slavyansk.
 Chapter 39 - Chief of Staff

The militia didn’t have a classic military headquarters for almost two
months into the defense of Slavyansk. There was a command post run
by Strelkov, but a proper headquarters wasn’t set up until Eldar “Mihailo”
Hasanov arrived in Slavyansk on 10 June from Moscow.

Eldar “Mihailo” Hasanov

Hasanov had military experience from his service in the Nagorno-
Karabah War of 1992-1993, and was a retired lieutenant colonel. He
became chief of staff of the Slavyansk Brigade after the retreat from
Slavyansk, then was made the commander of the southwestern line.
Following that position, he joined the DPR Defense Ministry General
Staff, and was finally placed in the DPR’s GRU prior to returning to
Moscow in April 2015. There, he works for the New Russia movement
and deals with issues of prisoners of war.
 Eldar Hasanov recalls how he arrived in Slavyansk in an interview
with the author of this book:
“I responded to Strelkov’s appeal for volunteers on 17 May. He said
then that he was ready to accept women into the militia and was looking
for a chief of staff. I immediately began looking for contacts and found
Strelkov through the Antique internet forum. I got acquainted with
Grumpy in Rostov, and made it to Slavyansk by 7 June. After talking to
Strelkov, I was immediately appointed chief of staff.
Up to that point, the militia was directly subordinated to Strelkov.
There was no officer corps, and there were no personnel working in
logistics. I had commando experience in the Karabah War, and knew
how to create a military organization. I searched for people who could
assist in organizing a combat worthy fighting force. I walked along the
entire perimeter of defense, got acquainted with the commanders, and
instructed them to find any veterans or former officers. The next day,
officers who had been found by the commanders arrived at the
headquarters. There were few of them, but they were enough to organize
a staff.”
Within a week, the headquarters had departments for artillery,
cartography, mobilization, communications, and logistics. The artillery
department distributed weapons, kept records of their distribution, and
carried out extensive repairs. The mobilization department accepted
recruits, recorded personal data, and issued certificates to fighters
indicating their rank. The logistics department accounted for vehicles,
distributed fuel, collected supplies, and performed maintenance and
repair work.
One of the worst problems in the Slavyansk garrison was the lack of
good communications. The headquarters didn’t have a single army radio
station of even an average range. The commanders used Motorola and
Kenwood radios as well as ordinary cell phones, but carefully due to
Ukrainian wiretapping. Cellular communications were controlled by Kiev
(MTS, Life, and Kyivstar). However, during periods of intense hostilities
mobile communications were jammed. Hasanov recalls:
“We were strained by a catastrophic lack of communications. The
radios that were sent to us were mostly toys – Motorolas that worked in
the VHF range up to a maximum of 5 kilometers. What was needed was
a normal connection, something that was guaranteed to work even in the
face of electronic warfare. In the defense, the most important method of
communication in absence of encrypted radios was wire communication.
We put the whole department into an emergency search for telephone
cables. Grumpy was a great help, and regularly sent more telephone
cables to Slavyansk. With those cables and old Soviet TA-57 field
telephones, we were able to establish regular and secure
communications. The communications network was connected to PBX
lines if possible. Some garrison positions were not connected to the field
telephone network, so messengers were sent by scooter to deliver
orders. VoIP communications were only used at the headquarters. By the
second half of June, the communications network was largely
completed.”
Strelkov was often unable to leave the command post due to the
communications problem, as he did not want to lose control of the
garrison. When Strelkov went to inspect positions, he left his cell phone
in the center of the city or at a faraway checkpoint so that the Ukrainians
could not track his movements. More often, if he needed to issue an
order to a group, he would make a call by wire to the checkpoint nearest
to that group. The checkpoint would relay the order to the group, by
bicycle or motorcycle if necessary.
Strelkov, knowing that his cell phone calls were being listened to,
manipulated the Ukrainians by giving away false information. For
example, he informed his subordinates that he was directing a company
of militia to such and such settlement when he knew that it was in fact a
unit of Ukrainians on their way to the settlement instead. That way, the
Ukrainians fired on their own troops with artillery or from an ambush.
Strelkov used a similar deception during the retreat from Slavyansk – he
talked on his cell phone about his future plans in Slavyansk while
preparations for retreat from the city were already being made.
The militia listened to Ukrainian communications as much as they
could. In April, an SBU electronic warfare vehicle was seized near
Kramatorsk. The SBU officers decided to join the militia voluntarily, and
used their vehicle to intercept Ukrainian communications. From them, we
learned that the Ukrainians were tracking the movements of Strelkov and
other commanders.
The Ukrainians set up three electronic warfare stations on Mount
Karachun. Two scanned signals, another interfered with them. One
station was damaged by militia shelling at the end of May.
Communication with Donetsk and Russia was maintained by Sergey
Tsyplakov from the defense headquarters using the TrueCrypt program.
In the program, a file is created and sent to the recipient by either email
or social media. The file is opened with a password known only by the
sender and recipient. Even if the message with the file is intercepted, it is
impossible to read the file due to its encryption.
One of Eldar Hasanov’s primary tasks was to organize the logistics of
the Slavyansk garrison. Logistics were critically important for conducting
combat operations. In Slavyansk, he found Colonel Dmitry “Dad”
Kupriyan who had experience in logistics from the Soviet interventions in
Angola, the Congo, and Afghanistan. Dad was appointed to head the
logistics department, and in a short period of time organized the
department. He organized the flow of supplies from the other Donbass
cities and the Russian Federation in a proper military manner with a
system of accounting, control, and distribution. Dad is from Krasnodar. In
Afghanistan, he was called up from the Belarusian military district, and
after his service there he was transferred to the Kiev military district.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he decided to stay in Kiev and
receive Ukrainian citizenship. When the war began, he immediately went
to the Donbass and volunteered as an ordinary soldier in Semyonovka.
As he was 67 years old, he was given the call sign “Dad”. He knew a
great deal about fortifications, and instructed the militia on how to build
dugouts and trenches. In June, after learning about his extensive combat
experience, command transferred Dad to the headquarters to organize
logistics.
 Dmitry “Dad” Kupriyan
Dad continued to lead the logistics department even after the retreat
from Slavyansk. Shortly after Strelkov’s departure, he left the DPR and
settled in the Russian Federation. In mid-2015 he was found living in a
village near Kursk in complete poverty, fed by compassionate old ladies.
Eldar Hasanov said:
“Dad has always been a very modest man. He controlled almost all of
the supplies of the militia, and could have taken some if he desired, as
other Donbass figures did. But Dad wasn’t capable of such a thing in
principle. In Russia, he just wanted to get some kind of recognition from
the state. Strelkov’s friends guaranteed him accommodation in Moscow,
but Dad didn’t want to feel like a burden and hoped the state would help
him somehow.”
The state did not help him. Dad moved to Belgorod later in 2015,
where he spent some time in the hospital due to health problems. On 20
December 2015, he was detained while crossing the border into Ukraine.
He had tried to go to Ukraine to resolve the issue with his military
pension. It was a strange, reckless step since he was on an SBU terrorist
watch list, but he was driven by poverty and inability to obtain Russian
residency documents.
 Chapter 40 - Armored Vehicles and Weapons

There were still not enough volunteers in Slavyansk in the beginning

of June, despite constant arrivals and the hundreds of men already
under arms. But an even worse problem was the shortage of weapons.
Even if the militia tripled in size, there would be nothing to arm the men
with.
In July 2014 a Russian political scientist, Sergey Kurginyan, visited
Donetsk in order to “expose” Igor Strelkov as a failure who abandoned
Slavyansk despite having every opportunity to keep it. In Donetsk,
Kurginyan said publicly that 12,000 assault rifles were sent to Slavyansk
from the Russian Federation, and that Slavyansk should have held out
longer.
Most likely the weapons were indeed sent to the Donbass in the
quantities that Kurginyan claimed. However, at most a tenth arrived in
Slavyansk. Everything else was intercepted in other cities, or never
made it to the Donbass at all. According to some rumors, the weapons
were sold by unscrupulous army men in the North Caucasus.
At the end of April, the people’s mayor of Slavyansk Ponomaryov
spoke about the support of the Russian Federation:
“It is only moral support. We have not yet received a single aid
package or a single kopeck.”
While there was support from Russia in money and weapons from
mid-May on, it wasn’t from the government. It was from patriotic people
in business and military circles who acted in the knowledge but without
the support of the authorities. There was little control over the
transportation and delivery of weapons, so much of what was shipped
was stolen or intercepted in the chaotic war conditions. The weapons
used by the militia were mostly obtained from captured military deports,
police and SBU buildings, and captured Ukrainian military columns.
There were also some weapons purchased directly from the Ukrainian
military. For them, it was nothing personal, just business.
Volunteer Vasily Saharov recalls buying weapons from the Ukrainian
military:
“Initially, the weapons were all trophies seized from the police and
Ukrainian soldiers. Then weapons were bought by the commandant or
Grumpy’s people. From whom? Of course, the enemy’s greedy
quartermasters. It got ridiculous. At night they would buy grenade
launchers and grenades, we would test them at the shooting range
during the day, and in the evening we would make them the nightmares
of the same Ukrainian soldiers. What do you expect in a civil war?”
The militia also used old antiques in battle. For instance the DShK
1938 machine gun, the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle, the PPSh-41
submachine gun, the Yugoslav M53 machine gun, and other obsolete
weapons were all used.
The militia’s motor pool gradually grew in May and June. Since there
were so few, each vehicle was worth its weight in gold. Armored vehicles
were brought from the Russian Federation to a border crossing, where
representatives of the main four military forces picked them up.
Zaharchenko would pick up vehicles meant for the Stronghold unit,
Hodakovsky for the East unit, Bezler for the Gorlovka garrison, and
Grumpy for the Slavyansk garrison.
Armaments arriving in the Donbass were not distributed as they were
needed. Each militia commander had their own supply chain. Deliveries
went to Slavyansk, Gorlovka, and Donetsk separately. By mid-June,
Bezler already had two Grad rocket artillery pieces, Stronghold and East
each had five, and Slavyansk had no Grads despite two months of heavy
fighting. Slavyansk had a mere two tanks at that time.
Grumpy, Levant Viper, Cat, and Cook were the men from the
Slavyansk garrison who would bring weapons and vehicles to Slavyansk.
They would go to Konstantinovka, accept weapons and vehicles from
Mole, and then take them to Kramatorsk, then to Slavyansk.
Militiaman Vladislav “Forester” Morgachyov was responsible for
delivering equipment and ammunition on the last part of the route to
Slavyansk. From mid-June Slavyansk was almost completely
surrounded. The only possible route connecting Slavyansk with
Kramatorsk was the “Road of Life” through Belenkoye and Cherevkovka
. It was a dangerous path. It was periodically shelled, and people were
killed and wounded while traveling it.
From the end of May through June, ten supply convoys had made the
journey from Konstantinovka to Slavyansk. They carried armored
vehicles, mortars, ammunition, and assorted weaponry. Each convoy
included two or three armored vehicles and shells for the Nona self-
propelled gun and mortars. In total, three T-64 tanks, five BMP-2s, and
two BTR-80s were delivered in the five week period.
 The tanks were brought to Slavyansk in the third and fourth weeks of
June. The mechanics servicing the tank were inexperienced and caused
problems. One tank overheated, so the mechanic turned off the engine
to cool it. The engine jammed as a result, and the tank had to be towed
all night to Slavyansk. A new engine was ordered for the tank, but it was
only ready on 6 July – the day after the retreat from Slavyansk. As a
result, the tank had to be abandoned in the city.
The two functioning tanks managed to take part in the famous battle
for the Fish Farm on 26 June, and were also involved in the attack on the
checkpoint at the Slavyansk Stele during the retreat from Slavyansk.
The BMP-2 shipment was divided. Four of the BMP-2s were sent to
Slavyansk, and the other was sent to Aleksey Mozgovoy in Lisichansk.
Two BTR-80s were sent to Kramatorsk, but they didn’t survive long.
By mid-June they were seriously damaged by artillery fire from Mount
Karachun.
The militia also had two IMR-2s and two BRDM-2s, but they were
found locally rather than imported from the Russian Federation. The two
IMR-2s were found in the New Kramatorsk Machinebuilding Factory in
mid-May. The vehicles were restored and took part in the battle at the
Stele on 7 June. The BRDM-2s were requisitioned from private
individuals in Konstantinovka and transferred to Slavyansk. The BRDM-
2s had been converted into civilian vehicles, but were reconverted into
war machines by mounting KPVT machine guns on their turrets. The
BRDM-2s would take part in the battles near Yampol in mid-June.
Five of the armored vehicles in Slavyansk had been taken from the
25th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on 15 April. They were a
BMD-1, a BMD-2, and three BTR-Ds.
Another BTR was captured by the militia after the attack on a
checkpoint on 26 June.
The commander of the militia’s armored vehicles was Yaroslav “Ram”
Anika.
There were two Nona self-propelled guns, eight 82-mm mortars, and
six 120-mm mortars delivered to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk in May and
June. One 120-mm and two 82-mm mortars remained in Kramatorsk,
while five 120-mm and six 82-mm mortars were sent onto Slavyansk.
Two Nonas arrived in Slavyansk on 23 June. They were sent not from
Konstantinovka, but from Lugansk and Krasnodon. The Nonas had been
first intercepted there by our comrades in Lugansk, but Grumpy
confronted them and made sure the Nonas were sent to Slavyansk.
 There was already a Nona active in Slavyansk prior to their arrival. It
had been captured from the 25th Brigade of Ukrainian Armed Forces on
15 April. That Nona was commanded by militiaman Hurricane. The two
new Nonas were given to Oldrich “Czech” Grund and Mihail “Givi”
Tolstyh.
The militia also captured two 82-mm Cornflower mortars. The first
was captured from the Ukrainians on 13 May in Kramatorsk, and the
second was captured in battle on 26 June in Slavyansk.
The artillery commander of the Slavyansk garrison was Georgy
“Painter” Beridze.
Five ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft weapons arrived in Slavyansk. They came
disassembled. There was no one in the militia who knew how to
assemble them, so they downloaded the instructions from the internet
and built them in two to three days. The ZU-23-2s were used against
both ground and air targets. One of the ZU-23-2s hit an Su-25 in
Semyonovka on 3 June. Another was installed on a BTR-D to make a
mobile anti-aircraft vehicle.
One of the convoys in the 20s of June delivered a Strela-10 anti-
aircraft missile system to Slavyansk. However, the system didn’t work,
and it was abandoned in the retreat.
About 1,800 guns of various types and conditions were received from
the Russian Federation during the entire siege of Slavyansk. About
seven hundred were SKSs[67], one hundred were SVDs, ten Cliff
machine guns, and ten were automatic grenade launchers. The rest
were other models. Other small arms and anti-tank weapons were either
taken from local warehouses or captured in battle. Many of the weapons
had rusted or faulty barrels.
The weapons were distributed beyond Slavyansk to the militia
garrisons in Kramatorsk, Druzhovka, Konstantinovka, Lisichansk, and
other areas.
 Chapter 41 - Supply of Red Liman

Hostilities around Slavyansk continued on 4 June. Two Ukrainian Mi-

24s were hit that day. One was hit by fire from a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft
gun but survived, while the other was shot down near Slavkurorta. The
ATO’s official representative Vyacheslav Seleznyov confirmed the losses:
“We confirm the information about the two downed helicopters. They
were Mi-24s performing combat operations near Slavyansk. One
helicopter was shot down with a MANPADS, while the second was hit by
an anti-aircraft gun. That helicopter received minor damage from the
anti-aircraft fire, and it will return to combat after it is repaired. The
second was destroyed.”
On 5 June, Red Liman was occupied by Ukrainian troops. Fighting in
the city had begun on 3 June. The militia held the town for two days, but
the Ukrainians overran them on the third day. The town was taken at a
great price. The Ukrainians admitted that they suffered sixty wounded,
and did not disclose the number of dead.
One militia platoon, which answered directly to the garrison at
Slavyansk, guarded Red Liman with Cossacks. The militia held onto their
checkpoint and inflicted losses on the Ukrainians – destroying an
armored UAZ and an anti-aircraft gun before retreating. According to
Strelkov, the militia only retreated from Red Liman because the
Cossacks had fled their positions. Two days later, Strelkov wrote angrily:
“The day before yesterday almost all the “glorious Cossacks” (both
locals as well as those from the Russian Federation) fled from Red
Liman. At night, I ordered the commander of the Red Liman company,
Yeryoma, to bring his men back to their position. The “Cossack General”
(who ran from Red Liman to Antratsit[68] and another “Cossack General”
Kozitsyn) did not obey my order. Instead of going himself, he sent ten
men who refused to even dig trenches and stated that they had only
arrived to escort refugees to Antratsit. Where the hell are the hundreds
of “Don and Kuban heroes” who are supposedly here? What are they
defending in Antratsit? Who are they fighting? The local chickens and
cisterns? Nothing has changed in more than 20 years with these
“resurrected goat herders”. They are clownish dregs and marauders, fit
for nothing but a costume ball.”
 In early June, the Ukrainians probed our positions in Cherevkovka.
Foreign mercenaries in service of the Ukrainian government flew to the
village by helicopter and disembarked. At the time, there were about
seventy militiamen in Cherevkovka. One of the commanders in the unit
was well known militiaman Daniel “Goodwin” Bezsonov. Today he heads
the press service of the DPR military and reads military reports.
Goodwin’s father had died in the middle of April from injuries
sustained from beatings at the hands of EuroMaydan participants in
February. Goodwin went to Slavyansk a week later from Kiev, after the
Bloody Easter on 20 April. At the beginning of May, he was sent to
Cherevkovka with small arms and two machine guns.
 Daniel “Goodwin” Bezsonov
In Kiev, Goodwin had been a long time member of a military-patriotic
club. The club was run by Afghanistan War veterans and military
professionals. They taught members of the club how to build
fortifications, the basics of reconnaissance and camouflage, shooting,
and other military skills. Therefore, in Cherevkovka, Goodwin was a
militia instructor and headed the building of fortifications. The
fortifications included trenches, roadblocks, and dugouts. Goodwin
recalls:
“In early June, a local shepherd came to us and told us that a
helicopter had landed on the outskirts of Cherevkovka. We headed out to
the landing site with our group, and saw ten soldiers about 300 meters
away. We listened to the radio, and heard them speaking in English.
They most likely believed that the area was poorly defended, and that it
would be easy to clear. When they spotted us, they quickly ran back to
the landing zone and lay down. We opened fire with our assault rifles
and machine gun. The enemy threw out smoke grenades and embarked
on the helicopter. However, due to our dense fire, the helicopter was
unable to take off for a while. Our machine gunner fired off all 200 rounds
at the helicopter. Out of our inexperience, we used up all of our
ammunition in the firefight. Nonetheless, we successfully completed our
task by repelling the enemy from the settlement. I don’t know how many
of them were killed or wounded. If there were any, they were evacuated.
One was definitely wounded. When we inspected the landing site, we
found blood and the packaging of imported medical supplies.”
Many militiamen and civilians spoke of foreign mercenaries active
around Slavyansk. English and Polish were both heard by Ukrainian
units in the battles of May and June. The Russian Foreign Ministry
repeatedly made statements about the involvement of mercenaries from
American and European private military companies in the fighting in the
Donbass, naming Academi (formerly known as Blackwater until 2009) as
one. Of course, the Ukrainians and the United States denied the
participation of foreign PMCs in the war.
PMCs, including Academi, are present in most of the world’s hot
spots, fighting for their private and government customers. Their actions
are usually classified and carried out unofficially. In addition, many
foreign mercenaries work as snipers or saboteurs as individuals. That
way, they can earn money directly from a customer rather than through a
PMC.
On 6 June, the Ukrainians launched another attack on militia
positions in Semyonovka. Three T-72 tanks banked by Ukrainian infantry
advanced on Semyonovka from Seleznyovka. The militia hit a tank with a
Bassoon anti-tank missile, after which the Ukrainians created a smoke
screen and retreated.
Around 5:00 pm on the same day, an An-30B reconnaissance aircraft
was shot down over Slavyansk. Militiaman Romeo had fired at the plane
with an Igla. His first missile missed, so Romeo waited for the plane to
return. When it did, he fired a second time and the missile hit. The
missile struck the right engine of the plane. The plane caught fire, rapidly
lost altitude, and crashed near the village of Drobyshevo. Two airmen
managed to parachute out, but the other six crew members died.
The area around Slavyansk and the city itself were left without
electricity due to the constant shelling damaging high-voltage power
lines. The power lines were difficult to repair due to the ongoing fighting.
After a few days, the city was suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe.
The water supply stopped, the gas stations were all destroyed, electricity
was out, and mobile communications only worked intermittently. By that
time, most of the population had already left the warzone. Semyonovka
and other suburbs of Slavyansk had largely evacuated, and fewer than
forty percent of Slavyansk’s population (less than fifty thousand people)
remained. By the end of July, there were only twenty thousand people
left in the city. War correspondent Dmitry Steshin recalls the situation of
the city at the time:
“When we arrived in Slavyansk from Donetsk on 1 June, it seemed to
me that “the color had been turned off on our television”. There were few
people left in the city, and those who remained were on the side of the
militia. The only hostility we got from the public was in the market while
we were purchasing electrical wires. Some locals hissed at us, but they
averted their eyes after we turned around. There was no food in the city,
the only open store was the ATB store on Artyom Street. There, we
stocked up on crackers, tea, and Mivina pre-packaged meals.
By that time there were five journalists left in the hotel “Ukraine”:
Pegov, Fomichyov, Stenin, myself, and Kots. We were still charged 600
grivnas[69] per room. The hotel had a swimming pool, and we used its
water for the toilets with great success. The only employee of the hotel –
the administrator Lena – hated us and the militia. She just didn’t have
anything to compare us to. In the winter of 2015 she gave a detailed
interview to a “Der Spiegel” journalist about the morals of the Ukrainian
military. The Ukrainians even stole the toilets, and paid for nothing.
But in general the locals treated us very well – they even berated us if
we were without armor. “If it weren’t for you journalists, we would have
just been leveled”. I remember giving a lecture on the international
situation to a whole crowd of locals – they were hungry for information.”
On 7 June, Igor Strelkov wrote:
“I predict that not just the area around Slavyansk – now a shield for
the Lugansk and Donetsk regions- but the entire territory of the Donetsk
and Lugansk regions will turn into a warzone. Clearly no one will stop
this military operation. All of this will go further. It will reach Donetsk,
Gorlovka, Makeyevka, Lugansk, and all the other cities and areas of the
region.”
Strelkov was right. In spite of the motivation of the militia, they could
not win against the unmotivated but far superior Ukrainian military.
Timely support from the Russian Federation could have prevented the
penetration of Ukrainian troops into the Donbass and saved a large
number of victims.
 Chapter 42 - Battle at the Stele

On 7 June the militiamen at Kramatorsk again distinguished

themselves. With the help of two IMR-2s and a sniper, they attacked the
Ukrainian checkpoint near the Slavyansk stele and inflicted serious
losses. The checkpoint was numbered 5 by the Ukrainians, and was
between Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. It was garrisoned by a company of
paratroopers from the 25th Airborne Brigade, and also included officers
from the Ivano-Frankovsk Berkut. In total, there were one hundred and
fifty men, three BMDs, one BMP, and some DShKs and anti-tank guided
missiles at the checkpoint and the nearby hedges.
 The Slavyansk stele that would later be the location of a Ukrainian
checkpoint
Neither the paratroopers nor the Berkut were hostile to the militia until
7 June. In April and May they repeatedly negotiated with militiaman
“Cat”, and voiced their motivations:
“We swore an oath to serve Ukraine and stood together with the men
of Donetsk at Maydan. If a Nazi gang came to power in Kiev, that doesn’t
mean that they are Ukraine. We ourselves are at odds with Right Sector.
Do what you want with them, but don’t fight us. You can bring weapons
and wounded past our checkpoint. We will complete our time here and
leave. This is not our war.”
That checkpoint stayed neutral until the beginning of June, but was
unexpectedly made an enemy by the Cossacks. The Cossacks
comprised a significant portion of the Kramatorsk garrison, and acted
independently of the militia. While the militia was satisfied by the
neutrality of the checkpoint, the Cossacks decided to shell the
checkpoint with the Cornflower mortar. The next time the militia tried to
negotiate with the checkpoint, the Ukrainians refused to talk.
“We did not fire a single shot, and you fired at us! All agreements are
now finished, leave and don’t come back!”.
Since there were then no non-military solutions to solve the problem
of the number 5 checkpoint, Grumpy began to prepare an operation. The
plan was for the militia to launch a devastating raid on the checkpoint on
7 June, which was to disperse the Ukrainian units. The Ukrainians on the
field were to be defeated with the help of a sniper from the right flank,
and then the infantry was to move in and capture the armored vehicles.
The plan only partially worked. The sniper in the Battle at the Stele was
Cat. He is what he had to say about the attack on 7 June:
“The first group of four men moved out at six in the morning. I carried
an SVD, Boar carried a machine gun, Sergeant and Small carried
assault rifles with under barrel grenade launchers. We left our cars in the
hedges and made our way to the enemy positions, hiding 150 meters
away. We took a position on the left flank and waited. The beginning of
the operation was to be signaled by the arrival of the two IMRs. The
infantry clearing groups would follow them.
An hour and a half later, the IMRs appeared. One of them was driven
by Levant Viper, the other by Petrovich. Levant Viper’s IMR was
mounted with large speakers blaring a Vysotsky song: “Across the
scorched plain, meter by meter, soldiers of Group Center, are marching
across Ukraine”[70]. The IMRs sped into the checkpoint and began to
break apart the Ukrainian positions – concrete blocks, dugouts, barriers,
and tents. It was a fantastic spectacle.
When we planned the operation, we were most afraid of the anti-tank
missile system. There was one on the BMD which could take out our
IMR. I carefully watched the optics of the anti-tank missile system from
the start of the fighting. When the IMR reached the Ukrainian position,
the anti-tank man reacted almost instantly and began to aim the missile.
Well, it was the last time he would aim, there he fell.
Evil and Batyushka began to attack from the right flank with their two
groups of about thirty men. They approached from the direction of the
sewage treatment plant. That is when the first surprise began. Overall,
we knew the positions of the enemy. Our guys had earlier driven past the
checkpoint while dressed as civilians and recorded the area with a
videocamera. But the east side of the checkpoint was poorly explored.
The other side had the enemy’s secret: a DShK firing point. When Evil’s
group was passing the sewage treatment plant, the DShK machine gun
opened fire, pinning them down in a wastewater and sewage retention
basin. I determined where the DShK was – it was on a large hill, about
four hundred meters in front of me. I saw part of the gunner’s helmet and
the powder scattering from the shooting of the machine gun. It was very
difficult to shoot him. It took me twenty minutes, but in the end I killed the
machine gunner. Evil’s group was then able to continue on and join the
battle at the checkpoint.
When I was firing at the machine gunner, the IMRs ran into problems.
Some kind of anti-tank fire from the field punched a hole in Petrovich’s
IMR. He left the battle and drove to Slavyansk. Later, we found out that
he barely made it to the hospital and died of his wounds there. Levant
Viper’s IMR also withdrew, but to Kramatorsk. The mortars on Mount
Karachun began to fire on the area, so we withdrew. The Ukrainian
mortarfire hit their own men.”
The entire battle lasted forty minutes. The element of surprise
benefitted the militia, as did the blows of the IMRs and the precise work
of the sniper. The Russians suffered one man dead, one wounded, and
one missing. The dead militiaman was Anatoly “Petrovich” Boreyko. Cat
estimates the Ukrainian losses at about thirty men – including from
Mount Karachun’s friendly mortarfire. According to Cat, the militia
intercepted Ukrainian radio transmission requesting Ural trucks for the
evacuation of dead and wounded.
 An IMR-2
According to Grumpy, Ukrainian losses were lower – about fifteen
men. According to him, most of the Ukrainians fled in fear after the IMRs
began destroying their positions. Grumpy said:
“Ukrainian losses were the result of five factors: the actions of the
IMRs, infantry fire, sniper fire, friendly fire, and stepping on their own
mines. The biggest losses were the result of the IMR attacks, which
leveled the trenches and crushed two machine gun crews. Several men
died while running through the minefield. There were also losses from
their own mortars on Mount Karachun bombarding them. The mortarmen
probably believed that we had captured the checkpoint.”
Initially, there was no intention of occupying checkpoint number 5.
The militia’s objective was to capture armored vehicles and inflict
casualties. But the vehicles could not be captured due to Ukrainian
mortarfire. The checkpoint was in the direct line-of-sight of Mount
Karachun, and the mortarmen there were firing on the militia at a
relatively close range.
 The missing militiaman was Vladimir “Grandfather” Kollontay. He had
served in the special forces of the GRU in Transnistria, Nagorno-
Karabah, and Chechnya. In military circles he was called “the second
grandfather of Russian special forces”. He was a venerable man of 76
years, and commanded great respect within the militia.[71]
Grandfather had lived in Russia before the war, and had been with
the Crimean Company from the beginning. He had crossed the Ukrainian
border with everyone else in April, carrying a heavy load fifteen
kilometers on foot. He had eagerly fought in Slavyansk in Kramatorsk
with men far younger than him. The battle at the Slavyansk Stele on 7
June was the last time that anyone saw him. His fate is unknown.
Grumpy says that Kollantay was shooting at the fleeing Ukrainians
while he followed Petrovich’s IMR to Slavyansk. The militiamen who saw
Petrovich’s IMR enter Slavyansk said that no one followed it.
“In the following days, we searched all of the fields in search of
Grandfather. We even gave money to the Berkut commander to look for
his body when they returned to the checkpoint at the stele. They looked
for the body, but neither they nor we found anything. Twice we got a
glimmer of information that Kollantay was in prison in either Kharkov or
Kiev. But the information was never confirmed.”
 Chapter 43 - Bloody Trinity

One of the most intense bombardments of Slavyansk was on 8 June.

Many militiamen and civilians were killed. The Ukrainian artillery inflicted
a grievous toll on our artillery in the city. Eight militiamen were killed, and
ten were wounded. Ammunition stored in a warehouse and in KamAZ
trucks detonated in the bombardment, destroying two 120-mm mortars
and 400 82-mm shells. Vitaly “The Ninth” Yermolov recalls what
happened:
“On the morning of 8 June, the outskirts and city center of Slavyansk
were hit by shelling. We were at our base on the territory of a former
military unit. The first bombardment lasted thirty minutes. We rushed to
the civilian areas beyond the fence and adjacent parking lot and
scattered across yards. Later, a fire engine and ambulance arrived. We
loaded two wounded civilians into them and returned to the place we had
fled. Another forty minutes passed, and we had almost set everything in
order when we were thrown back by an explosion inside our checkpoint.
The base was shelled mercilessly. The shells hit the warehouses holding
the mortars and ammunition. After another thirty minutes, the shelling
stopped for a bit. Everyone who could still move ran to the men lying on
the ground. Sasha Artist lay on the other side of the checkpoint with his
insides fallen out. Skinny lay a little further beyond him – he had been
killed instantly, there was a gaping hole in his back the size of two men’s
fists. Red lay on his stomach screaming “brothers, kill me!”. Near the sink
lay our new KamAZ driver who had lost half of his head. We ran for
blankets to place the wounded onto, but the second shelling began.
Everyone lay down. At the time, there were two KamAZ trucks with
mortars and ammunition there ready to be driven to the front. A few more
men died in the shelling. When the shelling ended, our cars arrived, and
we loaded them with the dead and wounded who we had pulled out of
the basements of the base’s buildings – about ten men. In the evening,
the survivors were transferred to the base in Nikolayevka.”
Militiaman Sergey “Henchman” Karpov recalls:
“At twelve o’clock in the afternoon, I received an order to fire at the
Ukrainian artillery batteries on Mount Karachun in order to somehow stop
the heavy shelling of the city. Painter and I drove up to the military post
that stored the artillery, and began loading up. At that moment, shells
began to hit the center of the area. Skinny was killed in front of my eyes.
I was hurt for the first time. During the second shelling of the base, I was
wounded a second time. I fell on Red, who was killed by shrapnel.
Painter pulled me away and brought me to the hospital. I later found out
that the KamAZ trucks with the ammunition had exploded and many
fighters had been killed.”
The eight fighters who died during the shelling of the artillery base on
8 June were Alexander “Skinny” Vasilioglo from Donetsk, Alexander
“Red” Krasnoshyokov from Donetsk, Sergey “Big” Gorbunov from
Slavyansk, Anatoly “Pole” Litvinenko from Kramatorsk, Andrey
Levenyets from Slavyansk, Yury “Diesel” Kolesnikov, Alexander “Artist”
Chigirov, and Yury Gordienko.
The artillery barrage on Slavyansk also struck the dome of a church.
The townspeople said that this was the way of the Ukrainians celebrating
the Feast of the Holy Trinity with them. Thus, the day was named “The
Bloody Trinity” by the locals due to the bloodshed and destruction.
A historic house built by an old merchant in the 19th century in the
residential part of the city was also hit by shells. A five year old girl –
Polina Sladka – was killed inside. She was one of six civilians who were
killed that day. Twelve civilians were wounded.
 Doctor Kovalenko with Polina Sladka
One of the most famous pictures from Slavyansk on the internet was
of a haggardly man carrying a bloodied girl in his arms and looking
directly into the camera. It was the local surgeon, Mihail Kovalenko.
Kovalenko later moved to the Russian Federation and in February 2015
gave an interview to an online magazine about the events in Slavyansk:
“The shells that killed that girl were fired from Mount Karachun. There
was a Ukrainian artillery battery there which regularly fired into the city.
That is where they were firing from on Trinity. My wife and I had just
gotten back from church. The city’s water supply was no longer working.
In the residential areas there were wells, and all of our neighbors went to
the wells for water. The militia had set up a generator there as there was
no electricity. There were two explosions in the area where people got
water. A militiaman ran from the area, carrying a girl in his arms.
Someone shouted “There’s a doctor!” and the militiaman gave the girl to
me. I ran the 500 meters from my house to the hospital. After I put the
girl on the operating table, I realized that she was dead. She had wounds
on her hip, abdomen, and head. Later, when I looked at the photo, I
realized that the girl had already died. In the heat of the moment I hadn’t
realized it.
Before Trinity, I had a feeling that there would be costs. The outskirts
of the city had been shelled, but there were few casualties. The horror
began on 2 May. It was on 2 May that the military column occupied
Mount Karachun and shelled Semyonovka. By the standards of the
Donetsk region, Semyonovka was a small village, with about two
hundred buildings.
It was the first real bloodbath. Sixteen men were brought to us with
gunshot wounds. Injuries like these, especially in such a quantity, were a
novelty for we doctors. Three men had bullets in their abdomens. One
had a bullet in the chest – he died. The other wounded had been shot in
the leg. On that day, four men died. All the others survived. After that
bloodbath part of the population of the city fled. Only a fraction remained.
There were four attacks on Slavyansk in the initial phase. Residential
areas were hit by a lot of artillery shelling. My home was among those
shelled. There were many victims in the civilian population. There were
also wounded militiamen. We also treated the National Guards who were
brought to us.
It is very scary when you are operating on the wounded and hear the
sounds of explosions, especially when they are so close that the building
shakes. Military men know how to deal with it. They know how to hide,
and in general how to behave. We don’t know. My senior operating nurse
was killed thirty meters from the hospital in the aerial bombing of a
building.
I am now living near an airport. It took me a year and a half to stop
flinching at the sound of an airplane.”
The nurse that Kovalenko mentioned was Tatyana Maykova. She was
seriously injured when shells hit the Slavyansk City Hospital building,
and died the following day.
It is worth noting that the doctors in Slavyansk did not lose their
humanity and provided assistance to Ukrainian prisoners as well as
militiamen. Kovalenko treated members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
on more than one occasion. In his interview, he shared the following
details:
“The National Guards whom I saw appeared to be under the
influence of drugs, possibly amphetamines. This was apparently a kind
of combat pharmacology. It decreases fear and pain threshold while
increasing muscle tone and reaction time. I operated on one National
Guard who had a mortal wound. He behaved unusually. He was in a
state of agitation and belligerent. He didn’t feel any pain at all, got up,
then sat down. His facial expression was indescribable. He had glazed
eyes and an unfocused perception of his environment.”
Other doctors who dealt with captured Ukrainians reported similar
behavior, not only in Slavyansk but in other parts of the Donbass War.
Doping was widespread among Ukrainian troops, particularly those from
Right Sector.
The constant shelling of Slavyansk killed and wounded people in their
homes and on the streets. If a man was wounded, he couldn’t be helped
even if he was in the full view of others if the bombardment continued.
Some of the dead remained unburied for a long time.
Most of the dead were buried quickly. The burials were done by a
man in his 50s who went by the call sign “Lumberjack”. He drove around
the city in a car, collecting the bodies of the dead. If the person didn’t
have documents on them, then they were buried with the letter “N”[72] on
the grave. Identifying the dead had to wait. Due to the lack of electricity,
the morgue didn’t work and the dead had to be buried immediately. An
average of five people died a day. About 40% of the dead were
unidentified, but the remaining 60% could be quickly identified by their
documents or information from their relatives.
Journalist Alexander Kots in the documentary "Farewell to Slavyansk"
talked about Lumberjack:
“War is not front-line reports and transcripts of political negotiations.
There is hopelessness, danger, and fear. That is how the people of
Slavyansk saw it, and we saw it through their eyes. The enemy liked to
fire at funeral processions. Lumberjack buried a nurse who died during
the shelling of the city hospital. Lumberjack’s war is a terrible war. He
knew more about death than anyone else. His car was shot at dozens of
times. Every day he had to go to most dangerous places in the war. He
didn’t receive any money for his terrible work. At some point, he decided
to take it upon himself to carry this heavy burden. Every day, the work
becomes harder and harder…”
By that time, half of the male population of Slavyansk had already
fled the city. Those who remained had nothing to lose, and many joined
the militia. However, there was nothing to arm them with. Strelkov said in
an interview with a journalist:
“No matter how many volunteers we put into service…. Well, first of
all, we can’t arm everyone. We still lack everything – small arms and
ammunition. We still lack anti-air equipment. There is not enough anti-
tank equipment, including anti-tank artillery. Even if we get the funds we
need, we will not be able to fight on equal terms with a regular army, and
there will still be a complete humanitarian catastrophe in the region.”
Later, that evening, Strelkov wrote:
“I repeatedly read the question as to “why Russia should help those
who do not want to fight for themselves?” 90% of the population of
Slavyansk sits at home. I consider it my duty to explain.

1. If we had weapons in abundance, then the Slavyansk militia

would number several thousand fighters
2. If we had the opportunity to not only arm (as well as dress and
shoe) soldiers, but to also financially support their families at the
average local salary (men are risking their lives!) then in Slavyansk
we would already had a division and a line of men waiting for
weapons.
3. If we had a rear (for a warring army it is completely necessary)
then we would already be mobilizing tens of thousands of fighters,
and me who are still working would join readily.”

On 9 June, thirty-two soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine

defected to the militia. They reported that their commanders kept them in
full isolation from outside information. They didn’t have radios or internet
connections, and their cell phone use was strictly monitored. Taking
advantage of the ignorance of the soldiers, they gave them propaganda
about terrorists who were holding the population of Slavyansk hostage.
On 11 June, Mihail Koval, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense,
announced at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers that “special filtration
measures” would be applied to the residents of the southeastern part of
the Ukraine. He said that those who committed crimes against Ukraine
would be identified and that the population would be resettled around the
country. Such a statement did not add to the sympathy of the people of
the Donbass to the Ukrainian “liberators”.
 Chapter 44 – Dying City

One 10 June war correspondents Steshin and Kots wrote in

Komsomolskaya Pravda:
“Lenin Street is knee-deep in debris. The glass in our favorite
barbershop is shattered, the pharmacy is cut open. Silent groups of
people try to comprehend what happened amidst broken wires and piles
of fallen branches. It’s hard to put the whole puzzle together. There is no
electricity, no water, no money, no jobs, and no pension. There is death –
in ten seconds, at any time of day, a Grad rocket can fly through the sky.
Judging from the holes in the walls, the rockets hit from different
directions. There are apparently several artillery batteries. Igor Strelkov
told reporters yesterday that a militia ambush with mortars destroyed part
of a Grad battery at the crossroads to Red Liman. Apparently, it didn’t
help the city.”
Komsomolskaya Pravda cites the commentary of the head of the
surgery at Slavyansk City Hospital, Arkady Glushchenko:
“The situation is very difficult. There is no water but what is delivered
to us. The lights work intermittently. There are not enough medical staff.
Many have fled, and it is easy to understand why. Our combined team
works across the entire hospital. It is very difficult to manage, especially
on “Bloody Trinity” as we have already called it. It is hard to convey what
a mess it was. The city center was shelled, but patients were brought in
from all over Slavyansk. Only 6-7 doctors of various specialists were
available to treat patients. The last two days have been relatively calm in
regards to surgeries. Therapists have helped us, as has the deputy chief
physician. Since Friday, only 33 people have been hospitalized. That is
only 5-7% of the total number of wounded. The vast majority, suffering
from shrapnel wounds, get treated and sent home. We didn’t have time
to record their injuries.”
The paramedics who worked in the ambulances decided to leave for
Donetsk on 9 June due to the fierce shelling of the city. Some of the
doctors who remained in Slavyansk were afraid to work in the city’s
hospital since they also came under artillery fire. The garrison command
made an emergency request for surgeons, traumatologists, intensive
care doctors, ambulances, and ordinary paramedics.
 Four doctors came to Slavyansk after this appeal from Moscow,
Latvia, Finland, and France. The first three doctors worked at the military
hospital until 4 July. The doctor from France, Timur, left on the 20th of
June. He was only there on two weeks of vacation time. The wounded
militiamen treated by Timur remembered him as a professional,
sensitive, and caring doctor. In addition, several of the doctors who had
fled out of cowardice returned after a few days. Strelkov warned them
that they would be punished according to the laws of war if they departed
again.
The head of the Slavyansk garrison’s medical service was Olga
“Lyolya” Vyazovskaya, a native of Kharkov. The head physician of the
military garrison, a native of Lugansk, was named Sergey and went by
his call sign “Doc”. He had fought at Semyonovka in May, but due to the
shortage of doctors he moved to the hospital at Andreyevsky Lane in
June.
The Central City Hospital of Lenin took in the wounded prior to the
establishment of the military hospital at Andreyevsky Lane in June. Even
after the military hospital began operations, the Central City Hospital still
took in the most seriously wounded that needed complex operations.
The military hospital didn’t have the proper equipment for more than
simple operations.
The hospital mainly received patients with bullet wounds in the first
two weeks of the defense of Slavyansk. In May, shrapnel wounds
became more common as the Ukrainians started to use artillery. In June,
the flow of wounded militiamen and civilians became a flood. There were
simply not enough doctors, beds or resources to treat all of them. As a
result they began to be evacuated to Donetsk after receiving first aid or
emergency operations.
In the beginning of June, one bus of wounded was sent from
Slavyansk to Donetsk each day. By 25 June, it took two buses to
transport sixty to eighty wounded to Donetsk a day. A precise count of
wounded was not carried out, but it should be understood that the
fighting and bombardments in Slavyansk worsened at the end of June
and beginning of July. More than a thousand people were wounded in
that period, both civilian and military. The total number of wounded in the
entire defense of Slavyansk was over one and a half thousand.
On 12 June, the Ukrainians fired white phosphorus at Semyonovka.
The incendiary shells exploded in the air and formed clouds of poisonous
smoke. The Ukrainians knew what kind of weapon they were using, and
only fired the white phosphorus shells when the wind blew towards
Slavyansk. Many militiamen complained about eye pain and a burning
sensation in their throat to doctors. The militia began to use gas masks
to protect against those kinds of attacks.
Alexander Kots remembers:
“In long suffering Semyonvka on the Rostov-Kharkov highway, people
still lived near the front lines even after enduring a month of fighting. It
was mostly hardy old men who remained to take care of the area.
However, there were also some children left behind – Lyuba, the
paraplegic Vera, and the two year old Anton. We stumbled upon the
Kompchenko family by chance. They lived near the front line, and we
were surprised to meet a woman with a stroller. We patronized the
unfortunate family. One each visit to Semyonovka, we brought cereal,
diapers, butter, sweets, and toys for the children. We asked the
Ukrainian artillerymen through the newspaper to not shell 26 Talalihina
Street as three children lived there. The artillerymen interpreted our
request in their own way. Every day it became harder to come to
Semyonovka. Tanks and artillery shelled the road and the village,
sometimes with phosphorus.”
On 12 June, journalist Andrey Krasnoshyokov wrote:
“Residents of Slavyansk come to a dry fountain in the square near
the city council to get water. There has been no water supply for 8 days.
It is impossible to buy a bicycle in Slavyansk or Kramatorsk. Get old
bikes out from attics. They are the best means for getting past
checkpoints, and you won’t need fuel. There is less and less fuel
available, and fewer gas stations are operating.”
Fyodor Berezin, Strelkov’s confidant in Donetsk, reported on the
same day:
“Two cars taking children out of Slavyansk came under Ukrainian fire.
The cars were under white flags. One car rolled over. The children in the
car got out and loaded into the second car, but their grandmother and
her adult daughter were stuck in the overturned car. The grandmother
had broken her arm and could not be pulled out. The two wounded
women were left in the overturned car in enemy territory while the other
car carrying the nine children and women drove south.”
On 15 June, the journalist Mihail Fomichyov wrote about Slavyansk
and its inhabitants:
“Their detachment and indifference is sometimes striking. For
example, when the Ukrainians were hammering the city with Grads,
Stenka and I hid in a gateway from which we could see the central
square and the park beyond it. Beyond the park, there were two
explosions a distance from each other. A column of splinters, branches,
stones, shards, and smoke rose 200 meters into the air from the
explosions. In front of the explosions on the central square came a girl of
about five years in a red dress with polka dots and a white bow on her
head, riding a tricycle. Behind her a married couple walked calmly hand
and hand. It was as if scenes from two different films had been
mistakenly combined by a mediocre editor.
Another time, I was stuck hiding in a dugout at the crossroads from a
crazy amount of dense fire from all the kinds of weapons aimed at
Semyonovka. I brushed away some clods of dirt thrown up by a shell that
had hit half a meter from a dugout. The first thing I saw was a dude on a
sports bike, carefully cycling around craters and broken wire. The
Ukrainian tank, intent on destroying any signs of movement in the area,
aimed at the cyclist. For them, there is no division of people into civilians
and soldiers. They act like fucking gamers.
A middle aged woman went out to the balcony with her cell phone to
videotape the shells falling around her burning neighborhood. The next
four shells struck her apartment building, two on the floors above her and
two on the floors below. She was splattered around her apartment.
The flow of life is slowly leaking away here. The Ukrainians
interrupted the electricity first, then the water supply was cut off
somewhere beyond the horizon. Now sewage is overflowing, and there is
no possibility of it being pumped away.
Strong people, now humbled, leave their homes with bags over their
shoulders. They get into buses filled with other refugees to go to their
relatives, their friends, or sometimes nowhere in particular. The wind
brings despair down the deserted streets, and old men line up in long
queues to get bread and water.
A city dies like an abandoned, badly wounded animal. A pool of blood
spreads beneath its belly, glassy eyes look dumbly into your soul, and
with fetid breath it asks “well, how do you like my death?””
In the following days, Strelkov made a number of statements aimed
at drawing the attention of Russian authorities to the humanitarian
situation in the Donbass. On 16 June, he gave an emergency statement:
“Short prognosis: the enemy has transferred their main infantry and
tank forces to the north of Lugansk region and the south of Donetsk
region. Every day they advance 10-15 kilometers, methodically cutting
the rebel regions away from the Russian border. This cuts off all aid –
both the hypothetical but needed weapons and ammunition, as well as
food and medicine. I can assure you that if Russia does not take urgent
action, the Ukrainians will succeed.
Now for a controversial proposal: an alternative between all-out war
and non-intervention in New Russia. Non-intervention is instilling in
Russian society the false hope that the local Russians, without the help
of Russia, will be able to defend New Russia, repel the onslaught of the
enemy, and hold out as long as necessary. There is a belief that the
outbreak of an all-out war would be unprofitable for Russia, and would
lead to severe economic consequences. I can say that as this war is
currently proceeding, it will inevitably end in extreme difficulty. Russia will
suffer economically from this war because she did not intervene in time,
and did not introduce peacekeeping troops to the Donetsk and Lugansk
regions when it was possible to do so painlessly after the referendums.
Since the moment that Russia failed to intervene, we started to fail.
Yes, we can hold Slavyansk for a month and a half, but sooner or
later we will be destroyed. We cannot transfer our garrison to another
city without abandoning this territory. We can organize five Slavyansks,
but they will in turn be surrounded and destroyed in the same manner.
There is only one alternative to a full-scale war or complete surrender of
New Russia: the immediate recognition of the de facto New Russia – the
Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – and providing them with real,
large-scale, and urgent military assistance. I turn to Russia as a
commander in the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic and as a
patriot of Russia and the Russian people.”
Strelkov also wrote on 16 June:
“We can destroy another hundred BTRs and kill another 5000
soldiers, but the overall balance of forces would barely change. The ratio
would be reduced from 1 to 15 to 1 to 14. Almost every day we have to
abandon a large settlement since there is no one and nothing to defend
them with. And we can’t go on the attack since we have nothing with
which to oppose the heavy weapons of the Ukrainians. We can only fight
defensively.
So why is there any optimism? From our small successes? Those are
purely tactical. Strategically, we are losing. Officials in the Russian
Federation are outright sabotaging the prospects of supporting New
Russia. I think Putin is well aware of it. Putin has explicitly disavowed (it
would be interesting to know on whose advice) Russia’s willingness to
defend the civilian population of the Donbass. There were no alternatives
offered. If there is no military assistance, the military defeat of the DPR
and LPR is inevitable. Whether it will be in a week or a month doesn’t
matter. The enemy will cut us off from the border and methodically
suffocate us. Along the way they will “cleanse” the land and thus force a
million or two completely destitute and embittered refugees into the
Russian Federation.”
On 17 June Strelkov added:
“I want to once again emphasize that my statements yesterday
neither exaggerated nor understated the seriousness of this situation.
Every word spoken or written by me is carefully weighed. I seriously
believe that we are not dealing with a simple abandonment of New
Russia by the President of the Russian Federation, but with systematic
sabotage at the highest levels of bureaucracy and power. The path to
defeat in the southeast is deadly for the leader of Russia as an
individual. It means that he will face the fate of Milosevic, who had
surrendered Bosnia, Krajina, and Kosovo in similar circumstances. In
spite of all of his capitulations, he finished his life in the Hague.”[73]
It is not surprising that Strelkov was removed from his positions in the
Donbass in mid-August 2014. Moscow feared a popular, frank, and well-
spoken man at the head of thousands of armed men.
In the summer of 2014, everything proceeded as Strelkov predicted.
The militia was cut off from the Russian border and squeezed by
Ukrainian troops. Hundreds of thousands of refugees poured into the
Russian Federation. And Russia still had to send in troops, albeit
unofficially. Had Moscow sent troops in late June or early July, then
Slavyansk would still be under a Russian flag, just like the other Russian
cities in the Donbass.
As the result of his grim predictions, Strelkov was named “the dour
colonel” on social media. Strelkov himself, in an interview with the Black
Hundred publishing house, said that “I was perhaps the dourest man in
Slavyansk”.
Nonetheless, Strelkov's “dour” reports about the grim state of affairs
in Slavyansk coexisted with a number of tactical victories. Strelkov would
write “dour” reports even after the militia destroyed a Ukrainian
checkpoint or ambushed a vehicle column. Observers saw this as a
cunning tactic – they believed that Strelkov would bait the Ukrainians into
overconfident attacks and allow the militia another victory.
 They were partly right. Alexander Kots considers this one of
Strelkov’s strengths as a commander:
“We only understood Strelkov’s tricks when we got to know him
better. He knew even in the spring that sooner or later it would be
necessary to leave the city. Slavyansk had drawn the entire combat
ready forces of the Ukrainian military.”
Strelkov’s political statements and appeals to Moscow were quickly
picked up by the patriotic opposition[74], who emphasized the heroism of
the militia and their betrayal by the Russian Federation. Seeing their
reaction, Strelkov wrote on 23 June:
“I am jarred by the fact that during a real war (which is already
proceeding, regardless of whether or not it is desired), there are those
who use my comments as an ideological weapon against the current
authorities. I have written before and will write again that in taking
Crimea, Putin started a revolution from above. This revolution is going to
be very hard, with constant shifts in fortunes. But it is proceeding. If you
do not support Putin now, then he and the country will both be swept
away by their failure. In addition, a rebellion against the commander-in-
chief is essentially a betrayal of the Fatherland.”
 Chapter 45 – Defeat at Yampol

On the evening of 18-19 June, the Ukrainians moved a large number

of troops from their base in the village of Dolgenkoye to the Red Liman
area. The movement involved over one hundred and thirty pieces of
military equipment: tanks, Grads, BMDs, BMPs, BTRs, and much else.
The troops were preparing for a series of attacks to defeat the militia
in the areas around Red Liman and Slavyansk. Part of this series of
attacks was the attack on Yampol.
The control of the Yampol-Krivaya Luka-Seversk-Zakotnoye area to
the northeast of Slavyansk was of great importance to both sides. The
militia wanted to keep its hold of the natural barrier of the southern bank
of the Donets River, as well as to keep its lines of communications with
Aleksey Mozgovoy open. Mozgovoy’s forces were based out of the
villages of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, and supported the Slavyansk
forces in the area around Red Liman. The Ukrainians wanted to take the
area for that reason, dividing the militia in two, and by capturing the
bridges at Zakotnoye and Krivaya Luka isolating Slavyansk even more.
Militia forces entrenched themselves in Seversk and Yampol after the
surrender of Red Liman on 5 June. There were about forty militiamen in
Seversk, and by mid-June there was a battalion stationed in Yampol. The
militia battalion in Yampol was around two hundred strong. It was led by
Pennant and his deputy Machete. In addition to their regular arms, the
militia there had two Cliff machine guns, an SPG-9 recoilless, an AGS-17
automatic grenade launcher, and one ZU-23-2. The battalion had two
mortars, but due to a lack of trained spotters they were not used in
combat. After the fighting started, a machine gun armed BRDM-2 arrived
to reinforce the defenses in Zakotnoye and Seversk prior to being
damaged. The rest of the weapons remained in the rear.
Our positions near Yampol had been shelled and attacked several
times in June, but there had been few casualties there on either side. It
was a traditional reconnaissance by force. The main attack was
launched on 19 June. The Ukrainians were organized in a battalion
tactical group comprised of the 24th Mechanized Brigade, a tank
company, the First Battalion of the National Guard, about two companies
from the 25th Airmobile Brigade, and troops from various other units.
Their attack involved thirty armored vehicles, Grads, and two Su-25
aircraft.
Their attack began with a short artillery barrage early in the morning.
The barrage was followed by an infantry assault backed by tanks, BTRs,
and BMPs. The Russians managed to repel the first attack and
destroyed a tank. The Ukrainians destroyed one of the two militia SPG-
9s.
After a pause in the fighting, the Ukrainians launched a second, more
successful attack. Three quarters of the militiamen at Yampol were new
recruits, and it was the first battle for most. Unable to withstand the tank
attack and heavy fire from armored vehicles, the Russians scattered.
The handful that remained counterattacked and managed to take out
several BMDs with RPGs, but in the end they too were dispersed.
Igor Strelkov later wrote from Slavyansk:
“For those who criticize the militia for its weakness, I encourage you
to come here and taste the situation yourself. The enemy has a BTR or
BMP for every ten men (not to mention twenty tanks), while we have no
armor for our entire defense detachment. They had a Grad, a division of
self-propelled howitzers, and Su-25s. We have two SPG-9 recoilesses
and our artillery was a single ZU-23-2. Our communications were shut
down with electronic warfare equipment, so radios were completely
useless. The ratio of forces was ten to one. There, the militia could not
resist.”
Vitaly “Afrikaner” Fedorov, a Russian volunteer who participated in
the battle near Yampol said:
“There were fewer than 200 of us, and not all fought in the battle. To
my knowledge, about 10-12 men were killed and 40-50 men were
wounded. I must admit, we were kicked out of the crossroads. We
repulsed the first attack – the SPG took out a tank and a BMP. The
Ukrainians tried to drag them away behind a smokescreen. A
neighboring squad provided covering fire for us, and we advanced, firing
our grenade launchers. The tank exploded and its turret flew off. The
Ukrainians succeeded in dragging away the BMP. There were two dead
Ukrainians next to the tank, I don’t know what happened to the crew.
During the second attack, we ran out of grenades for our grenade
launchers. The tanks got within 50 meters of us, and blasted our
trenches at close range. We were forced to retreat. From our squad of
seven men, one was missing and two were injured (myself included).
This was in spite of us being at the front. There were no more than 100
men who fought on our side in reality. I had a suffered a light contusion,
two shrapnel fragments, and a glancing bullet wound.”
A comrade of Afrikaner, German “Scythian” Bushkov, fought in the
Battle of Yampol as well. He wrote about the first stage of the battle in
October 2014.
“It was about 6:00 am when the rumble of armor followed an artillery
barrage. You will never confuse it with anything, nor will you forget it. In
that way, it is just like the shelling from a Grad. In such moments, a man
is probably reborn.
I, clenching my teeth, commanded: “Company, prepare for battle.
Hold positions. Grenade launchers avoid the armor and shoot at the
barrels. Cut off the green from the rest.” I went to Grim’s position
(excellent guy, he commanded a platoon in my company. There was a
company ahead of us acting as a screen for the battalion) to make some
adjustments. Just at that moment, as if in a movie from our childhoods,
tanks appeared in the fields. They came out like animals, beasts waving
their long trunks on hillocks. One such beast drove along our front line
for a kilometer, breaking up the blocks used to fortify the line. The tank
was covered by a BTR which drove on a country road about two hundred
meters ahead of us. The BTR was mostly covered by a hill, which made
it difficult for us to hit. As if from invisible speakers, we heard the
clanging of caterpillar tracks, making it clear that more forces were being
amassed. The clanging was a little more from the right, and soon another
T-72 appeared. The SPG men let the tank approach, and then fired at it.
Their aim was true, and the tank began to smoke. At that moment, we
allowed open firing and shot at the greenery with everything we had.”
The second stage of the battle ended with the defeat of the front line
of defense and the militia’s retreat. Scythian was one of the wounded.
“The enemy infantry advanced in a crescent formation from the
greenery in order to cut us off from the rear. Nothing came of it – we
covered them with fire. Then all of a sudden, a column of armor
advances down the road 35-40 meters away from us. Grim shouts “Use
the Bumblebee!” (we didn’t have anything else at that moment). The tank
had a mesh sewn around its armor, so the two Bumblebees that hit the
tank had no effect. Afrikaner was thrown back by the blast.[75] Behind the
tank and the BTRs and BMPs, there were Poles, though I can’t say for
sure.
Grim once again showed himself to be a daring warrior. He fired at
the armor with an anti-tank rifle from his position. Mosquito and Kulibin
worked in the same sector. I joined them and fired on the armor at point-
blank range with armor-piercing rounds from an RPK. One BTR blew up
in a cinematic way. Since the other fighters showed such courage, it
made it easier on the soul. Then the tank turned its muzzle and fires
point-blank at our trenches. The KPVTs from the BTRs also fire at us –
what assholes. The enemy’s fire was so dense that the trees fell like ears
of corns. Nonetheless, our soldiers didn’t run – they fought from the
trenches like ghosts rising from the earth.
Dugouts and luck kept us alive under tankfire. The third high
explosive shell fired by the damned tank was more accurate than the first
two and wounded me. I had been trying to move to a position closer to
their infantry, but I was thrown aside by the blast. The feeling was
indescribable. Afrikaner was in front of me when I came to. I looked at
him, and he said “Hang on Scythian, look at me”. I felt as if I was floating
on some cloud, and that his words were not addressed to me in
particular. I look at Afrikaner, I feel the holes in my bloody back from the
shrapnel. But interestingly I don’t feel pain, and I still don’t understand
what happened. Then there was a strong blow, like a rubber
sledgehammer, and at the same time a feeling as if a jellyfish had been
thrown in my face. I look from behind my face, which looks like porridge
with blood gushing all over. A bullet had glanced my head.
I hear how Grim shouts for the guys to take the company commander
(me) and leave. “Scythian, what do we do?” one of the guys shouts. I
look in the direction of our positions and see Grim fighting a delaying
action. I said “Let us retreat while we are still covered.””
Let’s look at the Ukrainian description of the Yampol events. In
January 2017, military observer Dmitry Putyata wrote an article based off
of information collected from Ukrainian troops who had fought at Yampol.
Here is an abbreviation of the article:
“On 4 June, an armored group from the 24th Mechanized Brigade
which included two BTR-80s, three BMP-2s, and a T-64 tank received an
order to destroy the checkpoint at Yampol. They were supported by
artillery. When the group got within 400 meters of the checkpoint, the
objective was successfully completed.
Two mechanized companies from the 24th Mechanized Brigade
advanced from Torsky. The first company was commanded by Captain
Valery Levchenko, the second by Valery Bondarenko. The battalion
commander was Igor Lyashenko. Psychologically, neither the soldiers
nor the platoon-level commanders were ready for combat. They didn’t
find out that they were to take part in an offensive until the morning of the
19th.
The column was comprised of 9 BMP-2s and 3 T-64 tanks. The
reconnaissance platoon moved with the second armored company
through the ostrich farm. There were many young guys in the battalion
who had just recently signed a contract. There were a number of
experienced contract soldiers with them who had been to Iraq and
Yugoslavia. It was obvious that the militants were too few to hold back
such an armored fist.
If everything went smoothly in the 24th Brigade’s sector, then the 25th
Brigade met resistance and suffered heavy losses. They had made a
decision to attack the enemy head on, in spite of the two armored groups
of the 24th Brigade attacking the rear of the militants.
The 25th Brigade had several BMDs and tanks, a Rheostat-2[76], and
two KamAZs with ZU-23-2s.
The militants decided to wait for two tanks to pass and triggered their
remote mine to detonate when the Rheostat drove over it. Two crewmen
in the Rheostat were killed immediately. The battalion commander and
the mechanic-driver were wounded. After that, the BMD-1 was hit in the
front by an SPG-9 shell and captured by the militants. It is unknown how
the second BMD-1 was hit, but it was destroyed. There was a firefight,
and paratroopers were killed by grenades. One of the two KamAZ trucks
was damaged in the firefight, killing two paratroopers. Group 73 of the
Special Forces Center and the Reconnaissance Company of the 95th
Brigade moved parallel to the 25th Brigade’s armor. The company
commander, Captain Aleksey Krementar, was on the first BTR. The
column was ambushed, and Captain Krementar was killed along with
senior soldier Aleksey Shevchenko. According to the separatists, a tank
from the 24th Mechanized Brigade was destroyed in the fighting.
The 25th Brigade’s losses amounted to 12 dead and 25 wounded.
Two were killed in the Rheostat, 2 in the KamAZ, and possibly someone
in the BMD. The rest were all killed by bullets or shrapnel from grenades.
Two men in the 95th Brigade were also killed.
 The Yampol operation did not end there. While the 25th and 95th
Brigades fought, the 24th Mechanized Brigade advanced towards the
village of Zakotnoye. Advancing through the fields, they advanced to the
bridge and opened fire at anything that seemed suspicious. The infantry
advanced with the BMP and fired as well. The enemy opened fire from
the other side of the riverbank (they were separated by the Donets
River). The goal of the 24th Brigade was to occupy the dominant height.
About 15 BMP-2s and 2 BTR-80s advanced towards Zakotnoye with a
few tanks.
There was a fear that the bridge was mined and would be blown up
when the column passed. Therefore it was determined that the vehicles
should cross the bridge one by one. After crossing the bridge, our men
saw the shattered positions of the militants. Several corpses lay among
them, and the bridge itself had the blood of a wounded militant. Before
we took the militant positions, the Su-25 struck the height that we
planned to occupy.
The BTR, the tank, and several BMPs went to the height. For some
reason, the main column continued to advance and was caught in an
ambush. The paratroopers who were mounted on the armor took fire.
Several were killed in a few seconds. The battalion commander was
struck by a few bullets and fell off the BTR as it drove forward. The 24th
Mechanized Brigade lost 7 fighters.
The village of Zakotnoye had fighting too. A bloody BRDM-2 was
abandoned in a field to the militants there. Due to the loss of the battalion
and company commanders, a decision was made to withdraw. The
militants had fired from their hiding places in houses. Another officer was
killed in that firefight – Vladimir Kravchuk.
It is possible that the command planned to take Zakotnoye and then
advance on Seversk, I don’t know. After the battle the militants blew up
the bridge. Why they didn’t blow the bridge when the Ukrainian military
was crossing it is unknown. At least seven separatists were killed in
Zakotnoye, and four in Yampol. In total, about eleven to fifteen
separatists were killed.
Five hundred 152-mm shells were fired on the day of fighting around
Yampol from 2S3 self-propelled guns[77].
In Seversk, there were 40 militants and 1 BRDM-2 at the time of the
fighting around Yampol. A BMP-2 reinforced them a few days later. The
separatist troops from Ghost unit were the defenders of the village. The
village was liberated on 10 July by elements of the 95th Brigade who
attacked from Krivaya Luka. The artillery was effective, and forced the
separatists to retreat.”
The bridge across the Donets River referenced in the above article
was not immediately blown up because the separatists lacked the
explosives at the time. After the Ukrainians had taken the bridge,
demolition men were dispatched to the bridge and blew it up.
Almost all of the Ukrainian artillery shells (as many as five hundred
according to Putyata) hit the rear of the militia positions and not the
troops at the front. Casualties from shelling were thus minimal.
About ten militiamen were killed in battle on the 19th, and a quarter of
fighters in the battalion overall were wounded to various degrees. The
survivors of the battle ended up in several different places. Some
escaped as individuals, while others retreated under the leadership of
Pennant and Machete. About eighty made it back to Slavyansk, while the
rest ended up in Lisichansk or Donetsk.
The fighters who were confirmed to have been killed in action were
Dmitry “Quiet” Dolgih, Igor Surov from Gorlovka, Andrey “Gnome”
Piskaryov, Aleksey Lemets, and Andrey Sorokin. Ukrainian losses can
only be estimated. The ATO press center reported only seven deaths
from the two hundred men at Yampol and another twelve in the fighting
around Red Liman.
According to the article cited above, the total losses for Ukraine’s
25 , 95th, and 24th Brigades amounted to twenty-two men. According to
th
other Ukrainian press reports, many more men were killed near Yampol.
Ukrainian soldier Igor Chekachkov reported a week after the fighting that
only six men in his group of twenty survived. “Both the battalion
commander and company commander were killed in combat” he said.
According to fighters from the 25th Airmobile Brigade, seven men
survived of the original thirty three who fought in the battle. They also
said that The First battalion of National Guard suffered seven deaths.
From the available records, it can be argued that the Ukrainians lost
at least forty men.
Three Ukrainians were taken prisoner by the Russians and were
taken to Slavyansk. They were one lieutenant and two sergeants. They
were later exchanged for captured militiamen.
Ukrainian losses on 19 June were confirmed as one tank, one BMP,
two BTRs, and three BMDs. One of the BMPs was damaged near
Krivaya Luka and towed by Mozgovoy’s men to Lisichansk.
Motorola sent a platoon of men to help the defenders of Yampol, but
they were too late. They encountered a Ukrainian column near Krivaya
Luka and scattered. This was the only failure of Motorola in the
Slavyansk period of the war.
Grumpy’s fighters carried out a successful attack on the Ukrainian
checkpoint near the village of Markovo east of Kramatorsk, destroying a
BMP and a BTR. The attack was aimed at supporting the men around
Yampol, but it was to no avail.
After the defeat of the militia forces around Yampol, the militia forces
in Lisichansk were given responsibility for the Red Liman area. They had
coordinated actions with the Slavyansk forces in the days before and
cleared out parts of the area. The bridge over the Donets River at
Zakotnoye was blown to avoid a Ukrainian tank breakthrough, and the
bridge at Krivaya Luka was taken by the militia. On 20 June, Mozgovoy’s
forces defeated a Ukrainian detachment near Zakotnoye and destroyed
two BTRs.
These tactical successes did not influence the worsening strategic
situation around Slavyansk. A week later, Ukrainian tanks crossed the
Donets River on pontoon bridges, pushed the militia back, and formed an
armored fist on the southern bank of the Donets River aimed at
Slavyansk.
Pennant spoke about the situation near Yampol and the reasons for
the militia’s failure there:
“Ukrainian artillery had fired at us for a month and plowed our
positions. The entire pine forest looked like it was in a movie about
Vietnam, with sharp peaks of cut palms. In the evening near Yampol, you
would go to sleep in the dugout under a canopy, and then at lunchtime
you would walk among broken trees as if walking among shattered
branches on a beach. After an hour of shelling, it was impossible to leave
the dugouts. The wind would topple damaged pine trees, injuring
fighters.
The battalion was dispersed because of the vast differences in size
and capabilities of the forces. They had air support and a lot of armored
vehicles. We had one ZU-23-2, two SPG-9s, a recoilless, and old RPG-
18s. Our battalion had been formed in haste, and there was no time to
hand-pick men or transfer men in from other areas. Most of the men
were new recruits. They were brought in on cars, and organized into
units as soon as they arrived. We didn’t record the personal information
of men, it was like 1941. We managed to organize a shooting range, and
I ordered that cartridges not be spared. The guys were shooting around
the clock. My deputy Machete didn’t stop them until they knew how to
shoot properly. Nonetheless, when the enemy forced a decisive battle,
rifle shooting did little against tanks.”
The Yampol battalion commander was wounded in the leg during the
battle. It was Pennant’s second wound near Yampol in a week. He had
been hit by a shell fragment in his other leg a week before, but only had
the wound dressed in Slavyansk. After his wound on the 19th, Pennant
spent a week in the hospital and left for Snezhnoye. There, he was made
the town’s commander. The Semyonovka battalion was relocated there
after the retreat from Slavyansk.
The defeat at Yampol was due not only to lack of heavy weapons, but
also poorly chosen defensive positions according to the Slavyansk
garrison’s chief of staff Eldar Hasanov.
“The positions were chosen improperly. The organization of defenses
wasn’t made by me – it was carried out even before my arrival at
Slavyansk. I later expressed my views that those positions were
inadequate for defense. They were on relatively level ground, and had no
natural defenses. The Ukrainians used a logical tactic: they would first
shoot our checkpoints from as far as they could, since they could see
them from afar. Then they would go on the attack without encountering
any natural obstacles. We should have set up our defensive line near the
bridge a few kilometers from Yampol. The terrain there would have aided
a defender with its winding roads and steep ravines. When an enemy
has clear superiority in forces and firepower, other advantages must be
used. Of those, terrain is one of the most important.”
Nonetheless, the Russians suffered a painful defeat and the
Ukrainians won a standard victory. The fall of Red Liman was another
step to the complete encirclement of Slavyansk. Strelkov wrote after that
day’s events:
“We can confirm that the Ukrainian military has achieved the
objectives set by Poroshenko that will lead to the encirclement of the
militia in Slavyansk. Despite the courage and steadfastness of the militia
in the face of a significantly larger enemy force that includes artillery,
aircraft, and armor – they cannot go out in the open.”
In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda[78] he said: “For my part,
I express my deep gratitude to the Russian Federation, which we, the
Russian people of the Donbass, strongly support. I still hope that
Moscow can find its conscience and take action.”
The Black Hundred publishing house printed Afrikaner’s “The
Freedom Fighter” in 2015. The book describes in detail the battle of 19
June near Yampol, the retreat, and the fates of the participants in the
battle.
 Chapter 46 – Truce

In a single day, four people were killed and twenty one were wounded
as the result of the shelling of Slavyansk. Alexander Kots wrote on 20
June:
“For five hours doctors fought for the life of 5-year-old Arseny. The
boy died at 2:00 am. There were too many shell fragments in him. The
doctors counted thirty in his head alone, measuring from 1 to 5 mm.
Some were impossible to remove. The doctors tried to cure his cerebral
edema, but once they realized how many shell fragments were in him
they realized they had little chance of saving his life. Poroshenko, stop
killing children.”
Semyon Pegov recalls the shelling and the death of the boy Arseny
Danchenko in his book:
“We filmed the results of the Ukrainian artillery’s bombardment of
Slavyansk every day. We captured footage not just of the ruins of various
sorts of buildings, but also the bodies of locals who didn’t have enough
time to hide in basements and were killed. Some were dismembered –
their limbs torn from their bodies. Others were mangled by the blasts.
Just the other day, in front of our eyes, a five-year-old boy died in
intensive care. There were so many shell fragments in his head that the
doctors were unable to remove them all. When you see what an
explosive shell can do, you realize why you should not be heroic for
nothing.”
Dmitry Steshin shares his memory of the difficult sights in Slavyansk:
“The most unforgettable sight was the bombardment of Semyonovka
with incendiary shells during the daytime. We were able to capture the
bombardment on video from about a hundred meters away. The footage
was subsequently handed over to the investigative committee.
Another unforgettable moment was from the last days of the siege,
and almost the last episode that I wrote about. A five-year old boy was
hit by shell fragments. His mother tried to patch up her son herself, but
the shell had exploded so close to him that she only gave him a few
more hours of suffering. The boy died on the operating table in the city
hospital.
On the same day, we took away the bodies of a dead altar boy and
three dead old people in the village of Vostochny. When the shelling had
begun the previous night, they had run into the streets towards
Slavkurort.
The Ukrainians had been shelling the area from morning to night. To
the best of my recollection they never hit the militia headquarters, but
they got very close. I think the chaotic shelling had one objective: to drive
most of the population out of the city before the assault.
Our artillery responded. Every night, the Nona was driven to the
Ukraine Hotel and fired no more than ten shells at Mount Karachun. The
idea was probably that there wouldn’t be counter-battery fire near the
hotel due to the presence of journalists. During the last few days of my
time in Slavyansk, I smoked on a balcony and saw two shells pass my
head. They followed their flat trajectory, hissing and glowing, and
eventually exploded in a far-away park.
Militia losses were kept a secret from journalists. I know the civilian
losses though. About five civilians were killed each day from the end of
May.”
On the evening of 20 June, Ukrainian President Poroshenko said that
the anti-terrorist operation would cease all hostilities until 27 June. He
presented a peace plan consisting of 15 points. Among these points
were a corridor for the withdrawal of “Russian mercenaries”, the
disarmament of the militia, and the creation of the ten kilometer buffer
zone on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
In fact, this was another political move designed to demonstrate the
supposed peacefulness of the Ukrainian government and its desire to
resolve the conflict as soon as possible. In fact, the Ukrainians wanted to
get a breather to prepare for an offensive along the entire front in the
Donbass. Alexander Kots reported the next day:
“No ceasefire was heard in Semyonovka. It has been thundering
since four in the morning. They say here that this is not about a truce, but
a regrouping of Ukrainian forces for a decisive blow. We hoped to take
advantage of Poroshenko’s offer to get out of Semyonovka, but were not
able to.”
Igor Strelkov called the ceasefire a trick of Poroshenko and Ukrainian
militants in an interview with LifeNews on 22 June.
“They hope that they can mass enough forces under the cover of this
so-called truce in order to carry out a kind of blitzkrieg at the end. That is,
they will try to eliminate all points of resistance in a short period of time.”
The Ukrainians attacked a rebuilt militia checkpoint at Yampol on the
same day with one tank, five BTRs, and five Ural trucks worth of infantry.
The militiamen there were pushed back into the forested massif by the
attack. The Ukrainians then moved more than twenty tanks across a
newly built pontoon bridge on the Donets River. They massed more
forces at Krivaya Luka and Ilichovka. The Ukrainians expelled the locals
from their homes, and assembled several dozen BMDs, BTRs, and a
large number of infantry in the settlement. Tanks and artillery were
moved to Ilichovka. OZM72 anti-personnel mines were planted around
Slavyansk. The Ukrainians had a shock group prepared, and it was
aimed at Slavyansk and Lisichansk.
The militia carried out a successful ambush of Ukrainian forces near
the village of Dolina to the northwest of Slavyansk. The militia destroyed
two BTRs with grenade launchers and killed the paratroopers mounted
on top of them. Earlier, the same commando group destroyed a BMP
and a Hummer at the checkpoint in the village of Yatskoye. In both
cases, the commandos succeeded in retreating without losing any men.
On 24 June, militiaman Malt destroyed an Mi-8 helicopter with a
MANPADS as it was taking off from Mount Karachun. Nine men were
killed, including three SBU officers. Strelkov stated:
“This is the tenth helicopter that has been destroyed by our fighters.
The enemy is bombarding Semyonovka with phosphorus and
fragmentation shells again in retaliation.”
On 25 June, with the Ukrainians using their pseudo-truce to prepare
for an assault, the Federation Council of the Russian Federation
canceled the resolution that allowed for the Russian military to be used
on Ukrainian territory. Poroshenko’s hands were finally untied.
On that day, the defense headquarters in Slavyansk published the
following statement:
“The DPR militia command declares that it does not intend to
impotently watch the massing of hostile forces in preparations for an
offensive. The militia reserves the right to ignore the so-called “truce” and
strike at the enemy wherever it wants to.”
The statement also gave the militia’s preconditions for negotiations.
The conditions were that the Ukrainians immediately lift the sieges of all
settlements with a militia presence, that all Ukrainian forces be
withdrawn at least ten kilometers, and that all aircraft (including drones)
cease to fly over militia held territory. The militia statement went on to
say:
“The DPR militia will only halt armed actions at the front and behind
enemy lines if the specified conditions are met. Upon the satisfaction of
these conditions, the DPR militia is willing to start negotiations with the
Ukrainian military and other armed formations about prisoner exchanges
and a truce.”
 Chapter 47 - Attack on the Fish Farm

On 26 June the militia attacked checkpoint number 1 near Slavyansk

with its two new tanks. The number 1 checkpoint was located in the
village of Mirnoye, which was home to the Don Fish Combine. Two
companies of Ukrainian military forces and a contingent of Right Sector
men were stationed at the checkpoint there.
The operation was planned by Thunderstorm, the head of the militia’s
anti-air service. Twenty five militiamen set out from their position at the
fire station with two tanks and a BTR-D mounted with a ZU-23-2. The
armored vehicles were commanded by Ram. One tank was driven by a
militiaman with the call sign “Cossack”, while the other was driven by
“Fisherman”.
Our infantry disembarked from the armored vehicles two hundred
meters away from the checkpoint. The tanks kept driving forward at a
high speed and opened fire on the tents, dugouts, and armored vehicles
of the Ukrainians at a distance of fifty meters. The Ukrainians tried to
fight back with the help of grenade launchers, but quickly fled.
The attack was concluded by the Ukrainian artillery shelling their own
retreating infantrymen. The artillerymen had probably incorrectly
reasoned that the checkpoint was fully under the control of the Russians.
Both of the militia’s tanks had received hits from grenade launchers, but
neither suffered any serious damage. Buddy described the fighting:
“The operation was carried out in the area that was my unit’s
responsibility. We were mostly based on Red Bridge. I was in charge of
the defense of the western part of Slavyansk – the railway station, the
feed mill, the fire station, and everything up to the fish farm.
One of the goals of the attack was to teach the Ukrainians a lesson.
Every day they became more and more insolent. They threw civilians out
of cars and looted. The Ukrainians around Bylbasovka were restrained,
but the thugs were gathered at the fish farm. They had to be dealt with,
so we took care of them. At the same time, we also replenished our
ammunition stock and collected a lot of trophies.
Zhenya Fisherman mounted a Ukrainian flag on one of our tanks as a
deception. This helped confuse the enemy for the first few moments.
They didn’t expect such a bold move. We seized the element of surprise
in the first few moments while the Ukrainians hesitated, then smashed
them like eggs in a lightning raid.”
We suffered two wounded and one dead in that battle. The dead
militiaman was Vyacheslav “Slavik” Chervyakov. He received a fatal
gunshot wound and later died from blood loss at the fire station. The
Ukrainians suffered four dead and five wounded.

One of the destroyed Ukrainian BTRs

Two Ukrainian BTRs were destroyed, and a third was captured and
driven back to Slavyansk. In addition, the militia took a Cornflower mortar
with a full stock of ammunition, two Bassoon anti-tank devices with
several wire-guided missiles, three AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers
with a large number of grenades, several assault rifles, a large number of
bullets, night vision devices, and various other equipment.
The surviving Ukrainian troops retreated to the number 2 checkpoint
at the feed mill. The next day, a Ukrainian soldier spoke about what
happened in the battle:
“The attack came from two directions and happened so fast. Tanks
literally burst into the checkpoint at full speed, driving the last few
hundred meters so fast that it made a shot from an anti-tank guided
missile almost impossible. The men who tried firing the missile at the
tank were killed. The guys fired at the tanks desperately with small arms,
but it was useless. Only the grenade launcher managed to set the tank
on fire, but by then it was already in the middle of the checkpoint. We
retreated with the wounded. It will be days before the dead are picked
up.”
The next day, despite the apparent defeat of the Ukrainians in battle,
the Ukrainian Interior Minister cheerfully wrote on Facebook:
“There was a firefight in the outskirts of Slavyansk. A terrorist tank
violating the “peace process of the DPR” attacked the number 1
checkpoint of our ATO but was turned into scrap metal. Well done
Captain Sidorin! The tank was destroyed by a well-aimed shot from a
grenade launcher by a National Guard. He will be rewarded.”
Both the minister and the soldier lied about the tank. Strelkov
commented:
“Our tanks were all intact. One was hit by an RPG, and another had
three holes in the turret from 14.5 mm rounds but was nonetheless
functional. That was all of the extent of the damage.”
Despite the successful attack, the purpose was limited to inflicting
damage upon the enemy and mining the road to Slavyansk. The mines
were to be laid down from the fish farm through the Artyom
neighborhood to block the road leading to the city center. However, as in
the case of the attack on the number 5 checkpoint near the Slavyansk
stele, the militia won nothing in taking the fish farm checkpoint. The
Ukrainians retook the checkpoint the next day with four tanks, six BTRs,
and a lot of infantrymen.
The attack on the fish farm was the last successful operation of the
Slavyansk garrison. On 27 June, journalists published a video from the
weapons depot in Slavyansk, showing off the trophies and documents
taken from the Ukrainians who had been killed at the checkpoint or who
had abandoned their belongings there. The video report showed Strelkov
laying out about twenty documents – passports, military tickets, etc. He
then examined a trophy weapon with a satisfied look. Many who had
become accustomed to seeing a “dour colonel” noted him to be
unusually upbeat.
Strelkov did not rejoice for long. There was heavy fighting in
Nikolayevka a few days later, and Slavyansk was abandoned a week
later.
 Chapter 48 - Fall of Nikolayevka

Nikolayevka, a city twenty kilometers east of Slavyansk, was

garrisoned by four hundred fighters. These fighters included Machete’s
company, which had recently retreated from Yampol. By 1 July, the
situation in Nikolayevka changed dramatically after Sapper left the city
with his company. Strelkov publicly called Sapper and his men deserters
and accused them of leaving a weak point in the militia’s defenses. This
weak point gave the Ukrainians the opportunity to capture Nikolayevka
on 3 July and allowed for the Ukrainians to fully encircle Slavyansk.
Sapper’s company had one hundred and twenty-four men. On 1 July
Sapper told his men about an order from Strelkov to leave Nikolayevka
and took them to Gorlovka. Sapper said that the order was given to him
by the Gorlovka garrison commander Igor “Demon” Bezler. Bezler didn’t
deny giving the order, and insisted on his correctness in giving the order.
He describes his view:
“If I didn’t let Sapper abandon his position, he would have had to
leave anyways in a few days. Sapper’s unit had no ammunition or food
left. A delay of a few days would not improve their situation, but rather
destroy the unit. Yampol showed this well. We had been supplying
Sapper for three weeks. If we hadn’t, the collapse would have happened
three weeks earlier.”
We have already mentioned the conflict between the two Igors –
Strelkov and Bezler. Due to interpersonal conflicts, the two Igors largely
stopped interacting in July. Grumpy mostly worked with Bezler. Be that
as it may, Bezler had no right to give such an order to Sapper’s
company. Firstly, Sapper’s company was under the authority of the
Slavyansk garrison. Secondly, Strelkov was not just the commander of
the headquarters at Slavyansk, but also the DPR’s Minister of Defense.
However, in a war of this type, human relations rather than formal
authority played the key role in decision making. Despite Strelkov’s
authority and popularity, there were other militia commanders who had
substantial influence.
Sapper was not the only one who left the Slavyansk garrison to go to
Bezler. According to Strelkov, Hasanov, and Machete, Bezler’s statement
about the Sapper’s lack of food and ammunition was not true. Of course,
no one in the Slavyansk garrison had enough food and ammunition, but
the situation was not critical at that time.
After Sapper’s company realized that there was no real order from
Strelkov to leave Nikolyaevka, some of the men tried to return to their
positions. By that time, the Ukrainians had closed their ring around
Slavyansk and only five men were able to make it back. There was no
opportunity to transfer units from other sectors of the front to close the
gaps in the Slavyansk defenses. Forces from Slavyansk itself had to be
sent. A group of twenty men from Slavyansk was sent to Sapper’s former
position in Nikolayevka. They held positions for a day under continuous
Ukrainian fire. Motorola’s mobile detachment was also sent to
Nikolayevka. It carried out raids on Ukrainian positions in the city.
On 2 July, the Ukrainians attacked Nikolayevka with a large force of
armored vehicles. The militia knocked out one tank, forcing the
Ukrainians to retreat. The Ukrainians then bombarded the city with
tankfire and heavy artillery. A significant part of the city was destroyed in
the bombardment.

On 3 July, after two days of fighting, Nikolayevka was fully

surrounded by Ukrainian armored vehicles. Machete had been wounded
in the fighting, so Summer took command of Motorola’s mobile
detachment at Nikolayevka. Some of them managed to escape the next
day, and some just after that, when the Ukrainians captured both
Nikolayevka and Slavyansk.
Machete was wounded on 3 July while fighting with a Ukrainian
convoy in the outskirts of Nikolayevka. He was driving a Ford Fiesta with
four men and an automatic grenade launcher mounted on it. The
encountered a Ukrainian column with a tank, a BTR, and infantry. The
Russians opened fire with the automatic grenade launcher, and the
Ukrainians returned fire with rifle-mounted grenade launchers. One
grenade flew under the driver’s seat and exploded. Machete received
multiple shrapnel wounds to both legs. He managed to drive the Ford
Fiesta away from the Ukrainians and hid the car in a ditch. The militia
called for reinforcements and mortar support. After several mortar shells
fell around the Ukrainians, they withdrew. Militia reinforcements under
South arrived and evacuated the wounded Machete to the hospital.
The militia suffered six dead and fifteen wounded on 3 July. The
ATO’s press center declared that the Ukrainians suffered nine dead and
thirteen wounded. There were many more dead civilians, but the militia
was unable to count them due to the abandonment of the city and the
militia positions at the outskirts of Nikolayevka. The civilian victims were
mostly in residential areas and at the thermal power plant. Ukrainian
Tornado 200-mm rockets destroyed several five story apartment
buildings.
On the evening of 3 July, Strelkov reported:
“Nikolayevka is surrounded. There is no contact with the garrison.
There is constant shelling of Semyonovka, Nikolayevka, and the thermal
power plants. The bombardment is beyond anything that Chechnya saw.
The population of Slavyansk panicked after a night bombardment from
howitzers. Everyone curses Kiev, Poroshenko, and… Russia. This gave
hope and took away outrage.”
The events were described in detail by militiaman Doc:
“I was a military policeman at that time. On the night of 1-2 July, we
were told by our commander, Nose, that our group was to go to
Nikolayevka with Abwehr’s men (Slavyansk’s military intelligence) to
arrest Sapper. Sapper was the Nikolayevka garrison commander, and
was suspected of attempting to desert. There were around 25 men in our
group.
We advanced on Nikolayevka from Slavyansk. While on the way, we
came under enemy mortarfire. First we were illuminated by flares, and
then we were fired upon by mortars. Fortunately, we made the journey to
Nikolayevka without any casualties. When we arrived in Nikolayevka, we
were greeted with silence. The militia had already abandoned the city.
Abwehr and Nose decided to leave eight volunteers to hold Sapper’s
former positions to ensure the city was defended. The rest of the group
returned to Slavyansk to report the situation. I was one of the volunteers
who stayed in Nikolayevka. We had three RPG-18 Flies and one RPG-7
with five grenades. We looked at Sapper’s barracks, but all the weapons
were gone. Only a large stockpile of food had been left, along with
personal belongings of fighters. In addition, we found that positions were
not ready for fighting. There were no trenches, no dugouts for protection
from artillery, and no firing points. Sapper had even removed the mines
from the approaches to the city.
Around four in the morning, a militiaman from Sapper’s detachment
was discharged from the hospital after being wounded a week before. He
returned to Nikolayevka, not knowing that his company had already left.
Our group thus grew to nine men. We went to different areas, and
prepared defenses.
On the morning of 2 July, the Ukrainians began an attack on
Nikolayevka. The attack opened with artillery. 82-mm mortars and 120-
mm self-propelled gun fired at us. After the artillery bombardment, a
group of eight enemy scouts advanced towards us. We let them get
within 60-70 meters of us, and then opened fire. We destroyed their
group. Machine gun fire drove them into a ravine, and my partner used
his grenade launcher to blow up the ravine.
After that, the Ukrainians resumed artillery fire. That time, their aim
was better and they hit close to our positions. Our sniper found their
artillery spotter on our left flank at a distance of about 400-500 meters,
hiding in foliage. He shot him.
The artillery bombardment lasted for six to twelve hours. It stopped
for a forty minute period due to visibility being reduced by a torrential
downpour of rain. At the end of the downpour, the shelling resumed. In
the lull in the shelling, my partner and I built shelters from concrete
blocks at the front line and in a shed. We took refuge there when the
shelling resumed.
The enemy made their second attempt to storm our position at 2:00
pm. Five tanks advanced towards us, supported by infantry. A sniper and
a grenadier were on the second floor of the shed, above my position.
The grenadier destroyed one of the tanks and damaged the second with
his grenade launcher. The infantry retreated to their original positions
after the exchange of fire. The three remaining tanks covered the
damaged tank until it was dragged away by two BMPs. The grenadier
used up all of his ammunition in the fighting.
By the evening, reinforcements reached our position and our
detachment increased to twenty men. The reinforcements also
resupplied us with RPG-7 and grenade launcher ammunition. The
ammunition was unfortunately not useful since the enemy infantry did not
renew their assault. Men from Machete and Morotola’s detachments also
fought in Nikolayevka, but they were in other positions.
On 3 July, the artillery bombardment resumed. The Ukrainians fired
on us from tanks, Peony 203-mm self-propelled guns, Hurricanes[79],
ground attack aircraft, and more. The Ukrainian assault groups were not
used against our positions. They were relying on bombardment to
destroy us in our positions in the residential parts of Nikolayevka as well
as near the thermal power plant.
The shelling lasted all day and subsided at night. On the morning of 4
July I left my position, heavily shell-shocked and red-eyed. The few men
we had in Nikolayevka withdrew to Slavyansk at lunchtime. Motorola’s
detachment fought their way out. With the loss of Nikolayevka, we lost
our last supply road and were completely encircled.”
A Russian All-Military Union[80] detachment took part in the fighting
for Nikolayevka. Their leader was Igor “Skobar” Ivanov, the head of the
Union in Saint Petersburg. Skobar had known Strelkov since 1991. Ten
men from the organization had joined the militia. They were all qualified
personnel – tankers, retired veterans, and officers. They were from Saint
Petersburg, Rostov, Voronezh, and other cities.
The Russian All-Military Union detachment had crossed the border on
22 June near Izvarino and arrived in Lugansk with the aim of heading to
Slavyansk. By that time, the ring around the city was almost closed, and
it was risky to try to travel there. Everyone who arrived in Slavyansk in
the second half of June had looked for guides. Skobar’s detachment was
dissuaded from trying to reach Slavyansk, and told to stay in Lugansk to
bolster the militia there. Nonetheless, the Russian All-Military Union men
rushed to Slavyansk anyways under the banner of the first Volunteer
Battalion. Skobar contacted Strelkov to request a guide, but Strelkov was
unable to provide one.
By a lucky coincidence, fighters with two Nona self-propelled guns
arrived in Lugansk from Kramatorsk at the same time that Skobar
arrived. The fighters met with Skobar’s group, and decided to go to
Slavyansk together. The Union detachment provided assistance in the
transportation of one of the Nonas to Krasnodon. One of Skobar’s men,
Oldrich “Czech” Grund was able to repair the Nona. Czech had served in
the Czech army as a tankist and was knowledgeable in the repairs of
Soviet armored vehicles.

Igor “Skobar” Ivanov

The men went to Slavyansk via Kramatorsk with the Nonas. Skobar
left two officers in Kramatorsk. Their knowledge and experience were
needed more by Grumpy’s intelligence department than the men in the
Slavyansk trenches.
On 23 June, the detachment arrived in Slavyansk. Skobar recalls:
“We met Pennant, who declared that the Drozdovites[81] had arrived.
He took us to Strelkov for instructions. Strelkov gave us an update on the
situation. The Yampol battalion had been defeated a few days before
and a strike group was being formed to capture Nikolayevka and the
surroundings of Semyonovka. We urgently needed to close the gaps in
the defenses, and thus sent the new arrivals to the front line in
Nikolayevka. I asked Strelkov to make Czech a tankist rather than
sending him with us. Strelkov agreed, and sent Czech to fix the Nona.
We left for the front line, and remained there until 4 July.”
The Russian All-Military Union detachment was well armed and
equipped. They even had sixth class body armor and kevlar helmets –
rare in Slavyansk due to their expense. Volunteers were placed at
Machete’s disposal and sent to different detachments in Nikolayevka at
Skobar’s request. Skobar said:
“I considered it too risky to keep all of the Russian All-Military Union
members in one squad since they could all be killed in a single artillery
strike. It would be a heavy loss for our organization.”
Skobar explained his choice of call sign:
“I later regretted that I took this call sign. My ancestors were from
Pskov. Before the revolution, many areas had their own nicknames
based off of their economic specialties. For instance, people from
Vladimir were called “Bogomazi” because they made icons there. People
from Pskov were called “Skobars” because the city was a manufacturing
center known for its forges. Saint Petersburg is near Pskov, so people
there know who Skobars are. However, people in the faraway Donbass
do not. Everyone asked me why I chose this call sign, and I had to
explain the name origin to many. It tired me.”
Some of the Russian All-Military Union men were sent to the
commando platoon in Machete’s company. Some were sent with Skobar
to do cuckoo duty. In military slang, cuckoo duty means observing areas
while concealed in secret.
The militia was not stationed in Nikolayevka itself, but in forest parks
and suburbs close to Ukrainian positions. The task of Skobar’s men was
to follow the Ukrainian movements and warn others of the Ukrainian
approach so that they could prepare.
Five militiamen sat on “cuckoo” duty for twelve hours before being
replaced by another five men. Ukrainian scouts made their way from
their own lines to militia positions on occasion. There were constant
skirmishes as a result. Motorola’s mobile unit drove around in “jihad-
mobiles” so they could quickly move into ambush positions, fire, and then
withdraw. The Ukrainians would return fire, but it would be too late.
Soldiers on the front line had a lot of time to dig trenches and hid behind
natural fortifications (like trees and hills) from machine gun and artillery
fire. Skobar said:
“On 1 July, the three day battle began. The Ukrainians threw a huge
force against us and leveled Nikolayevka. It was essentially the
beginning of a Stalingrad. Nikolayevka experienced in three days what
Semyonovka had experienced over the course of a month.”
The Ukrainians, much as in Semyonovka, were afraid to send their
infantry forward at first. They bombarded militia positions with artillery,
advanced with tanks and BTRs, retreated after taking fire from RPGs,
and then renewed the artillery bombardment. It was to go on until the
Russians were squeezed out of their positions and the city could be
taken with few losses. At the same time, Nikolayevka herself was
barbarically shelled by long range artillery. The Ukrainians calculated that
the militia would leave their positions to save the locals from their
nightmare.
In addition, the Ukrainians shelled the Nikolayevka Thermal Power
Plant – the source of electricity for Slavyansk and several other cities in
the area. This was in spite of the absence of the militia in the power
plant. Not a single shot had been fired from there. It was a deliberate
destruction of infrastructure in order to force an exodus of both local
civilians and the militia garrison.
Skobar describes the last days of the fighting in Nikolayevka. He and
the four men with him were the last to leave the city, and spent their time
sitting in secret.
“When Sapper deserted, things became difficult. His company had
the anti-tank weapons and guarded the flank from tanks. When they left,
that ensured that Machete’s company took the entire blow of the
Ukrainian attack. The Ukrainians entered the city, and our positions were
surrounded.
Each detachment had its own area to defend – all of which were a
decent distance from each other. They held their positions for three days,
but were gradually forced to retreat. After three nights, we found that our
neighbors to our left and our right were no longer there, and that no one
was returning enemy fire. We five men were the last left near
Nikolayevka. The enemy certainly thought that there was still a whole
company left. If they had known that there were only five of us they
would have attacked with a company of tanks and crushed us in a
minute. We had nothing to stop their armor. We only had one RPG-7,
and the Flies didn’t work. The Ukrainians had broken through the
positions to our right and left, and the rest of the militia had retreated. We
didn’t have any communications with the other militiamen, and weren’t
told to retreat. We later found out that Strelkov ordered everyone to
retreat from Nikolayevka. Whoever received the order failed to let us
know. Pennant told us later that our detachment had been left behind
deliberately to cover the retreat of the rest of the company.
Everything around us was on fire during the night of 3-4 July. None of
us five were wounded or killed though. We just dug into the ground and
waited. The enemy used their MRLSs[82], bombarding the area
coordinate by coordinate. Houses were obliterated and trees were
toppled. It was clear that we would soon fall under fire. Even if the
rockets didn’t kill us and we miraculously survived, the Ukrainians would
definitely attack with infantry and tanks in the morning. It made no sense
to remain in our positions, especially since everyone else had left.
Although we had already said goodbye to life, we decided to make a
break for Slavyansk. Everyone other than me burned their documents. I
didn’t want to be unidentified if something happened. We destroyed our
phones, and dropped our body armor and helmets so as to not be
weighed down. We only brought our assault rifles and grenades with us.
We didn’t know where to go, and wandered in the approximate direction
to Slavyansk. After a while we encountered some of our own
commandos. They had come to pick up any survivors as well as extra
weapons. The commandos showed us how to get to Slavyansk. By the
afternoon, we had made it to Slavyansk.”
Skobar later learned that one of his men, White, the chief of staff for
the Russian All-Military Union, had not been able to escape the
encirclement of Nikolayevka. White and two of Machete’s platoon
commanders were still in the city when it was captured by the
Ukrainians. He recalls:
“On 10 July I received a call on my cell phone while I was in Ilovaysk.
White’s voice came through the phone. It was a call from another world.
He reported what had happened in Nikolayevka. He had been in the city
for an entire week. The Ukrainians were in complete control of the city,
and were conducting sweeps. White and two other fighters were hiding in
the basement of the local church without food. Two days later they
managed to escape and make it to Lisichansk and Aleksey Mozgovoy.”
 Chapter 49 - Tanks in Semyonovka

On 2-3 July, there was also heavy fighting in Semyonovka. The

author of this book met another group of Russian volunteers on 2 July. At
about 10:00 am, the newly armed group was loaded onto a minibus and
left Slavyansk for Semyonovka. There were fourteen men on the
minibus, eight of them new recruits. The only military experience that the
new recruits had was from a training course they had complete in Saint
Petersburg. When we arrived in Semyonovka, we returned to the
hospital – our old position back in May. We were under Small’s
command.
We were ambushed prior to reaching Semyonovka. An unknown
number of Ukrainians opened fire on us from a field. We practically
jumped out of the moving bus and began shooting back. Realizing that
the bus was too badly damaged to continue driving and that the balance
of forces was not in our favor, we decided to walk to the hospital
complex. Two of the newly recruited militiamen went out to meet the
Ukrainians. Laying down suppressive fire, they shouted “retreat! I will
cover!”. A hidden tank began firing from about seven hundred meters
away. We had already been able to walk about fifty meters away when
the first tank shell hit next to the bus. Despite the order for the militiamen
providing covering fire from the bus to come with us, they stayed behind
the bus, hiding from bullets and returning fire. The Ukrainian infantry had
already withdrawn out of their range. The next tank shell hit the bus,
killing the two new recruits instantly. Three militiamen further away from
the bus were wounded. The next shell hit caused the bus to explode, and
an artillery bombardment began.
We retreated deep into the hospital complex, periodically diving to the
ground to avoid shell fragments. Eight militiamen, three wounded, took
shelter from the shelling in a nearby building. Oleg Melnikov, myself, and
two other fighters ran into Small’s command post in the food hall.
Melnikov received a slight shrapnel wound to his arm.
The tanks soon opened fire on the cafeteria. I took shelter in the
basement. We called for a car to evacuate the wounded. When the tanks
ceased fire for a while, Melnikov got a car and came back for the
wounded. The car was moved behind one of the far away building walls
to keep it safe from artillery fire. Small, Sinbad, Tick, and I got into a
UAZ, and then drove out to pick up the bodies that had been left in the
open.
When we arrived at the battlefield, we found that our group’s minibus
had burned to the ground. The bodies of the dead were also burned. We
brought blankets with us since we lacked stretchers, and gathered the
body parts onto the blankets. The still charred and smoldering limbs
gave us burns. One blanket caught fire, and the fire had to be stomped
out. It was scary too, since we were within tank range and could be killed
at any moment. We eventually realized that the Ukrainian tankists saw
us, but had a sense of humanity and did not want to shoot those who
came to take the bodies of the dead.
We carried wrapped bodies into the car, and then drove to Slavyansk.
The road was a living hell. In order to avoid shellfire, we drove at full
speed. The car hit potholes, and parts fell off the corpses. We got burns
from holding the smoldering bodies. After ten minutes, there was a heavy
downpour of rain. The artillery fell silent. Water cooled the bodies of the
dead.
We arrived at the morgue. There was no electricity, and the building
smelled terrible. The bodies of the people who had died that day were all
there, waiting for Lumberjack to bury them. Both volunteers were buried
that evening in the Alley of Glory in Slavyansk. It was impossible to
identify the two dead volunteers since they were burned beyond
recognition, so the letter “N” alone was inscribed on their graves. Later,
the two volunteers were identified by a process of deduction.
 A group of volunteers from Saint Petersburg. Yefremov is on the far
right, and Melnikov is second from the left. They were both killed in
Semyonovka on 2 July.
Their names were Vladimir Melnikov and Matvey Yefremov. Both
were from Saint Petersburg, and had been killed within hours of arriving
in Slavyansk. Matvey left a wife and three children in Saint Petersburg.
Vladimir had no relatives. Before leaving for the Donbass, Vladimir left a
will that a large sum of money be distributed to the militia in even of his
death.
Three other militiamen were killed that day in Semyonovka. One was
killed by an artillery shell and the other two were killed while fighting with
a Ukrainian tank.
Volunteer Semyon “Talgar” Snezhanov knew the two dead men. They
had arrived from Moscow on 22 June:
“Our squad in Semyonovka had a large-caliber Cliff machine gun. I
was assigned it. In the middle of day on 2 July there was shooting not far
from us. Our commander arrived, and ordered us to immediately go to
the scene of the fighting. We were to stop a tank and two BTRs from
breaking through our lines. We needed to help urgently.
 A few men and I quickly got into a Lada Niva[83], put the machine gun
into the trunk, and then drove off. One the way, we took fire from an
assault rifle. Thankfully no one was hurt. We drove as fast as we could
on the winding road.
Suddenly, we saw a tank at about two hundred meters, dead ahead.
Our driver saved us by driving our car into a ditch and stopping. We got
out of the car and quickly fled into the field. Since the Cliff machine gun
was still in the trunk, and the trunk could only be accessed from inside
the car, we knew that we were not going to be able to get it back. The
BTR’s KPVT was firing away around the car.
We evaded fate by a hundred meters. Whoever was crouching
quickly got on all fours. The BTR kept shooting at us, but it didn’t get
closer. For that reason, I felt relieved even as the KPVT continued to fire.
All it would have taken was for the BTR to drive a few dozen meters
further along the road to turn us all into mincemeat.
After we caught our breath, we went back to the car for the Cliff.
Luckily for us, the Ukrainians hadn’t had time for us. They were
retreating, and only covered their retreat while towing their tank away.
They shot through the field without aiming.
The driver quickly drove the Lada Niva behind a clump of trees a few
hundred meters away. On the way back, I came across the body of a guy
who had been killed in the fighting. It was disturbing – he practically had
no head.
It turned out that we owed our lives to a fighter who had an ancient
WWII anti-tank rifle. He had single-handedly stopped the enemy armor
group. His call sign was Fang. Some men called him Seagull though – I
never found out why.
Fang’s foxhole was located in such a way that he could shoot through
two curves of the road, or 200 meters beyond the first curve in the road.
His position was fully exposed as a result. As soon as the tank had rolled
out from behind the curve in the road, Fang shot the tank’s caterpillar
tracks out with his anti-tank rifle, halting its advance.
After firing five shots, Fang climbed out of his foxhole to reload his
anti-tank rifle. The tank fired at Fang – there were two craters to the right
and left of his foxhole. The third shell scored a direct hit on Fang. We
didn’t see any of this. I was later told of Fang’s duel with the tank by
other fighters. It was then that I realized why the tank ignored our sudden
arrival. It was distracted by Fang, and he let us get away at the cost of
his own life.
 Two years later I learned that Fang’s name was Vitaly Klokov, and
that he was from Lugansk.
There were two hundred men who fought in that battle. Another of the
dead militiamen was an RPG man who had attacked a tank as well.
 Vitaly “Fang” Klokov (on the right)
I spent the next 24 hours in Fang's position, taking turns with my
partner to keep the Cliff machine gun facing the road. We waited for
Ukrainian armor to reappear, but they never came back on our watch.
Apparently Fang had given the Ukrainians a good scare and they didn’t
wish to roll down that road again.
On the afternoon of 3 July, there was another mortar attack on our
positions. I caught “my” shell, and that was the end of my war. I spent the
rest of the conflict in hospitals and evacuations.
The doctors who performed my surgery deserve a great deal of
respect. They did the surgery two days before the retreat from
Slavyansk, and while the hospital was undergoing a nonstop
bombardment. That was the kind of “music” that the doctors listened too
while operating on me.
In an appropriate pause in the operation, I asked the surgeon, “you
know, I thought that there weren’t any doctors here anymore. Two weeks
ago I was watching a television report in Moscow which said that all the
doctors had left.” The surgeon replied: “Well, we also came from
Moscow. We’re volunteers like you, only we fight with scalpels while you
fight with guns. They were Doctors with a capital D.
I want to recall another episode. Early one morning five of us were
driving through Slavyansk. As usual, we were dressed in camouflage
and carrying weapons. The city was sleeping; there was almost no one
on the streets. And then we came across the path of a woman. She was
minding her own business, carrying bags in her hands. When we passed
her, I turned around and saw that she had stopped. She had laid her
bags on the ground and made the sign of the cross behind us. No one
saw her other than me. She didn’t even notice that I had seen her make
the sign.
I know that we did the right thing. I believe that truth will prevail.
Everything that is happening today is ephemeral. The Donbass will be
Russian again.”
The second militiaman killed while fighting a Ukrainian tank was Vitaly
“Grandpa” Sokurov from Yenakiyeva. After Fang was killed, Grandpa
advanced on the Ukrainian tank with an RPG. The RPG didn’t work, and
Grandpa was shot dead by the Ukrainian tank.
On 2 July, a Ukrainian Su-24 bomber was shot down over
Semyonovka. Four Iglas had been fired at the plane. Three of them hit
flares dropped by the Su-24, but one hit the tail of the plane and caused
it to catch fire. According to the Ukrainians, the pilot managed to reach
an airfield with one engine and landed the plane. It was the last plane hit
by the militia in Slavyansk.
On 3 July, the militia blew up the Kharkov-Rostov highway bridge
over the Kazyonny Torets River to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough
from the northwest.
The Ukrainians made it to Slavyansk on two roads. One was through
Nikolayevka, and the other was through Semyonovka. The heavy
concentrations of Ukrainian forces in Ray-Aleksandrovka were separated
from Semyonovka by a river. By July, this had developed into an
extremely dangerous situation. Previously, the Ukrainians had crossed
the river in small numbers to assault militia positions. After capturing
Nikolayevka, they planned a massive deployment across the Kazyonny
Torets to cut the road connecting Slavyansk with Semyonovka.
Eldar Hasanov, chief of staff of the Slavyansk garrison, supervised
the destruction of the bridge:
“I spent half a day preparing the bridge’s demolition. We worked from
about 8:00 pm on 2 July to about 11:00 am on 3 July. We didn’t have any
demolition specialists, so I convinced Strelkov that I had to go out
personally to direct the demolition.
We only had a small quantity of OSh (a conducting cord) and one coil
of DSh (a detonation cord). It was impossible for our demolition team to
move quickly and out in the open due to the enemy on the opposite
shore. I decided to use the electrical method of detonation.
There was no demolition apparatus, nor for that matter any proper
wiring. There were several attempts to improvise with other bits of wiring
and batteries, but to no avail. After the charge was installed and the line
was stretched out, we tried to detonate it with the help of two car
batteries. Since the line was made up of all kinds of different wires with
different resistances, it didn’t work. Too much of the current was lost.
After the first unsuccessful attempt at blowing the bridge, I ordered all
car batteries in the area to be collected. We collected many, but even
with all of them the detonator didn’t work. We couldn’t make the line any
shorter or the explosion would kill us. With appropriate equipment, such
as MD-5 or MUV fuses, it would have all been so simple. But we had
none! Thank God, my knowledge and experience helped. Using a
combination of detonating cord, a two-kilogram piece of plastic explosive,
a regular unified hand grenade fuse, and simple wires; we were finally
able to detonate the charge. We blew the bridge just in time – Ukrainian
tanks and infantry had begun to move.
We took two kilograms of plastic explosive and wrapped three rings of
DSh on top. We used a single coil of detonating cord, attached the
unified hand grenade fuse to the cord, unclenched the prongs with the
help of a long cord, and used the long cord to pull the ring. The
detonation of the unified hand grenade fuse initiated the detonation cord,
which in turn triggered the explosion of the 350 kg of ammonium.
The bridge was blown up about 20-30 minutes before the Ukrainian
column approached it. If we had not been able to stop them from
crossing the river, they would have caused us a lot of problems during
our retreat.”

The blown bridge across the Kazyonny Torets River. The graffiti reads
“A Russian was here”
 Chapter 50 - Breakout from the Encirclement

On the night of 4 to 5 July, the militia left Slavyansk. It was a well-

planned and competently implemented military operation which allowed
the two thousand man garrison to breakout of the encirclement with
minimal losses. The breakout was unexpected by the Ukrainians, the
residents of Slavyansk, and the entire Donbass militia.
The Ukrainians decided to encircle and besiege Slavyansk after their
failure to storm the city on 2 May. The Ukrainians cut off Slavyansk from
the other militia garrisons, and gradually conquered Red Liman, Yampol,
and Nikolayevka over the succeeding two months. The only settlement
around Slavyansk that the Ukrainians could not take was Semyonovka.
Since mid-June, the Ukrainians had been systematically
strengthening their position around Slavyansk. After taking Nikolayevka,
the Ukrainians mined the settlement’s surroundings and set up barbed
wire around it. The Ukrainians reasoned that when Slavyansk’s food
supplies ran out, then the defenders of the city would be forced to make
a breakout attempt and be destroyed by the Ukrainian military.
It seemed that such a scenario would come to pass in Slavyansk.
The Ukrainians slowly tightened their grip in the region day by day for
weeks. Strelkov declared that the militia would hold Slavyansk and fight
“to the last soldier”. Everyone in the militia believed him, as did the
Ukrainians. By 3-4 July, when the Ukrainians had completely surrounded
the city and it appeared that the last days of the rebellion were coming,
militiamen called their relatives in rare moments of working
communications to say goodbye. The garrison was in a fatalistic mood,
but in spite of their approaching doom, everyone was determined to fight
to the end.
According to Strelkov, he made the decision to breakout of Slavyansk
on the night of 3-4 July. He had been thinking about making a breakout
for several days. According to chief of staff Hasanov, Strelkov informed
him of his plans to breakout of the encirclement on the evening of 1-2
July, and had him prepare for a withdrawal on 2 July. Documents in the
headquarters were destroyed, and the logistics network was scaled back
and away from Slavyansk.
On the other hand, when Grumpy was in the headquarters on 4 July
at 2:00 pm, he believed that Strelkov was still thinking about whether or
not they should withdraw from the city. In the afternoon, Strelkov made
the following statement to the remaining journalists:
“Yesterday the enemy completely surrounded Nikolayevka and
bombarded it with all types of weaponry: MLRS, howitzers, tanks,
mortars, and BTRs.
There was a lot of destruction. It is impossible to know the number of
victims because nothing in the city is working. Our detachments in
Nikolayevka are continuing to fight on, but are surrounded and cut off
from communications. Currently a large column of enemy armored
vehicles is moving down the Kharkov- Rostov highway to Semyonovka.
At the same time, there is continuous shelling of Semyonovka.
Yesterday, the Nikolayevka Thermal Power Plant was destroyed.
We are dealing with an undisguised genocide. In order to break the
resistance of the militia, the enemy does not hesitate in using any
weapons against a civilian population. Naturally, the militia, seeing the
destruction and civilian deaths, will begin to lose the will to win.
It is very hard to realize that we have not received any real help for
three months. I won’t say that Russia is not helping – there is a huge flow
of humanitarian aid, equipment, and clothing coming here from private
organizations. But what we desperately need, we have not received.
Even if we are given two tanks, four tanks, ten tanks, five or six artillery
pieces, even a warplane – they will not be able to play any role. During
the truce the Ukrainian military fully mobilized and concentrated their
forces. More than sixty artillery pieces are now looking over
Semyonovka, Kramatorsk, and Slavyansk. Two dozen MLRS are here –
including Grads, Hurricanes, and Tornadoes. They have mortars too. All
are pointing here. The enemy has more artillery here than I saw in
Chechnya. The artillery is constantly firing. Supply columns are moving
continuously. Materiel is constantly arriving. Kharkov repairs 15 vehicles
a day. We repair one or two. Our enemy manages to increase its
resources every day, and they are amassed much faster than they are
depleted.
If Russia does not implement an immediate ceasefire or send her
armed forces to save the Russian people who live here, then we will be
destroyed. We will be destroyed in a week, two at the most. Slavyansk
will be the first place to be destroyed. There are still around thirty
thousand people living here.
I am willing to accept responsibility for the militia forces at my
disposal. We are ready to fight and ready to die. We do not want to die
senselessly and bury the people who believed in us under the ruins of
the city.
Some believe that I am panicking. Others believe that I’m nervous.
Yes, I am nervous. I have soldiers dying every day. The hospitals are
overflowing with wounded. It is hard to see children whose legs were torn
off by shells.
We will fight, but we need help.”
It was a strange speech by Strelkov considering that the preparations
for the breakout from Slavyansk had been going on for half a day. He
may have not made up his mind, been waiting for support from the
Russian Federation, or was bluffing to convince the Ukrainians of his
intention to fight on.
On 4 July, Strelkov talked with Donetsk and Moscow on a secure line.
He was ordered to hold Slavyansk, but no one promised any concrete
assistance in breaking the siege or supplying additional arms and
ammunition. Donetsk was simply incapable of breaking the siege due to
its lack of forces. Moscow could not make any promises, since the
decision had to be made at the highest level. Even if Moscow decided to
intervene, it would take time to provide assistance. Slavyansk did not
have any time.
At 8:00 am, preparations for the operation began, and were carried
out with strict secrecy during the day. The retreat was planned for 11:00
pm.
At 9:00 am, the commanders held a meeting. Strelkov announced his
decision, and laid out the reasons for the breakout as well as the reasons
against the breakout. Despite the dire situation and the need to withdraw,
the decision came as a shock to the other commanders. Not all of them
understood the gravity of the situation they were in, or understood the
sheer size of the forces amassed against them. Some continued to hope
that DPR or Russian military forces would come to break the siege. Still,
no one challenged Strelkov’s decision. The militia was accustomed to
discipline and unquestioningly obeyed commands.
At 10:00 am the artillery depot and logistics department began
loading up their stockpiles. Militia detachments at distant checkpoints
and settlements were told to leave after 11:00 pm with their commanders
and to join with the main column. When Strelkov’s command post was
dismantled, he would not be able to communicate or control the troops.
Therefore, anything that wasn’t taken into account during planning
couldn’t be corrected.
 Only a handful of men know what was happening – the men in the
headquarters and the commanders. After receiving Strelkov’s orders, the
commanders dispersed to their units and prepared them for the
breakout. All militiamen were ordered to leave their cell phones at their
positions before leaving.
The logistics department carried out its orders to transport cargo in
ignorance. At 4:00 pm, all of the staff and patients in the hospital were
sent from Slavyansk to Kramatorsk. They were told that the city was
about to be stormed, and that everyone who remained was there for the
final battle. Strelkov said the same thing while talking on his cell phone in
order to deceive the Ukrainian wiretappers listening in.
At 11:00 am Strelkov called the remaining journalists and stringers in
the city and informed them that the militia would continue fighting there.
As a result, the reporters stayed and didn’t leave with the militia. They
left on their own the following day.
Later, the journalists reproached Strelkov for abandoning them and
risking their lives. The Ukrainians equated journalists with “terrorists”.
Strelkov believed that he did the right thing, since he sought to prevent
information about the operation from leaking by all possible means and
he was ready to make small sacrifices in order to preserve the majority of
the garrison.
All of the other journalists had left the prior week. It was noteworthy
that the military correspondents of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Steshin and
Kots, had been ordered to leave the city. For Strelkov, this was one of the
signs that the Russian Federation was not going to help Slavyansk. The
editorial board of Komsomolskaya Pravda works closely with the Russian
Ministry of Defense, and would not recall their war correspondents
unless they thought the situation was hopeless.
Semyon Pegov wrote in his book:
“5 July is the day when the militia left Slavyansk and all of the
Strelkovites, as they were then called, withdrew to Donetsk. For some
reason, Strelkov didn’t warn us. Three Russian journalists – Fomichyov,
Andryuha, and myself were the only ones left in the besieged city on the
final day. We were on the kill-list of the Ukrainian SBU, so if we hadn’t
escaped the city in time it is not clear how our stories would have ended.
By some miracle it ended well.”
According to Dmitry Steshin, the journalists were evacuated from the
city by the aforementioned volunteer mortician Lumberjack:
 “He saved Misha Fomichyov, Andrey Stenin, and Semyon Pegov
when they were in fact abandoned in Slavyansk. Lumberjack helped get
them out of the city right before the arrival of the Ukrainian military. To my
understanding, the journalists were deliberately abandoned to publicize
what was happening in the Donbass. Moreover, the abandoned
journalists were already on wanted lists, and nothing good awaited them.
However, Mihail Fomichyov holds a different opinion. He says that a day
before the garrison left, Strelkov warned them that they could stay, but
“at their own risk.”
On the afternoon of 4 July, Strelkov summoned the Slavyansk
commandant, who was completely ignorant of the plans, and was
ordered to build a third line of defense around Slavyansk for the purpose
of deception. The work continued until an hour before the retreat.
Due to the secrecy and the limited time for the operation, not all parts
of the militia could be notified and gathered. A lot depended on the
commanders. In some cases, they did poorly. For example, some
soldiers were not in their assigned positions for various reasons, and
thus their commanders were not able to let them know to leave with
everyone else. If all of the militiamen had been notified of the impending
retreat, it would have delayed the operation too long. The delays would
have given the Ukrainians enough time to learn of the militia’s intentions,
and allowed them to make plans.
During the assembly of the evacuation columns, Strelkov ordered the
requisition of vehicles for the first time. The militia took any available
transportation left in the city. Whoever took a vehicle got to use it to
evacuate his men and equipment.
The next day, when the Ukrainians entered the city, they showed
allegedly abandoned Russian weapons on television. There were also
rumors that the militia commanders and logistics department had left lists
in the city, allowing the Ukrainians to repress relatives of fighters and
collaborators.
Both of those claims were untrue. All of the lists in the garrison
headquarters were destroyed. Strelkov personally burned them with
Abwehr and Nose. As for the weapons and ammunition, there was little
left. Everything of value was loaded into the departing cars. Only zinc
machine gun cartridges were left there in any serious quantity. There
were a lot of them, and since there was not enough room for all of the
militiamen in the cars it was decided to leave them. There were also a
number of Bumblebees left. They were brought to Slavyansk in sufficient
quantities, but were only suited for urban combat and were useless
against armored vehicles. The other weapons found by the Ukrainians
were all useless. There was a DShK with no ammunition belts, a faulty
Maxim machine gun[84], five non-functional anti-tank guided missiles, and
six MANPADS that couldn’t fire.
The Ukrainians televised a large number of empty anti-tank guided
missile and MANPADS tubes. Strelkov had forced commanders to hand
them over for accounting purposes. The Ukrainians boasted of all of
these as abandoned weapons, when really the weapons were either
already used or unsuitable for combat. Eldar Hasanov said:
“I was preparing all of the departments for the retreat. Documentation
was destroyed, hard drives were removed from computers, and any
information that should not fall into the hands of the Ukrainian military
was wiped. All the weapons were removed, only antiques and
dysfunctional weapons remained. All the accusations about the militia
leaving valuable weapons and lists of people behind are baseless and
come from the mouths of those who are either illiterate or shameless.”
The retreat from Slavyansk was carried out on the last road that was
still open after the fall of Nikolayevka. There were about five square
kilometers of fields and plains between checkpoint number 5 and the
Ukrainian forward positions from the east. It was the only gap in the
Ukrainian encirclement. In the gap, there was a crooked country road
that went through the villages of Cherevkovka and Belenkoye to the
outskirts of Kramatorsk. The road had been shelled before, and vehicles
traversing it often came under fire. The road had been blocked before
too. On the night of 3-4 July a Ukrainian platoon had set up a position on
the road. For an unknown reason, the Ukrainians moved to a different
position, and the militia was able to breakout through the “road of life”
without struggle.
Each column was provided with a guide. The breakout route was
thoroughly explored a few hours prior to the withdrawal. Several cars
were dispatched to the “road of life” and positioned 2-3 fighters along it.
Those fighters were supposed to monitor the situation around the road,
as well as control the movements of the columns.
 After an evening meeting, the militia unit commanders were allocated
local guides who knew the way to Kramatorsk. Six columns were formed
in Slavyansk. At 11:00 pm, they began the breakout, with one column
leaving every thirty minutes. The entire breakout was planned to last
three hours. Strelkov anticipated the bombardment of the road as well as
Ukrainian attacks, and expected the militia to suffer a casualty rate of
30%. Nonetheless, the breakout was well planned and less than 5% of
the militia was lost.
The breakout plan called for the first column to move out, and for
mortars and Nonas to open fire on Mount Karachun and checkpoint
number 5. Then the mortar battery was to follow the first column. The
armored group was then to draw attention and fire from the Ukrainian
checkpoint while the rest of the columns left Slavyansk. After all of the
other columns had successfully left, the armored group was to form the
sixth column and leave Slavyansk itself.
At first, everything went to plan. The mortars fired at Mount Karachun,
then went back to join the first column. Then the Nonas fired and left the
city as well. The rest of the columns left Slavyansk in short intervals.
Ram led the armored group to Cherevkovka, and was supposed to obey
Strelkov’s orders by firing at the Ukrainian checkpoint there to provide
cover for the evacuating garrison. But Ram led the armored group to the
breakout instead.
 Chapter 51 - Destruction of the Armored Group

At about 11:00 pm, when the militia columns began their breakout to
Kramatorsk, the armored group consisting of two T-64 tanks, two BMDs,
and four BMPs moved towards the Ukrainian checkpoint. The armored
group was followed by a KamAZ and several passenger cars. A BTR-D
mounted with a ZU-23-2 was following distantly, and was supposed to
shoot at the Ukrainian checkpoint before withdrawing.
For unknown reasons, a car with two militiamen and three women left
Slavyansk prior to the armored group. They were most likely trying to
escape the city on their own, and were unaware of the location of the
Ukrainian checkpoint. As they passed the checkpoint, their car was shot
at and stopped. One militiaman with the call sign “Romeo” (not to be
confused with the anti-air militiaman Romeo) managed to get out of the
car, climb over a fence, and hide from the Ukrainians in a field. The other
four people – the driver and the three women – were captured. Two of
the captured women were in the militia (one was a cook and another was
a BMD gunner with the call sign “Lady Cat”), while the third was a
journalist. The prisoners were shown on Ukrainian television the next
day.
There were about six armored vehicles (BMPs and BMDs) with two
companies of fighters at the Slavyansk stele checkpoint. They included
men from the Ukrainian military as well as former Berkut from the Interior
Ministry. They were dug in, and fired from cover.
Tanks led the militia armored group. They were mounted with blinding
spotlights. The first tank rammed through concrete blocks, drove straight
to the checkpoint, and opened fire on Ukrainian positions. He was able to
fire no more than seven times. He was able to knock one BMD out while
taking heavy fire from the cannons of the Ukrainian BMDs. After that, the
tank was hit by an anti-tank guided missile, causing the tank to catch fire.
After a minute, the tank exploded after its ammunition caught fire. The
tank was ripped apart by the explosion. Pictures published later show
parts of the tank scattered around, with the turret, cannon, engine,
caterpillar tracks, and parts of the chassis broken apart from each other.
Three of the tankists managed to get out of the lead tank prior to the
explosion. Two of them, Chief and Skull, ran away from the tank, crawled
across the road, and hid in the field. There, they met Romeo, and
together walked to Kramatorsk. The third tankist went missing. Most
likely, he was killed before he was able to flee the area.
The second tank was not able to participate in the battle. It
approached the checkpoint at a high rate of speed, tried to maneuver,
but lost control and fell into a ravine. The crew got out and took part in
the fight with the infantry.

The rest of the armored group followed the tanks. The BMD that
carried commander Ram was hit by grenade launchers and caught fire.
The driver-mechanic was killed, but Ram managed to get out of the BMD
and leave the epicenter of the fighting. The second BMD managed to
break through and got to Kramatorsk. That BMD was on its last breath
even as it left Slavyansk. Its engine jammed during the retreat to
Donetsk, and there was no time to fix it. It was blown up from the inside
with a grenade to ensure that it didn’t fall into Ukrainian hands.
Two of the four BMPs were destroyed, but the other two succeeded in
breaking out. One of the destroyed BMPs suffered a hit that caused its
ammunition to explode, sending its turret flying. The other destroyed
BMP was thrown up by a mine, and then finished off by grenade
launchers. That BMP had a driver called Pedestrian, gunner Bacha, and
fighter with the call sign Phantom. Phantom had originally been in the
second tank, and had gotten into the BMP after his tank had fallen into
the ravine. When the BMP caught fire, Phantom pulled the bodies of his
comrades out of the vehicle despite his own injuries. After he confirmed
that they were dead, he crawled off the road and walked alongside it to
Kramatorsk with Ram.

Pedestrian’s real name was Nikolay Karpov, Bacha’s was Yury

Samatov, and Phantom’s was Anatoly Kurganov.
The third BMP exchanged fire with the checkpoint, but suffered two
dead and three wounded. After that, the BMP withdrew into the fields,
and was abandoned after running out of fuel. The two surviving men in
the BMP made it to Kramatorsk by the next evening.
The fourth BMP was the second of the armored vehicles (after the
BMD-2) to successfully break through the checkpoint and make it to
Kramatorsk. It was the only one of the armored vehicles that would
eventually make it to Donetsk. The driver-mechanic of the BMP was
originally from Yevpatoriya and went by the call sign Scythian. During the
fight and the breakout, four men in the BMP were wounded and
militiaman "Frenchman” was killed.
Of the original eight armored vehicles, four were destroyed, one (the
second tank) remained intact on the battlefield, one was abandoned in
the fields, and two made it to Kramatorsk.
Several of the passenger cars and one KamAZ were also destroyed.
 The exact losses of the Ukrainians that night are unknown. The
Ukrainians only officially acknowledged one dead and four wounded.
The militia armored group included about eighty people. It included
the crews of the armored vehicles, infantry within the vehicles, and
militiamen from other units who were following the armored column.
Ram, the commander of the armored group, estimates that the militia lost
about ten people. Due to the number of missing, it is likely that many
more were killed.
Some of the survivors caught up with the columns leaving for
Kramatorsk on the “road of life”. Others took different paths to
Kramatorsk.
The names of the known militiamen who were killed that night are
Yury “Bacha” Samatov of Slavyansk, Nikolay “Pedestrian” Karpov,
Yevgeny “Joker” Gayduk, Alexander Galchenko, Alexander Dmitriyev,
“Lucky”, “Cyclops”, and “Frenchman”.

Ram tells his story about the events of that night, and of the breakout
of the armored group:
“We reached the enemy’s position at midnight, but it was impossible
to navigate or coordinate the column’s actions in the darkness. There
were two Ukrainian strongpoints at the checkpoint, one on each side of
the road. We came under heavy crossfire, and the Ukrainians maintained
a high density of fire. When the enemy started shooting, we mostly
aimed at the flashes. Our tank seemed to have been able to fire off
several shots – the enemy’s BMD was knocked out. Our BMD-2 was out
of order, but due to the chaos of battle I don’t know if it was hit by an
RPG or blown up by a shell.
I was inside an armored vehicle, and between that and the darkness I
couldn’t see the battle. After I was wounded, I couldn’t understand the
situation at all, much less command. When the armored vehicle I was in
was hit, I was burned by the explosion and concussed by the
shockwave. Shrapnel cut my leg. The vehicle was burning, and my head
was foggy. I opened the hatch, and tracers whizzed over my head. I
crawled away from the burning vehicle and the enemy firing points. It
was fifty meters of crawling under fire to get beyond the checkpoint.
The wounded tankist, Phantom, followed me. Together, we walked
along the road to Kramatorsk for about half an hour. I was luckier than
Phantom – he had been shot in the throat and was seriously burned. His
skin was sloughing off him. I don’t understand how he survived. He
barely made it. They gave him first aid at our checkpoint near
Kramatorsk and hospitalized him.”
Why did Ram lead the armored group to breakout past the
checkpoint, rather than shooting at it from a distance before withdrawing
and following the other columns? Strelkov and Ram answer that question
differently.
Strelkov claims that he ordered Ram to attack the checkpoint, but to
avoid close combat and to follow the sixth column withdrawing from
Slavyansk. He deems what happened to the armored column a “human
factor”, meaning that for some unknown reason Ram didn’t obey his
orders and instead led a breakout past the checkpoint.
Ram claims that he obeyed Strelkov’s order as Strelkov gave it:
“The decision to breakout past the checkpoint was not a spontaneous
decision. I was ordered to attack the checkpoint and did so. Strelkov
assigned that objective to me at the general meeting, and then clarified it
to me separately. He said to not just shoot and retreat, but to attack the
checkpoint and then retreat. He did not specify how exactly to retreat. I
understood that we were supposed to draw attention to ourselves and
take hits in order to suppress the enemy checkpoint so that the columns
leaving Slavyansk did not come under fire. The columns took three hours
to evacuate, and we had to distract the enemy for at least part of that
time. I could not have distracted the enemy for that long any other way. If
we had fired from afar, there would have been no distraction, and we
would have run out of ammunition quickly. We were also at a
disadvantage – the checkpoint was elevated, and had ravines to the left
and right. It was necessary to get close, strike hard, and flatten
everything. That is what we tried to do. The armored vehicle crews and
infantry fought for a long time, inflicted losses upon the enemy, and at
the cost of their lives gave our garrison enough time to leave Slavyansk.”
Strelkov believes that he erred in leaving with the second column,
which included the headquarters and the artillery. He hoped to reach
Kramatorsk early so as to better regain control of the militia as it arrived.
Strelkov believes that if he had left with the last column and commanded
the armored group himself, then it would not have been destroyed and
the entire withdrawal from Slavyansk could have passed without loss.
According to Grumpy, the armored group’s breakout past the
checkpoint was a mistake:
“I warned Ram to not go there two weeks before. Our intelligence
revealed that the road was dangerous. There were cables hooked into
anti-tank mines that had been dragged out onto the road. The location of
the checkpoint made it difficult to attack from Slavyansk as well. Ram
was only supposed to simulate an attack – to shoot at them, wait for our
columns to finish leaving, then to follow them. The task was to just to
rumble their engines, shoot from the outskirts of Slavyansk, turn around,
and then leave. That was all.”
In conclusion, here is the evidence from the Ukrainian side. This is
from an interview with a Berkut officer from six days after the battle that
was published online six days later. He mentions the car with women, as
well as the course of the fighting in the night battle.
“Checkpoint 5 was defended by a unit of Zaporozhye[85] special
police with seventeen men and a unit of the 25th Dnepropetrovsk
Airborne Brigade with fifty-six men. It was a joint command. I was the
commander from the Interior Ministry, and Captain Andrey was the
paratrooper commander. We had BMD-2s, small arms, and grenade
launchers. We were in communication with the artillery and mortar
batteries on Mount Karachun.
We were prepared, but no one knew the time of the breakout. At first,
two cars tried to speed through our checkpoint. They didn’t stop at the
warning sign, and we were forced to open fire. One of the cars stopped,
but the other somehow miraculously managed to escape due to the
darkness and lack of lighting despite several hits. Four people got out of
the hit car and tried to escape. I saw them in my thermal vision, and I
went to the road with my command. I ordered them to take off their pants
so that they could not escape, then to raise their hands. It turned out that
three of the detainees were girls, and the fourth was a man. One of the
girls was a correspondent for some Russian media it seemed – “Ren
TV”. The documents of the others were from the DPR, and signed by
Strelkov. One of the girls was listed as a cook, and another as a BMD-2
gunner. All of the prisoners were handed over to a special department in
the ATO headquarters.
We let the first tank get close. We couldn’t damage it from a long
distance since we only had BMDs. When the tank approached our
position, it fired a shot which unfortunately had tragic consequences. The
first tank shot hit a covered trench which hid three fighters. One 25th
Brigade soldier was killed instantly, and the other two were wounded.
The calculation of one of the BMDs had failed. The enemy obviously
knew our positions well, since their shots were well aimed even at night.
The tank continued to fire at our positions. I was hit by the shockwave of
the explosion from one of the tank shells. Neither I nor the other fighters
fired on the tank with grenade launchers. Paratrooper Bazhura, the
operator of our other BMD, heroically illuminated the tank with his
vehicle’s searchlight. The searchlight blinded the tank crew. I asked
Bazhura later why he turned on the searchlight. He replied that he
wanted to illuminate our target. The tank fired another four or five times,
but didn’t inflict any more casualties. Bazhura had distracted the tank’s
attention. At that moment, I moved to the trench closer to the road. I fired
an RPG-26 at the tank from a distance of about 100 meters. It was a
direct hit. The tank stopped firing. The crackle of cooking ammunition
could be clearly heard from inside the tank, and then it exploded. I don’t
know where exactly I had hit the tank – it may have been under the
turret, or maybe in the driver’s hatch.
The intensity of the fighting increased dramatically after that. A BMP
and BMD with armor mounted infantry and machine guns approached
us. Bazhura started firing at the enemy, and they returned fire. Bazhura
continued to fight even after all of the equipment mounted on our BMD
was blown away. Paratrooper Captain Andrey called down artillery fire
from Mount Karachun onto the road in front of us. The enemy’s vanguard
came under artillery and mortar fire, as well as our BMD and rifle fire.
The artillery support was very effective and forced the enemy to disperse
his forces. Then they tried to breakout through our checkpoint at high
speed. However, prior to the attack we had set up anti-tank mines. The
BMP detonated a mine while driving forward at high speed, then was hit
with a volley from the grenade launchers. The BMP then exploded. The
second BMP-2 had already driven past us and was shot in the back by
me personally with an RPG-26. The terrorist BMD-1, which had been
captured from the 25th Brigade in April, escaped me but was hit by a
grenade launcher fired by Captain Andrey from the same 25th Brigade.
The BMD caught fire, the ammunition cooked, and then it exploded.”

The Ukrainians published pictures of the dead militiamen, the

captured women, and the destroyed armored vehicles with this interview.
While these tragic events took place and the unsuspecting enemy
was celebrating its triumph over the armored group, the rest of the militia
garrison was leaving Slavyansk.
The columns that had been formed in the city left practically
untouched. The minor exceptions were the part of the fourth column
which had been behind the armored group and the parts of the sixth
column which were shelled by Ukrainian artillery on Mount Karachun.
There were only two armored vehicles in the columns during the
evacuation. Strelkov traveled in the BTR captured at the fish farm, and
the only surviving BTR-D with an installed anti-air gun was in the last
column. On the way through Cherevkovka, the BTR-D hit a mine and
had to be abandoned. The columns moved slowly down the narrow
country roads, surrounded by fields. The vehicles had their headlights
turned off, but the brake lights shone through the darkness. The militia
smashed some of the brake lights with rifle butts, but it wasn’t necessary.
The roadsides were overgrown with bushes, so the brake lights weren’t
visible from a long distance.
The BTRs, buses, and SUVs drove down the rough and pitted road
easily. However, there were a lot of ordinary passenger cars which
scraped their bottoms on the uneven ground, popped their tires in pits, or
stalled after overheating. Many cars had to be abandoned and pushed to
the side of the road. There, the cars of the retreating militia joined many
other civilian cars that had been abandoned in the previous three
months. Passengers tried to get into other cars.
The Slavyansk garrison entered Kramatorsk before dawn. Groups of
fighters and scattered militia detachments which had not been able to
join the columns for various reasons gradually filtered into Kramatorsk
over the rest of the day. This included men from Semyonovka and
Nikolayevka.
Some fighters, mostly old men, refused to leave their native
Slavyansk. They stayed in their positions to shoot at Ukrainians during
the night in order to make it appear that the militia was still present in the
city. After the Ukrainians entered the city, they worked as partisans.
About 90% of the garrison left Slavyansk. That included the family
members of the militia, as well as those who aided the militia. They
feared Ukrainian reprisals. About 80% of the Slavyansk garrison would
arrive in Donetsk on 5 July. Part of the garrison remained in Gorlovka.
The garrisons of Kramatorsk, Konstantinovka, and Druzhovka left for
Donetsk together with the men from Slavyansk in order to avoid
encirclement.
On the morning of 5 July, the Ukrainians could not believe their eyes.
The city was empty and the militia positions were abandoned. They
noticed the last few vehicles that had evacuated the city and fired at
them, but hadn’t realized that those were only part of the columns that
included almost two thousand “terrorists”.
After confirming that the militia really had left Slavyansk, the
Ukrainians began to slowly enter the outskirts of the city. They met no
one. During the day, the Ukrainians entered the city proper and occupied
the central buildings.
The SBU building which had served as the militia headquarters had
been mined. The Ukrainians realized that, and made a controlled
demolition of the building.
 Ukrainian Minister of Defense Valery Geletey flew to Slavyansk later
that day. He went to the city administration building with his guards.
There, a single partisan ran out with a disposable grenade launcher. The
partisan didn’t have time to shoot- the guards riddled him with bullets. In
the photographs published by the Ukrainians, you can see a middle-aged
man in a camouflage uniform with a New Russia patch on his shoulder.
His face isn’t visible.
So fell the final defender of the glorious city.
Thus ended the eighty-five day siege of Slavyansk.
Part IV: Conclusion
 Chapter 52 - Why Slavyansk was Abandoned

There have been many heated arguments about the retreat from
Slavyansk in the last few years. The militia’s mood on that day was very
accurately conveyed by Yury Yurchenko in an article written about two
weeks after the garrison’s retreat:
“We left Slavyansk at night. All were sullen – soldiers and
commanders. We believed that Slavyansk was to be a second
Stalingrad. We were ready to fight for every house and every stone. The
idea that it was possible to leave the city in silence and at night without a
fight – abandoning the locals who supported us – seemed unacceptable
and sacrilegious.
We had turned the entire city into a fortress. It was fortified with
several lines of barricades made of concrete blocks, sandbags, and car
tires. Just this morning in the outskirts of the city I saw how fighters
strengthened their positions. They put their hearts into the barriers and
the dugouts that they built. The civilians who had remained in the city
saw all of this. They saw the confidence of the militia, and how they were
determined to win or die trying. That gave the people the strength and
faith to endure their hardships. Their existence was watching the deaths
of the neighbors, their children, and their friends. They spent their nights
in cramped bomb shelters, and their days in queues for water and food.
The mothers spent entire days in the kitchens cooking food for the
soldiers without electricity. They anxiously listened to the artillery
barrages and prayed that the shells did not land on their sons. They
believed that this was all happening for a reason, that we could survive
anything, and that we would win.
The vehicle column began to drive out of the gate. KamAZs,
Mercedes, GAZelles, and various other vehicles bristling with weaponry
rumbled forward through the dark city. Their headlights were all off, and
the rumbling of the engines had been muffled as much as possible,
making the city’s atmosphere of anxiety even more poignant. People in
nearby houses looked out from their windows, curtains pushed aside, not
believing their eyes. The militia was leaving the city in secret.
I thought about how Slavyansk would wake up in the morning to find
the barracks and fortifications around the city empty and abandoned. I
couldn’t understand anything. Or more precisely, I didn’t want to. I knew
that Strelkov in my head, but I could not understand him in my heart.
Nothing could reach my heart and make me see the virtue in leaving
behind women, children, and seniors. Their eyes, full of confusion and
reproach, haunted me.
Everyone knew that Strelkov’s army was ready to die in Slavyansk.
With the balance of forces at the time, we fifteen hundred Spartans were
doomed to a heroic death. This outcome did not suit everyone, but it
suited many. But it did not suit the commander of this army, who had no
right to destroy this small Russian town (already marked as a wasteland
by military leaders in Kiev). The militia entrusted their lives to Strelkov,
and his decisions decided the fate of New Russia.”
Yury Yurchenko also recalls:
“We evacuated with practically no losses. “Practically” is a word of
approximation meaning “almost”. That is, there were losses. Two
armored vehicle crews gave their lives to ensure the safety of the
Strelkov’s army’s retreat from Slavyansk. They could have followed the
column without problems, but the Ukrainian checkpoint overseeing this
road would have noticed the long columns of men leaving Slavyansk.
The fighters made the decision to attack the checkpoint on their own. A
battle ensued, and distracted the enemy’s attention. The noise and roar
of the battle drowned out the otherwise inescapable rumbling of the
engines of the militia columns. As a result, the main column left
Slavyansk without losses. Most of the armor group was destroyed.”
There are questions regarding the retreat from Slavyansk. If there
were enough weapons, why did the militia not fight to the end as
promised? Why did they not wait for other DPR forces to break the
encirclement? Why, in the end, did they not continue the struggle from
Kramatorsk after arriving there, given that it is larger than Slavyansk?
Let us consider the five main reasons for the retreat of the Slavyansk
garrison to Donetsk:
1) Lack of weapons and ammunition, and inability to continue
resisting Ukrainian forces
Taking into account the losses at Yampol and Nikolayevka (including
the withdrawal of Sapper’s company), the Slavyansk garrison had about
a thousand fighters. This included the men who bore the brunt of the
shelling at the front, the men who defended Semyonovka, and those
guarding the city perimeter and city center. The entire garrison was about
two thousand men, but not all were armed. The headquarters, logistics
service, medical staff, engineers, and others were counted as part of the
garrison. Slavyansk was not the only armed city – Kramatorsk,
Konstantinovka, Druzhovka, Dzerzhinsk, and Mozgovoy’s forces in
Lisichansk were also armed. Without them, the right flank of Slavyansk
would have been exposed and the defense would have failed.
At the beginning of July, the Slavyansk garrison had ten armored
vehicles: two tanks, four BMP-2s, two BMDs, one BTR, and one BTR-D.
The tanks arrived in Slavyansk fully equipped for battle, but by 4 July
they only had twenty-eight shells remaining between them. The BMPs
and BMDs too were low on ammunition – they only had two ammunition
loads left.
At the time of the retreat, there were fourteen artillery pieces in
Slavyansk: two Nonas, five 120-mm mortars, and seven 82-mm mortars
(including the captured Cornflower). There were fewer than forty shells
left for the Nonas, and fifty-seven shells left for the twelve mortars.
Counterbattery fire was impossible since all of the Ukrainian artillery
was outside of the range of the militia’s mortars.
The militia also had five ZU-23-2s, but three of them lacked sights.
There were also several dozen anti-tank rifles, RPGs, and anti-tank
guided missiles; but there was little ammunition for them and a third of
the ammunition was dead. The Bassoon anti-tank guided missiles had a
date of expiration of 2001. The disposable grenade launchers were also
in short supply.
The militia had a large supply of ammunition for small arms, but
assault rifles and pistols are useless against tanks and artillery.
By mid-May, the militia had used up all of its captured ammunition
and was dependent on supplies from the outside. Arms shipments were
already rare, and by the beginning of July they were severely constricted
due to the encirclement of Slavyansk. In addition, arms shipments were
often useless. For instance, one DShK was brought without any
ammunition belts. Mines came without fuses, and ZU-23-2s arrived
without sights. About two hundred 122-mm D-30 howitzer shells were
brought to Slavyansk even though the militia had no D-30 howitzers.
By the time of the retreat, the Slavyansk garrison had enough shells
for one last assault or a few days of regular fighting. The garrison had
enough small arms ammunition to fight within the city for a long time, but
intelligence reports indicated that the Ukrainians were not going to storm
Slavyansk. The Ukrainians were setting up minefields around the city,
encircling the perimeter with barbed wire, and building machine gun
posts. The last roads and communications with the rest of the DPR were
being cut off.
After the fight at the Fish Farm, the Ukrainians stationed four tanks at
each checkpoint around the city. The Ukrainians had as many tanks at
each checkpoint as the militia had total in Slavyansk. Ukrainian artillery
was outside of the range of our artillery, and far more numerous. The
Ukrainians had about eighty artillery pieces in the area.
The militia was only capable of fighting within the city and in rough
terrain with small arms and grenade launchers. It lacked the strength to
push the Ukrainians back and to fight outside of Slavyansk. This was
best shown in the last battles near Yampol, where a two hundred man
strong militia force with two recoilless rifles and two mortars was quickly
routed by a fully-fledged battalion tactical group with dozens of armored
vehicles.
At the same time, the Ukrainians avoided clashes as much as they
could. When the militia attacked, the Ukrainians usually retreated after
they took losses. The Ukrainian strategy was to advance at different
points with tanks, immediately withdraw if they met resistance, and then
bombard our positions with artillery. After that, the Ukrainian armor would
advance again. Without long-range weapons, it became impossible to
fight tanks. Our old anti-tank rifles couldn’t stop them, and were only
suitable for fighting light armor (like BTRs and BMPs).
One common question is why the tank base in Artyomovsk and the
legendary weapons depot in Soledar were not seized by the militia
despite being less than fifty kilometers away from Slavyansk.
Artyomovsk (renamed Bahmut in 2015) was at the time the largest
reserve base in armored vehicles in the region. It held hundreds of tanks
and other combat vehicles. Soledar held one of the largest military
warehouses from Soviet times in a deep salt mine. Weapons and
ammunition from all over the country were stored there – even weapons
and ammunition from the world wars. According to experts, there are two
to three million guns there. Strelkov believes there were twice as many
weapons there as believed:
“I had an exact list of everything that was in Soledar. There were
twenty thousand Maxim machine guns alone, one and a half million 7.62
assault rifles[86], up to five hundred thousand PPShs, and many other
pistols, machine guns, and rifles of various systems and calibers. There
were a total of five million weapons there.”
 Strelkov explains the impossibility of capturing the Soledar
warehouses:
“By the end of the siege of Slavyansk, I only had one and a half
thousand fighters. We were opposed by 15,000 Ukrainian troops, who
surrounded us on all sides. Even if we reached Soledar, I do not know
how we could capture the base. The surface of the base could be
captured easily enough, but how we could have smoked them out of the
mines is unclear. There is two months’ worth of food stockpiled there, as
well as autonomous ventilation and power supply. In addition, the mine is
heavily fortified with heavy caliber machine guns, barricades, and
tunnels. How could poorly trained militiamen storm such a base?
As for the base in Artyomovsk, there was an attack against it in the
very beginning of the war. I was not involved. The attack was organized
by a small force and ended in a small firefight. The enemy had about 200
soldiers there, and our force was only about 30 militiamen. By the time
that I had armored vehicles and tanks, I was unable to attack
Artyomovsk. It would have required an attack across 100 kilometers of
open highway, and past an enemy stronghold garrisoned by a company.
Given that and Ukrainian aerial supremacy, I could not attack
Artyomovsk.”
2) Food was running out, supply became impossible, and Slavyansk
was completely encircled
Slavyansk had at most two more weeks of food. About a quarter of
the population of the city, around thirty thousand people, remained and
needed to be fed along with the militia. Failing to feed the population
would have turned the locals against the defenders of Slavyansk.
The city continued to be bombarded by artillery every day. The
bombardment hit densely populated parts of Slavyansk, burning down
homes and inflicting numerous casualties. In Slavyansk and
Semyonovka, 122-mm Carnation shells and 122-mm Grad rockets were
mostly used until July. In July, 300-mm Tornado rockets and 152-mm
Acacia shells began to be used by the Ukrainians. That is how the
Ukrainians were able to take Nikolayevka so quickly – the heavy artillery
gave them greater firepower and allowed them to turn the residential
parts of the city into ruins. Strelkov said:
“In my opinion, the surrender of Red Liman at the beginning of June
was fatal. That allowed the Ukrainian military to defeat the battalion at
Yampol, cross the Donets River, and take Krivaya Luka and Zakotnoye.
The loss of those settlements created an operational encirclement of
Slavyansk. The enemy was able to create a wedge south of Yampol
between Slavyansk and Mozgovoy’s forces in Lisichansk, causing the
collapse of the right flank. The complete encirclement of Slavyansk was
destined after the fall of Yampol. Everything followed that. If Sapper’s
company hadn’t left Nikolayevka, perhaps we could have held
Nikolayevka for a few more days. It would have necessary to leave
Slavyansk even earlier, and we would have left without losing any men or
equipment.
I struggled internally the last week. I understood at the beginning of
July that Slavyansk was about to be surrounded and that no one would
break us out. That was my mistake – I should have ordered the retreat
immediately. I was thinking on two levels – military and political. From a
military point of view, it was necessary to leave Slavyansk immediately
after the battle in Yampol. The only reason to stay was ideological, as
Slavyansk had become a symbol of the Donbass Uprising. Many local
commanders and fighters would have had to leave their hometown, and I
had promised them that we would fight to the end. The surrender of a
symbol of resistance would be a blow to the morale of the militia and the
entire Donbass. It would also be a big PR victory for Ukraine. What other
options were there? To die in order to demonstrate the faithfulness of
New Russia? To kill a thousand of our best fighters and their family
members as a matter of principle? To wait for hundreds of more civilians
to die from artillery bombardments? And in the end, we would still have
to breakout. But due to the delay, the breakout would be through mines
and barbed wire and against tanks and machine guns. Of course, morale
is of paramount importance in war. I hoped to hold Slavyansk and to get
help from Russia. But it was still necessary to act according to military
science.”
3) Lack of external support
Some people reproach the Slavyansk garrison for retreating rather
than waiting for Russia or Donetsk to break the encirclement. The
Russian Federation only intervened in the war forty days later. The entire
Donbass could not have survived in that period without Strelkov’s troops.
If the Slavyansk men hadn’t managed to reach Donetsk, then the
Ukrainians would have most likely been able to defeat all of the militia
units in the republics. The Donbass needed Strelkov and the Slavyansk
militia forces more than they needed the Donbass.
It was pointless to hope for the DPR to break the encirclement around
Slavyansk. The combined militia forces in the DPR were hardly more
numerous than the Slavyansk garrison. If Slavyansk itself could not
breakout of the city with its battle-hardened forces, then all of the
combined forces outside of Slavyansk would have failed too.
The most combat-ready force outside of Slavyansk in early July was
Igor “Demon” Bezler’s battalion, which was about five hundred strong.
He was needed to hold Gorlovka and was unable to go to Slavansk.
Hodakovsky’s East and Zaharchenko’s Stronghold battalions combined
numbered a mere fifteen hundred men combined. They too were unable
to be sent to Slavyansk. Their troops were already stretched thin
defending the already poorly protected capital of the DPR.
Unlike Strelkov, Demon had four tanks and two Grads. Hodakovsky
and Zaharchenko had five tanks each. Even those would not have been
able to reverse the situation around Slavyansk.
The question of the possibility of breaking the encirclement of
Slavyansk remains controversial among the militia commanders. Those
who were encircled (Grumpy and Strelkov) deny the existence of any
plans for a breaking of the encirclement, while those who were outside of
the encirclement (Boroday and Zaharchenko) insist that there was a
plan.
Here is what Zahar Prilepin writes in his book:
“On 5 July, Strelkov swiftly marched his brigade’s fighters out of the
city of Slavyansk to avoid encirclement. Zaharchenko later admitted that
he was shocked by the decision. An operation to break the encirclement
was planned for 7 July.”
Strelkov and Grumpy deny any knowledge of such a plan. Grumpy
said:
“To be honest, I don’t even want to discuss such nonsense.”
DPR leader Alexander Boroday claims that the plan to break the
encirclement was being worked out, but he does not name a specific
date. According to him, the operation was planned only in theory and had
not been prepared for practice. He says:
“The plans for breaking the encirclement of Slavyansk were being
developed by Zaharchenko and I. The leadership of the republic could
not help but to worry about the fate of the Slavyansk garrison. Despite
my disagreements with Strelkov, it was my duty to get him out of there
alive. I felt paternal to him as well, since I was responsible for his first
appearance in the Donbass.”
Boroday believed that the DPR’s available forces in July were
sufficient to break the encirclement around Slavyansk. He calculated that
Hodakovsky had about a thousand men, Zaharchenko seven hundred,
and a few hundred available to him personally. At the same time,
Boroday agrees that the forces were too small, and so the
implementation of the plan was delayed. Boroday says:
“There were not enough forces, but we tried to create a plan to help
Slavyansk. In particular, I sought support at a higher level. The higher
level support was to be a “Northern Wind” that was planned. I think
Slavyansk could have held on. I talked with Strelkov the day before he
left Slavyansk, and he assured me that he would hold the city. What
happened afterwards was a nervous breakdown.
That being said, everything could have ended a lot worse. The
subsequent events in August showed that the militia could count on
some support. But that was a month and a half later. Would you have
been able to hold out in Slavyansk for all of that time? It is very
questionable. I have always publicly stressed that I do not blame and I
have no right to blame Strelkov for leaving Slavyansk. I don’t know what
decision I would have made in his place. Probably the same one.
Therefore, I have no complaints about Slavyansk. There are claims that
he abandoned other, more defensible settlements in the DPR. For
example, Konstantinovka was suitable as a defensive position in my
opinion. Strelkov’s retreat led to the abandonment of a large area, and
this caused the DPR many problems. Lastly, my claims on military
operations are related to what Defense Minister Strelkov did when he
arrived in Donetsk.”
4) The inability to hold Kramatorsk and other cities was due to the
inability of the militia to hold a large area and guard key roads
Why didn’t the Slavyansk garrison keep its foothold in Kramatorsk? It
was because of the same reasons that we had to leave Slavyansk.
Kramatorsk was a poor defensive position. It is segmented by rivers and
was partially encircled already. In addition, Mount Karachun continued to
be a threat to the city, as was the nearby Ukrainian military airfield.
The entire defense of Kramatorsk would have depended upon one
road to Druzhovka. If that road was cut, the militia would have found
itself in the same position that it had in Slavyansk, but without an armor
group.
When Strelkov arrived in Kramatorsk and held a meeting with
Grumpy, they concluded that the militia would soon be surrounded again.
Grumpy also gave Strelkov the bad news. On the same night that
Strelkov had broken out of Slavyansk, the Ukrainians had taken
Artyomovsk. The Ukrainians took Artyomovsk easily. There was only a
single militia company of thirty men in Artyomovsk, none of whom carried
heavy weapons. When the Ukrainians entered the city, the militia
company fled. They found a Ukrainian strike group to their rear.
There was also intelligence that Ukrainian BTRs were probing the
roads between Druzhovka, Gorlovka, and Dzerzhinsk. Those roads were
about 20 kilometers long, and had no settlements. The Ukrainians could
take control of the roads, and cut off the entire Kramatorsk-
Konstantinovka-Druzhovka area from Gorlovka and Donetsk.
Grumpy gave his opinion on the inability of the militia to hold
Kramatorsk and other cities in the area:
“While we controlled Red Liman and kept the enemy beyond the
Donets River, Slavyansk was ideal for defense. It was supported from
the south by Kramatorsk, and it was guarded by the Donets to the north,
west, and east. The Donets served as a natural barrier to enemy forces,
but it was broken after the defeat at Yampol. There were no such natural
defenses in Kramatorsk. The city is in a basin, and the defense was
made more difficult by the nearby Ukrainian airfield. The Ukrainians were
a mere 500 meters away from the city, and could shoot it at point blank
range. Without Slavyansk, there was no point in defending Kramatorsk.”
Eldar Hasanov also spoke about this:
“The urban agglomeration made our situation difficult. There is quite a
long distance between the cities, and we could not control the roads.
Two thousand men from the Slavyansk and Kramatorsk garrisons could
not defend such a large area. We understood that the Ukrainian military
was becoming smarter and more tactically literate every day. This was
confirmed by the operation near Yampol and their further actions. At that
stage, it was predicted that the roads connecting the urban
agglomeration were going to be cut. We had to retreat to Gorlovka and
Donetsk.”
For these reasons, Strelkov ordered the garrisons from Slavyansk,
Kramatorsk, Druzhovka, and Konstantinovka to concentrate in Gorlovka.
From there, the militia went to Donetsk.
Together with the logistics personnel and family members, there were
about three thousand people. Strelkov was only able to reorganize the
formations after arriving in Donetsk, the capital of the DPR.
5) The rest of the LPR and DPR were also in a difficult situation
militarily. Both republics risked defeat if the Slavyansk Brigade remained
surrounded and didn’t take part in the fighting across the Donbass.
 Strelkov was forced to assess the regional as well as local situations
when deliberating on whether or not to retreat from Slavyansk. Given all
that was happening, there was no chance of holding both Slavyansk and
the other defenses of the republics.
Over the course of the previous two and a half months, most of the
fighting in the DPR was around Slavyansk. There was somewhat less
fighting near Lisichansk and Severodonetsk that involved Aleksey
Mozgovoy and Pavel Dryomov’s forces. Sporadic skirmishes occurred
outside of Lugansk in the LPR and Karlovka in the DPR. There was no
serious fighting in the interior of the DPR in the first two months other
than the events around Donetsk Airport in late May and the battle near
Marinovka near the Russian border in mid-June. The Ukrainians were
able to easily occupy Amvrosiyevka without a fight. The Ukrainians
seized Mariupol without difficulty as well and the DPR was unable to do
anything about it.
At the end of June, Mozgovoy’s intelligence indicated that Ukrainian
troops were bypassing Slavyansk and advancing towards Donetsk. The
Ukrainians continued to mass forces in Amvrosiyevka, and from there
advanced along the border with Russia. The Ukrainian plan was to cut
Donetsk off from the Ilovaysk-Shahtyorsk and Snezhnoye-Red Luch
roads. By taking those roads, Donetsk and Lugansk would have been cut
off from both each other and the Russian Federation. The militia and the
refugees would have had nowhere to run.
The encirclement of Slavyansk was beneficial to Ukraine as it locked
up the largest and most battle-hardened combat formation in the
Donbass. The militia’s breakout from Slavyansk was a blow to their
plans. While Slavyansk had been a shield and rallying point for the
Donbass in April and May, it was a liability for the Donbass as the
Ukrainians reorganized their forces. It was a remote part of the front
(even if there wasn’t a front in the classical military sense of the word),
and only weakly affected the overall military situation of the republics.
The most important argument for the retreat from Slavyansk was the
need to preserve a combat-ready brigade for the Donbass.
The Slavyansk Brigade allowed the DPR (and to a lesser extent the
LPR) to hold out for weeks after it arrived in Donetsk. That bought the
republics enough time to allow for the Russian Federation to intervene.
In an interview, Strelkov commented on how the retreat took the
Ukrainians by surprise:
 “Yes, the retreat discouraged them. After all, I had an explicit order to
not surrender Slavyansk. When I reported that I was going to leave, they
repeated their order to not leave, but to defend Slavyansk to the last
man. “You will be encircled, defend Slavyansk” they said. I asked “how
will you help?”. The response was silence. I have a thousand men and
thousands more of their relatives. I have no right to kill them. That is why
I decided to breakout. I am convinced that if we had not left Slavyansk,
then we would not have been able to hold Donetsk either. When we
entered Donetsk, all was wonderful. It was a dual power situation – Kiev
still controlled the Interior Ministry there, and the mayor was loyal to Kiev
as well. The city’s defenses were poor. The roads were not blocked, the
checkpoints were ill-equipped, and it was possible to enter as one
pleased. There were very few troops there. The few troops that were
there were scattered and poorly organized. There was a “Russian
Orthodox Army”, East Battalion, and Stronghold Battalion. Each unit
defended its own area, and lacked a unified command structure.
The surrender of a city is formally a defeat. Nonetheless, holding the
entire Ukrainian army off for two and a half months was a victory. The
Ukrainian military’s strength was shackled and gave the DPR a lot of
time. Without the long defense of Slavyansk, Donetsk would have quickly
fallen. If we had not left Slavyansk, Donetsk would have fallen within a
week or two. I cannot say if this was done on purpose and if the
leadership of the DPR wanted to surrender the city. But Donetsk was not
prepared for a defense at all.”
Those are the five main reasons for the withdrawal of the Slavyansk
garrison to Donetsk.
Of course, Strelkov made mistakes during the defense of Slavyansk.
But it is likely that even if those mistakes had not been made, that the
same stalemate would still have developed anyways. Everything
depended on external factors – the degree of support from the Russian
Federation in particular. The militia’s decision to engage in armed
struggle with Ukraine was first and foremost driven by an expectation of
support from the Russian Federation.
The first mistake was made in the second half of April. The loss of
Mount Karachun allowed the Ukrainians to shell Slavyansk more easily
than they would have otherwise been able to. Strelkov believed at the
time that the Ukrainians were going to storm Slavyansk, so he
surrendered Mount Karachun in order to keep his defensive positions
within Slavyansk as strong as he could.
 The second mistake of the command was to attempt to hold the
bridgehead near Yampol. Anticipating reinforcements from Donetsk and
seeing low Ukrainian morale, Strelkov hoped to launch a
counteroffensive from Yampol to recapture Red Liman. As a result of his
hope, the Yampol battalion was defeated, and Slavyansk was
operationally encircled.
The third mistake was the late decision to withdraw from Slavyansk.
According to Strelkov, he should have ordered the retreat before the fall
of Nikolayevka and the complete encirclement of Slavyansk. In the same
line of thought, Strelkov believes that he should have left Slavyansk with
the final column rather than the second column. Leaving with the last of
the garrison would have enabled him to save the armored group.
On 8 July, Strelkov made a television appearance in Donetsk. He
asked the inhabitants of Slavyansk for forgiveness for failing to defend
their city. He explained that his decision was not only made out of his
desire to save the garrison, but also his fear that the city would be
destroyed and many more civilians killed. Here is his television speech to
the republic:
“From the very start of the fighting, Slavyansk has been a shield for
Donetsk and the entire territory of the DPR and LPR. We bore the brunt
of the enemy assault, distracted enemy forces, and gave republican
activists time to follow our example and to take power from the
henchmen of the junta. When people’s power had been established in
Donetsk and Lugansk, our primary mission had been accomplished. The
states declared independence, held referendums, and formed their own
armed forces.
Naturally, Slavyansk is very important for me and for all of you. It is an
important city with which we all now have many ties. If we had a chance
at holding Slavyansk, we would have held it as long as we could have.
However, the military situation developed to the point where holding the
city would have entailed unacceptable militia casualties. In addition, the
city had lost its strategic and tactical importance. The enemy had
concentrated a huge number of armored vehicles around the city.
Without sufficient amounts of heavy weapons, artillery, and most
importantly ammunition, we could not have held out for long. Step by
step the enemy was advancing and winning. In one beautiful – or rather
not so beautiful – day we realized that the city was encircled. The enemy
plan was not to assault us, but to raze the city to the ground with artillery,
then to crush our infantry with tanks. We understood that we lacked the
weapons to counter their plan, and that we would be destroyed in several
days. We did not have the ability to inflict many casualties upon the
enemy.
At that moment I decided alone to save the city from pointless
destruction and to use the battle hardened units in the city to defend the
republic in new places. Moreover, as we learned after our breakout of the
encirclement, the enemy had defeated the small militia detachment at
Artyomovsk. That endangered not only Slavyansk, but the Kramatorsk-
Druzhovka-Konstantinovka urban agglomeration. Thus, it was pointless
to defend those cities either. It would only lead to unnecessary sacrifice
and destruction.”
At the end of the chapter, we will give the opinions of other
participants in the defense of Slavyansk.
Dmitry “Cedar” Zhukov:
“The accusations of Slavyansk’s “surrender” are unfair. Retreat is one
of the tactical maneuvers in military affairs. Such operations have not
been uncommon in our history. For example, the Patriotic War when
Kutuzov left Moscow and won tactically.
The retreat of the garrison, although spontaneous, was well
organized and suffered fewer losses than are normally suffered in such
operations. The militia showed a high level of discipline and mobility in its
retreat. Of course, the retreat was forced. The nonsense that the militia
had left behind mountains of weapons and ammunition is not even worth
discussing. For example, in my company there were three anti-tank
guided missile launchers, each with several missiles. We also had
several RPG-7s with three or four rocket-grenades each. All were only
effective against light armor. Our company was one of the best equipped
since we were in Semyonovka, the most important position. We had no
weapons capable of fighting tanks, and it was clear that no such
weapons were coming. The resupply route had already been occupied
by the Ukrainian military.”
Igor “Skobar” Ivanov:
“I did not quite understand why we were leaving. When Strelkov told
me that we were leaving on 4 July, it was like a blow to the head. It was
honestly a big disappointment. We had just barely escaped Nikolayevka,
where we had fought to the end. We were ready to make our last stand
in Slavyansk, fighting for every street and every building. But I was just a
squad leader defending a line of 500-700 meters. I didn’t know what was
going on in other areas, how many weapons were left, what the logistics
situation was, how things were in Donetsk, or if there would be any help
from Russia. Only Strelkov saw the whole picture.
Then, having understood the whole picture of what was happening
there, I realized that Strelkov had absolutely made the right decision. I’m
a military historian. It is quite possible to compare the decision to
Kutuzov’s decision to retreat from Moscow. While it is clear that the
decisions were in different eras and on different scales, the comparison
suggests itself as there are too many similarities. Moscow was then a
symbol of the Russian world in 1812, and Slavyansk was a symbol of the
Russian world in 2014. In 1812, everyone was ready to die for Russia
near Moscow, and in Slavyansk in 2014 there were similar sentiments.
Jingoistic patriots scolded both Kutuzov and Strelkov for surrendering the
cities they were charged with defending, not realizing the real need for a
retreat to preserve forces and continue the war.”
Daniel “Goodwin” Bezsonov
“The fierce battles in June were accompanied by territorial losses and
ended in complete encirclement. You need to understand that in
elevation maps Slavyansk is in a deep lowland. Ammunition was running
out. Artillery shelled us all day long. There was no chance at maintaining
our defense. If Slavyansk fell with the most battle-hardened part of the
Donbass militia, there was a high probability that the other cities of the
Donbass would also fall. Therefore, the retreat from Slavyansk to
Donetsk was more than justified.”
Sergey “Grumpy” Dubinsky
“Strelkov was ordered to leave Slavyansk on 6 May according to my
sources. That was several days after the Ukrainian military took Mount
Karachun. According to our “senior comrades”, there was danger that the
uprising would be quickly and brutally suppressed. Strelkov still refused
to leave, and defended the city for another two months. On 4 July,
Strelkov reported that he intended to retreat. The higher-ups refused to
allow him to retreat, even though there was a real threat of defeat. The
refusal was apparently motivated by the fact that the “north wind” was
supposed to blow soon.
But there were no supplies and little time. There was at most a week
of ammunition left, and it was impossible to supply more due to the
encirclement. I went from Kramatorsk to Slavyansk a day later. On my
final five trips there, I was shot at four times. Twice I was fired on by
mortars, once by a helicopter, and once by a BTR. I barely survived my
encounter with the BTR on the “Road of Life” on 4 July.”
 Eldar “Mihailo” Hasanov:
“The retreat was inevitable for two reasons. First, the Ukrainian
military had mined the perimeter and threatened the complete
encirclement of Slavyansk. After the loss of Yampol, the desertion of
Sapper’s company, and the fall of Nikolayevka, the Slavyansk Brigade
was suffocated by the lack of artillery ammunition. If delayed for another
day or two, the brigade would not have been able to breakout or would
have suffered heavy losses in breaking out.
The second reason was the balance of forces. Even with sufficient
ammunition, the Slavyansk Brigade would not have been able to inflict
serious losses upon the enemy. The Ukrainian military would have been
able to besiege the garrison with a small force, and transfer the rest of
their men to other sectors. Given the lack of forces around Donetsk and
other areas, that could have ended the Russian Spring in a way that was
entirely unfavorable to us.
If we want to draw historical analogies, let us blame Kutuzov for the
surrender of Moscow. Or Soviet military leaders for retreating to Moscow
and escaping from encirclements in WWII. Why did they break their men
out of encirclements rather than heroically leave their men to die?
Probably because there was no point in sitting around and waiting to be
destroyed. It was the same in Slavyansk. We retreated to keep the
brigade together and to fight again another day.”
Dmitry Steshin, war correspondent:
“The entire Slavyansk operation and the “Slavyansk sitting” were
done with the intention of waiting for the arrival of Russian troops into the
Donbass. When that possibility ceased to be, the situation became a
stalemate. Of course, the militia would have been gradually destroyed in
another two or three weeks of fighting. Or they would have had to
surrender when their ammunition ran out.
Two more important points. The first is that Slavyansk showed the
people of the Donbass that this was all quite serious, that this was a real
war, and that regretfully diplomacy would not be able to resolve this
situation. Before Slavyansk, there had indeed been delusions that this
was not serious, that this was not a war, and that diplomacy would solve
this situation. The second point is that Slavyansk gave time for militias to
be mobilized, for specialists to be recruited, and for volunteers to be
called. In war, time is a precious thing.”
 Chapter 53 - Slavyansk Brigade

The Slavyansk Brigade was split into groups and dispatched to plug
gaps in the defensive lines of the DPR and LPR in the days after the
retreat from Slavyansk. Alexander Zaharchenko’s Stronghold unit was
mostly in Donetsk itself, and partially subordinated to Strelkov. East
Battalion defended Yasinovataya, Avdeyevka, Karlovka, and Peski near
Donetsk. East Battalion’s commander Hodakovsky refused to obey
Strelkov, but the men of the Slavyansk Brigade managed to coordinate
with his men.
Strelkov reorganized the defenses of Donetsk. Only the headquarters
and the commandant’s company were left within the core of Donetsk.
The Kramatorsk garrison was reorganized into a battalion and sent to the
undefended Petrovsky District in the southwestern part of Donetsk. It
was later reduced to a company.
At the time of Strelkov’s arrival in Donetsk, there were no serious
forces in the other cities of the DPR; including Zugres, Shahtyorsk,
Ilovyask, Snezhnoye, and Torez. The border settlements of the republics
- Stepanovka, Marinovka, Izvarino - were also practically undefended.
Even areas with troops were usually just checkpoints with twenty to thirty
men lacking heavy weapons.
The Slavyansk Brigade was divided into three battalions, one
commando unit, and a separate mobile unit. One battalion was sent to
Shahtyorsk, the second to Ilovaysk, and the third (comprised of the men
from Semyonovka) was sent to Torez and Snezhnoye.
The forces of the Slavyansk Brigade were combined to open a path
to the border with the Russian Federation. After heavy fighting in
Stepanovka and Marinovka, they opened a path to the border near the
village of Dubrovka. A company from the former Kramatorsk garrison
was sent to Lugansk to take the border crossing near the village of
Izvarino. The Cossacks from Kramatorsk joined them, some continued
on to Russia, but some stayed with the Lugansk People’s Militia.
While fighting in Slavyansk involved a sheer volume of firepower not
since WWII, there was no single front line. The militia lacked large
military formations, and many of its units would have been considered
partisan or commando groups in the past.
 Strelkov described the small group tactics in an interview after he left
the Donbass:
“In military history and military theory, there is a concept of a “basic
tactical unit” that should be able to perform certain tasks at a tactical
level. As a military force becomes larger and amasses more equipment,
its constituent tactical units become smaller.
Today, platoons have the firepower that companies had in WWII, and
battalions in WWI. For example, the quality of weapons has improved to
the point that a modern platoon can shoot as many or more bullets as a
WWI battalion. It takes fewer men now to complete the same tasks.
As a result, large masses of men become big targets. This was
demonstrated near Slavyansk and Donetsk. The Ukrainian army, though
vastly superior in numbers and technical equipment, couldn’t really do
anything to us and suffered heavy losses. They suffered such losses due
to their tendency to crowd together. Their vehicles and equipment would
be moved together in large numbers, and we took advantage of this. Our
platoons used small unit tactics to attack them. We probed the enemy,
pinned him down, and fired our artillery and mortars at him. Because of
this, the enemy would suffer heavy losses from small numbers of our
men.
At the same time, the smaller the unit, the harder it is to hit,
particularly in urban areas. While the enemy had vastly more equipment
than us, he couldn’t use its superiority. It is like shooting at sparrows with
cannons. It is useless to use Grads against dispersed infantry. Some
infantrymen may be wounded, but the combat efficiency will be very low.”
Of course, it was very difficult to fight with such small forces in the
face of great internal and external threats. You often hear about how Igor
Strelkov seized power and created a dictatorship in Donetsk after his
arrival in order to mobilize everything in order to fight the Ukrainians. But
according to Strelkov, he had to choose between war and politics:
“They criticize me for not putting things in order. But I had a simple
choice after I arrived from Slavyansk. I could either shore up the military
front against the Ukrainians, or I could organize a coup. Donetsk at the
time was a completely peaceful city – similar to Moscow. It was
summertime. People sunbathed, athletes exercised, and cafes were
open. No one would understand me if I tore this all up, even though my
soldiers were eager to arrest troublemakers. I understood that a civil war
wasn’t worth it. A bad peace is better than a good war, so I walked away
from it.”
 Chapter 54 - Forces and Losses

How strong were the forces assembled around Slavyansk by the

warring parties in 2014? How extensive were Russian and Ukrainian
losses in the fighting? This chapter presents the military data relating to
the entire struggle for Slavyansk.
In early July, the Slavyansk garrison numbered approximately 2,500
people. That figure includes not just the militia in Slavyansk itself, but
also the fighters in the area surrounding Slavyansk. Those fighters were
all under Strelkov’s command, and fought in Kramatorsk, Nikolayevka,
and other small towns and cities.
Of course, not all of the 2,500 people were active participants in the
fighting. About half of the militia fought at the front lines, and the rest
stayed inside Slavyansk. Those inside the city included engineers,
signalmen, doctors, cooks, logistics personnel, building guards, and
more.
Approximately 70% of the militiamen were Ukrainian nationals - from
Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, other cities in the Donbass, or other parts of
Ukraine. The remaining 30% were volunteers from the Russian
Federation or other CIS countries.
Ukrainian forces in the beginning of July numbered around 15,000-
17,000 people. This figure includes the forces in the north of Donetsk
region.
The list of Ukrainian units that participated in the fighting around
Slavyansk, Red Liman, and other areas is as follows:

From the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

-25th Detached Dnepropetrovsk Airborne Brigade
-95th Airmobile Brigade (Zhitomir)
-79th Airmobile Brigade (Nikolayev)
-24th Detached Mechanized Brigade (Lvov)
-93rd Mechanized Brigade (Dnepropetrovsk)
-3rd and 8th Regiments of GUR Special Forces

From the Ministry of Interior Affairs:

-Separate Regiment of the National Guard
-Jaguar Special Forces
 -Omega Special Forces

From the SBU:

-Alpha Special Forces
From Right Sector
-Two volunteer battalions

Equipment
List of the militia’s armored vehicles, artillery, and weapons
-twenty armored vehicles: one BMD-1, one BMD-2, five BMP-2s,
three T-64s, three BTR-80s, three BTR-Ds, two IMR-2s, two BRDM-2s
Of the armored vehicles, six had been captured and fourteen were
the militia’s own. Of the militia’s own vehicles:
-two BRDM-2s were given by private individuals in Konstantinovka
-two IMR-2s were found in the storage in the New Kramatorsk
Machinebuilding Factory
-three T-64 tanks, five BMP-2s, and two BTRs were delivered from
the Russian Federation
The captured armored vehicles include:
-five armored vehicle captured from the Ukrainian military’s 25th
Brigade: three BTR-Ds, one BMD-1, and one BMD-2
-one BTR-80 captured in the Second Battle of the Fish Farm on 26
June
Of the twenty armored vehicles, four were stationed in Kramatorsk
(two BTRs and two IMRs), one BMP-2 was sent to Lisichansk, and the
remaining fifteen were sent to Slavyansk.
Nineteen artillery pieces: three Nona self-propelled guns, ten 82-mm
mortars, and six 120-mm mortars
Of the artillery, sixteen pieces were the militia’s own and three were
captured from the Ukrainians
The three captured artillery pieces were:
-one Nona self-propelled gun taken from the Ukrainian 25th Brigade
on 15 April
-one 82-mm Cornflower mortar captured in battle in the village of
Oktyabrskoye on 13 May
-one Cornflower captured in the Second Battle of the Fish Farm on 26
June
Of the nineteen artillery pieces, four were stationed in Kramatorsk
(one 120-mm and three 82-mm guns, including the captured Cornflower).
The remaining fifteen were stationed in Slavyansk.
 The militia’s other weapons, some captured, some delivered from the
Russian Federation, included:
-Strela-10 anti-aircraft system
-five Iglas
-ten Cliff heavy machine guns
-thirteen AGS-17 grenade launchers
-up to 2,200 AKs
-700 SKSs
-100 PKs
-100 SVDs
-up to fifty different anti-tank rifles, grenade launchers, and rockets -
including PTRs, PTRSs, PTRDs, SPGs, RPGs, RPOs, PTRSs, and anti-
tank guided missiles (Bumblebees, Flies, Bassoons, and others)

The Ukrainians had the following military assets concentrated in the

north of the Donetsk region:
-up to 300 combat vehicles: tanks, BMPs, BTRs, and others
-up to 150 artillery pieces with calibers from 82-mm to 300-mm:
Carnations, Acacias, Grads, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and others
-up to 50 aircraft: Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters, Su-24s, Su-25s, and
An-30s
It is impossible to be more specific on the exact numbers of Ukrainian
military equipment. These figures are approximate and obtained using
open sources. About half of these Ukrainian vehicles, artillery pieces,
and aircraft took an active part in combat operations. The rest were in
the second and third echelons of Ukrainian forces in the Donbass.

Losses
Total losses in equipment and manpower are more difficult to
calculate than losses in individual battles. This is due in large part to
revolutionary chaos, inaccurate data collection in the field, uncertainty
around men missing in action, and propaganda distorting reality.
During June 2014, both Donetsk and Kiev stated various figures for
battlefield losses. The numbers range from several dozen to a few
hundred. The accuracy of those figures can be seriously questioned as
the calculations were made quickly. In addition, the warring parties both
clearly exaggerated enemy and understated friendly losses.
According to the author’s rough calculations, more than one hundred
and twenty militiamen and two hundred civilians were killed during the
defense of Slavyansk. This is based off of tallies of losses after each
battle around the city and each bombardment of the city. The heaviest
losses of the civilian population in Slavyansk were in late June and early
July. At least five people were killed each day by the Ukrainian military’s
fierce artillery fire.
The militia suffered its heaviest losses as a result of the assault on 2-
3 May (about 14 men), the fighting in Semyonovka on 5 May (5 men)
and 3 June (more than 10 men), the bombardment on 8 June (8 men),
the fighting near Yampol on 19 June (up to 10 men), the fighting in
Semyonovka on 2 July (5 men), the fall of Nikolayevka on 3 July (up to
10 men), and the breakout of the armored group on the night of 5 July
(more than 10 men).
We were only able to confirm the deaths of seventy-eight militiamen
whose names were known. Of those men, several were only known by
one name or by their call sign.
The reasons for a lack of a complete list of the names of the fallen:
1) The militia’s military operations had a partisan character and did
not keep a full accounting of men
2) Many militiamen didn’t give their real names and were only known
by their call signs
3) Many men went missing, particularly during the retreat from
Slavyansk
4) The relatives of some of the dead men in Ukrainian-occupied
territories refused to give their names out of fear of retaliation from
Ukrainian authorities
5) Many militiamen were buried immediately during periods of intense
shelling, and could not be identified due to lack of documents
Of the militia’s twenty armored vehicles, only three survived the
retreat from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. One BMP-2 remained in
Lisichansk with Aleksey Mozgovoy, and a BMP-2 and a BTR-80 made it
to Donetsk. The rest of the armored vehicles were destroyed, damaged
beyond repair, or broke down and were abandoned.
-Of the three BTR-Ds, two were damaged beyond repair during the
shelling on the motor pool in early June. They were stripped of useful
parts for other vehicles. The third BTR-D had a ZU-23-2 installed on top
of it, and it was struck by Ukrainian artillery fire on the night of 5 July.
-Of the three T-64 tanks, one was broken upon arrival and
abandoned. It was too difficult to tow it away during the retreat. The
second tank fell into a ravine on the night of 5 July. It was abandoned.
The third tank was destroyed in the breakout on 5 July.
 -Of the three BMP-2s, two were destroyed in the breakout of the
armored groups on the night of 5 July. The third BMP-2 successfully
brokeout past the Ukrainian checkpoint, went into the fields, and was
abandoned.
-Of the two BMDs, one was destroyed during the armored group’s
breakout on the night of 5 July. The other brokeout successfully and
made it to Kramatorsk, but was abandoned there
-Both of the BTR-80s in Kramatorsk were damaged by artillery fire
and abandoned
-One of the IMR-2s was damaged after retreating from the Slavyansk
stele checkpoint on 7 June. It was abandoned in Slavyansk. The other
IMR-2 also broke down, and was abandoned in Kramatorsk
-Both of the BRDM-2s were damaged in the fighting around Yampol
on 19 June and abandoned there
The militia only lost three of its nineteen artillery pieces. The first
captured Nona wasn’t able to fire by the beginning of July. Its gun and
undercarriage had been worn out by the enormous volume of fire that it
had delivered. Two 120-mm mortars were destroyed during the shelling
of the artillery base on 8 June. The remaining sixteen artillery pieces
safely left Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
The Ukrainians lost about 350-400 men in the struggle for Slavyansk.
Of these, thirty-three were killed in the four helicopters and one plane
shot down by the militia. This figure is the floor of Ukrainian losses. Most
likely, their real losses were much higher. However, we only use reliable
data here.
On 19 August 2014, the co-chairwoman of the human rights
organization “Soldier’s Mothers of Ukraine” Oksana Stetsenko
announced that the Ukrainians had been deliberately concealing their
losses in the Donbass:
“According to a secret order from the former Secretary of the National
Security and Defense Council, only military personnel are included in
casualty data. The number of policemen, border guards, SBU, National
Guards, and territorial battalion volunteers killed is classified. I’m not
talking about those guys who left Maydan to go to fight. We have been
contacted by thousands of mothers from all over the country asking for
us to find their sons, brothers, and husbands. Many lost contact with
them in June and July. The military says that it cannot reveal what
happened to them until the end of the ATO. Today we are working with
mothers who remained in the liberated areas of the southeast for all of
this time. They say that there were hundreds of military and volunteer
dead in Slavyansk alone. When the separatists left the city, the military
dumped all of the bodies into a pit and covered them up with an
excavator. The military has told reporters that it was a “mass grave” of
dead separatists. In this heat they have already begun to decompose. It
is unknown when they will be identified. The number of calls we have
gotten from the relatives of military personnel has increased ten times in
the last month. Apparently, losses increase in proportion to the calls we
receive. According to our data, between forty and sixty military personnel
are being killed each day.”
The Ukrainians lost about one hundred and eighty armored vehicles
in the three months of fighting around Slavyansk. About thirty were
destroyed, and one hundred and fifty damaged. On 6 July, the Ukrainian
Ministry of Defense reported that repairmen from Nikolayev had repaired
almost one hundred and fifty armored vehicles that had been damaged
in the Donbass. The Ukrainian officer said:
“Most of the BTRs and BMPs that have been in the ATO zone had
damage on their armor from RPGs, sniper fire, and machine gun fire.”
Given that 90% of the “ATO zone” was around Slavyansk and Red
Liman, the Ukrainian government’s declared vehicle losses speak for
themselves.
During the defense of Slavyansk, the militia hit at least seventeen
Ukrainian aircraft. Of these, eight were definitely destroyed, and nine
were damaged.
The destroyed aircraft included:
-Four Mi-24 helicopters
-Three Mi-8 helicopters
-One An-30 aircraft
The damaged aircraft included:
-Two Mi-8 helicopters
-Two Mi-24 helicopters
-Two SU-24 attack aircrafts
-Three Su-25 close air support aircrafts
The militia reported a much larger number of aircraft hit and
destroyed, but only seventeen hits and eight kills were confirmed. It is
possible that some of the damaged aircraft did in fact crash, but did so
without the militia’s knowledge.
 Chapter 55 - Significance of the Defense of Slavyansk

It will only be possible to fully evaluate the eighty-five days in

Slavyansk and the events in the Donbass after the end of the Russo-
Ukrainian War. Currently, it is difficult to collect information in Slavyansk.
Much information will only be obtainable after the liberation of the city.
We tried to collect all of the information available about the defense of
Slavyansk while researching this book. Heroes shared their opinions on
the significance of Slavyansk.
Cedar:
“My subjective opinion is that the defense of Slavyansk was an
accident rather than intentional. Our group’s mission was to capture the
administrative buildings and hold out for a few days. We expected the
Russian Federation to step in and reunify the region. But the political
situation in Russia changed, and the plans for Slavyansk were adjusted.
Strelkov’s group became the skeleton of the militia, and Slavyansk
became a symbol of Russian resistance. For eighty-five days, the
original fifty-two men from the Crimean Company grew into a force thirty
times larger. By the time it left Slavyansk, it was a combat-ready brigade
which reinforced the militia in the other parts of the DPR.”
Goodwin:
“Slavyansk distracted and paralyzed all of the combat-ready units of
the Ukrainian military and National Guard. That made it possible to carry
out the independence referendums in the DPR and LPR. Slavyansk also
showed that the enemy can and should be defeated. It served as a
rallying point for the militia, and was an inspiration to the other cities of
the Donbass to raise their own militia forces. Additionally, the eighty-five
days of the defense gave the militia in Slavyansk serious combat
experience. That experience allowed them to defend Donetsk, unite the
other militia forces under them, and to later conduct successful military
operations.”
Skobar:
“The defense of Slavyansk was of decisive importance for the
Donbass. If the enemy had destroyed the militia in Slavyansk, then the
Ukrainian would have overrun the DPR and LPR by the middle of the
summer. They could have then driven onto Crimea. Thus, we delayed
the Ukrainian offensive not only on Donetsk and Lugansk, but also on
Russia itself. Yes, we failed to take Kiev, and neither Mariupol nor
Odessa were liberated. We failed to create New Russia. But we did all
that we could do. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Those who need
to be ashamed are those who betrayed the heroic struggle of the
Russians in the Donbass to come to an agreement with Kiev. That
agreement prevented the liberation of New Russia.”
Grumpy:
“It wasn’t just the heroism of the militia or the talent of our
commanders that gave us success. We were helped a lot by the idiocy of
Ukrainian command. The Ukrainians could have easily captured
Donetsk. With Donetsk, they could have said that they controlled the
regional capital, and that the separatists in the north would be driven out
of their city. That is how I would have acted. But the Ukrainians rested
around Slavyansk and wasted a lot of time. A lot of time. They only woke
up in June and started trying to cut us off from the Russian border. If they
had done that a month earlier, our rebellion would have ended very
quickly.
Mihailo:
“The defense of Slavyansk was important for three reasons. First, it
became a rallying point of resistance and attracted many volunteers.
Second, it distracted the Ukrainian military and made it possible to
organize militia forces in other parts of the Donbass. Third, it created a
combat-ready and fairly well-organized combat unit - the Slavyansk
Brigade. That brigade later organized the defenses of the Donbass.
Slavyansk was not only a military, but also an ideological success.
The Donbass didn’t have anything like the Slavyansk Brigade before the
siege. We showed that with the right organization, we could create a
capable militia force. It allowed for other pockets of resistance to grow,
albeit on a smaller scale. I believe that nothing would have happened
without Slavyansk. There must always be a core - an ideological, armed
core of an uprising. Slavyansk was that core.”
Dmitry Steshin:
“It was a genius military operation from beginning to end due to its
unpredictability. From capturing the city to defending it from a force ten
times larger to breaking out of the encirclement. I’m sure that the
defense will end up in both school textbooks and special military
literature.”
The defense of Slavyansk was important in the initial period of the
Donbass Uprising. But according to the well-known words of Engels
“defense is the death of every armed uprising”.
In the middle of the summer of 2014, it was necessary to turn from
defensive to offensive operations. Therefore, Slavyansk was abandoned,
and hundreds of battle-hardened Strelkovites went to fight through the
Donbass.
Even the combined forces of the militia in July-August 2014 were not
enough for offensive operations. They only managed to hang on by a
thread. Without Russian support, the militia would not have survived into
autumn. The Russian Federation finally sent help in mid-August. Strelkov
left the Donbass on 15 August. Apparently, his departure was one of the
conditions for military assistance from the Russian Federation.
In early August 2014, President Putin held a closed meeting with
about fifty people. Those fifty people included journalists who had
worked in the Donbass. Putin listened carefully to them. They all asked
for Putin to send troops into the Donbass and to support the Donbass
militia against the Ukrainian army.
Russian military assistance threw the Ukrainians back from the
Russian border. Hundreds of Ukrainians soldiers were caught in
encirclements near the border and near Ilovaysk. The rest were driven
back to Mariupol. The Minsk Agreements were signed at the beginnings
of September 2014.
The war didn’t end with the Minsk Agreements. In January and
February 2015 the fighting flared up again, and ended in defeat for the
Ukrainians at Donetsk airport and Debaltsevo. Since then, the war has
developed the character of WWI. There is an extended front line with
regular skirmishes and shelling, but with no changes.
On 23 July 2014, the DPR’s Ministry of Defense created a medal “For
the Defense of Slavyansk”. Strelkov wrote that the medal was to be
awarded to militiamen who took a direct part in fighting in the defense of
the city, as well as to civilians who made a significant contribution to the
city’s defense.
The first medal to be awarded was given to Yury Yurchenko, a citizen
of France. Strelkov presented Yurchenko the medal at the Moscow
hospital where he was being treated. Yurchenko had been tortured by
the Ukrainians while a prisoner. Yurchenko explained why he had been
awarded the first medal:
“It is easy to explain the story of medal #0001. I knew that I was going
to be given the medal back in early August in Donetsk, just like everyone
else who participated in the defense of Slavyansk. But with Strelkov’s
departure from Donetsk, I forgot about it. In January 2015 Strelkov came
to my hospital and handed me this medal. He did so without specifying
any special merits, it was as an ordinary militiaman in Slavyansk. When
he left, I realized that I had been given the medal #0001, simply because
he didn’t have another medal at the time. Later, Strelkov gave me an
official signed certificate confirming the award of the medal and that he
had personally delivered it.”
The author of this book received the “For the Defense of Slavyansk”
medal #0506 in October 2014.
The fighters who defended Slavyansk are rightfully proud of their
medals. But their sense of pride is mixed with a sense of bitterness. The
bitterness is due to the ongoing occupation of Slavyansk, the cradle of
the Russian Uprising. In military history, there is nothing unusual or
shameful about the retreat from Slavyansk. It was a logical and justified
move. But the retreat is painful in a symbolic and personal sense.
The Donbass War is far from over. Yes, the Donetsk and Lugansk
People’s Republics have full-fledged militaries that are far more
developed than the partisan units of the Slavyansk period. However, the
situation in New Russia depends on the conditions of the larger political
sphere. The Donbass waits for favorable political conditions in the
Russian Federation to continue the Russian national liberation struggle.
Slavyansk is waiting for its liberation.
 Afterword

I was twenty-eight years old at the time of the outbreak of the war. My
political views had been shaped many years before, and Russian
nationalism has always been a key part of my worldview. One of the
fundamental ideas within Russian nationalism is the need for the
reunification of the divided Russian nation into a unified Russian state.
Currently, the Russian nation is divided between several states, one of
those states being Ukraine.
Modern Russian nationalists have been discussing this problem for a
quarter of a century. The regathering of the Russian lands and mending
the splits within the Russian nation are one of the main points of our
political program.
While important, the discussions were purely theoretical. The most
we could do was to print leaflets, hold rallies, and to learn how to shoot.
We wanted to take action, but didn’t see any opportunities. In 2014, that
opportunity came. Thousands of Russians who had waited for years or
decades found their opportunity. The hour had come, and with it the
Russian Spring. The seemingly endless darkness was suddenly
illuminated by the bright light of a Russian national awakening. The light
filled the souls of millions of Russian people.
While the liberal media claims that the Kremlin was behind the
Russian volunteers, there was no “hand of the Kremlin” behind us. We
went to the Donbass by ourselves and fought there ourselves. And we
achieved much there.
Of course, our hopes and expectations were not fulfilled. New Russia
was not liberated. Slavyansk was abandoned, and part of the Donbass is
still under occupation.
Compared to the stagnation before 2013, the events of 2014 were a
huge breakthrough. Crimea was reunited with Russia, and part of the
Donbass was freed of the anti-Russian Ukraine. Thousands of Russians
have gained experience in the national liberation struggle. And not only
experience, but taste. As they say “appetites comes with eating”. Yes,
Russians have whetted their national appetite. After 2014, we will never
accept the loss of Russian lands in Ukraine, Belarus, and other regions.
We have overcome the oppressive sense of national inferiority that has
been instilled in us since the early 1990s. Russians have proven to
themselves and to the whole world who we are, and that Russia is back.
We call the atmosphere of national spirit, unity, and brotherhood that
has arisen in the Donbass the “spirit of fourteen”. In just a few weeks,
that spirit forged a united and motivated army out of a diverse group of
men who had previously been ill-prepared for war. That spirit took not
just those at the front, but also those who supported the uprising from the
Russian Federation. It was that national “spirit of fourteen” that allowed
the militia to survive a vastly superior enemy force.
The 85 days in Slavyansk were a long awaited triumph of the Russian
spirit.
No matter how hard and bloody the war was, most of the Strelkovites
will always remember the defense of Slavyansk as one of the best times
of their lives. It was there that they lived the most meaningful days, shed
the most sweat, were animated by the highest spirits, and made
miraculous displays of courage and self-sacrifice. It was all for each
other, and in the name of our greatest treasure – Russia.

[1] UAZ is a Russian automobile company that manufactures off-road vehicles, buses, and
trucks

[2] Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior Affairs manages both the National Guard and the domestic
law enforcement. As a centralized state, all police operations were run by the central government
in Kiev rather than by local governments.

[3] Right Sector was a loose collection of Ukrainian nationalists, football hooligans, and neo-
Nazis that Zhuchkovsky and other Russians in the Donbass viewed as their primary enemies.
Zhuchkovsky and the Russians occasionally mistakenly confused apolitical Ukrainian units with
Right Sector, believing that various atrocities could only have been committed by Ukrainian
ideologues.

[4] slur meaning a dumb, unsophisticated Soviet nostalgic

[5] slur for Russian supporters in Ukraine, referring to the shared orange-black color scheme
of the Colorado Potato Beetle and the Saint George Ribbon, as well as the Soviet military medal
"For Victory over Germany "
 [6] A kray was an administrative unit in the Russian Empire in certain territories on ethnic or
political frontiers. They differ from the krays of today’s Russian Federation. Kray is etymologically
related to the “krai” in Ukraine.

[7] Kievan Rus’ was the Russian realm in the Middle Ages. Its capital was at Kiev, and it
gradually fragmented into a number of smaller states before being largely overrun by the Mongols
in the 13th century

[8] The Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was a short lived Bolshevik state in eastern Ukraine in
February and March 1918. It was part of the Soviet Russia rather than Soviet Ukraine. It claimed
the entire territory of the contemporary regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Dnepropetrovsk, and
Zaporozhye; as well as parts of the Kharkov, Sumy, Kherson, and Rostov regions.

[9] A number of conflicts have been fought in the North Caucasus and Central Asia in the last
50 years. Those conflicts include the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the two Chechen Wars, the East
Prigorodny War, the Tajik Civil War, the Dagestan War, and the insurgency in Ingushetia.

[10] The capital city of Crimea

[11] An off road light utility truck used by the Soviet and Russian militaries for cargo
transportation, as well as for motorized infantry. It can hold up to 21 men in the back.

[12] The story that Cedar refers to here is Stephen King’s short story “Battleground”,
published in 1972 and translated into Russian in 1981. It was made into a Russian short film in
1986.

[13] Slavs are an ethnolinguistic group that dominates Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Both
the Ukrainians and Russians are Slavs, as are Poles, Serbs, and Bulgarians.

[14] “Slavny” in Russia

[15] Aidar Battalion was the first of the territorial battalions formed by Ukraine in the First
Donbass War. It was well-known abroad for its extensive war crimes, some of which are
documented in “The Chronicle of One Battalion” by Aidar veteran Ihor Orel.

[16] BTR - Russian acronym for "armored transporter", the Eastern Bloc equivalent of
Armored Personnel Carriers

[17] BRDM – Russian acronym for “combat reconnaissance patrol vehicle”, a four wheeled,
lightly armored, amphibious vehicle

[18] “People’s Power” carries a Soviet connotation, and means government run from the
bottom-up by grassroots organizations
 [19] The definition of a Cossack varied in time and place. In 17th century Zaporozhye, a
Cossack was a Christian who had been accepted into a type of military farming commune called
a stanitsa. In the Russian Empire, a Cossack one who was an official member of the Cossack
estate, membership in which came with certain agricultural privileges but also military service
duties. Since the Russian Revolution, it has largely been an ethnic label for the descendants of
the various Cossack groups.

[20] A fortress in what is now western Belarus famous for its defense against German
invaders in 1941. While the Germans took the fortress in a week, some defenders hid out in the
ruins for a month.

[21] Svoboda – small Ukrainian political party that favors anti-Russian sentiment, economic
protectionism, guns rights, energy independence, Ukrainian nationalism, decommunization, an
abortion ban, and development of Ukrainian culture. They are controversial due to their support of
Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

[22] Batkivshina – major Ukrainian political party that wanted Ukraine to join the European
Union

[23] GRU is Russia’s foreign military intelligence service, similar to the CIA

[24] Ukrainian acronym for Security Service of Ukraine, the successor of the Ukrainian
branch of the KGB

[25] Literally “Golden Eagle”, Berkut referred to any special police unit in Ukraine from 1992-
2014. They were often used as riot police.

[26] GUR is Ukraine’s military intelligence, and part of the Ministry of Defense

[27] BMP - Russian acronym for "infantry combat vehicle" , Eastern Bloc equivalent of
Infantry Fighting Vehicles

[28] The successor to the AK-47 assault rifle. It was introduced in 1959, and is the most
common of the AK series of firearms.

[29] A light 7.62x39 mm machine gun based off of the AK series of rifles

[30] A Hungarian bus popular in the Eastern Bloc. The manufacturer went out of business in
2003, but many Ikaruses remain in use.

[31] Svidomy is a colloquialism meaning an ethnically conscious Ukrainian. To Russians, it

carries negative connotations of stupidity and hostility.

[32] Bassoon anti-tank missile is called the 9K111 Fagot in Russian, and is designated the
AT-4 Spigot by NATO
 [33] OSCE – Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It is a non-governmental
organization (NGO) that has 57 participating countries, including Russia, Ukraine, and the United
States.

[34] NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an anti-Russian alliance with 30 members
including the United States, Germany, Britain, and Turkey

[35] Odessa is a predominantly Russia-speaking coastal city in southwestern Ukraine. It is a

major port.

[36] A belt-fed machine gun that shoots 7.62x54 mmR ammunition

[37] Dushman literally means "enemy" in the Dari dialect of Persian, and was used by Soviet
soldiers to describe their Afghan enemies in the 1979-1989 war

[38] Izyum is a city in the Kharkov region that borders the Donetsk region. It is on the main
road from Slavyansk to Kharkov.

[39] A major battle in Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia

[40] KPVT – a 14.5 mm heavy machine gun installed on BTRs and other vehicles

[41] “Tomorrow” or “Zavtra” in Russian, is a left-nationalist media outlet

[42] Russian Television and Radio – a state owned television, cellular and radio network. It
runs its own programs in addition to transmitting others.

[43] BM-21 Grads are truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers that shoot 122 mm rockets.
“Grad” means “hail” in English.

[44] Acacia self-propelled guns are Soviet-era artillery pieces that fire 152.4 mm shells

[45] Azov Battalion later evolved into the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov Regiment as well
as the political party National Corps. It is well known abroad for its neo-Nazi views.

[46] Victory Day is held each year on 9 May to celebrate the anniversary of the victory of the
Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in WWII

[47] The song is “Victory Day” or “Den Pobedy” in Russian

[48] Ukraine’s flag has two horizontal stripes, the top blue and the bottom yellow

[49] Vinnitsa is a city in western Ukraine. It was annexed by the Russian Empire from
Poland-Lithuania in 1793.
 [50] Abwehr was Germany’s military intelligence organization in WWII

[51] Cornflowers, or Vasilyoks, are Soviet-era towed 82 mm mortars

[52] English language media translated into or dubbed in Russian is very popular in Russia
and Ukraine. Many fighters on both sides of the conflict were fans of “Warhammer 40,000”, “Twin
Peaks”, “Game of Thrones”, “Lord of the Rings”, “300”, “Gladiator”, etc.

[53] Bumblebee - RPO-A Shmel, a man-portable disposable rocket-assisted flamethrower

[54] “Alternative” is an organization primarily aimed at ending slavery in the North Caucasus.
People are lured by promises of high paying jobs by the non-Russian locals of the region, then
forced to work for little or no pay.

[55] Interbrigade was a National Bolshevik formation inspired by the International Brigades
organized by Comintern to fight on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939.
Limonov’s National Bolsheviks were also inspired by the Young Russians movement of the
1920s, which sought to synthesize monarchism with the Soviet system.

[56] “Pyotr and Mazepa” is a reference to Russian Tsar Peter the Great and Ukrainian
Hetman Ivan Mazepa, 18th century leaders who fought on the opposite sides of the Battle of
Poltava. Peter won and Mazepa lost, ensuring that Ukraine would remain part of Russia. Most
Ukrainians in the battle fought for Peter and not Mazepa.

[57] This is discussed in chapter 11

[58] Andryushka is a diminutive form of Andrey. Diminutive names are common in Russian
and Ukrainian.

[59] GRU - Main Intelligence Directorate

[60] Hohol is a type of traditional haircut in Ukraine which shaves the head completely while
leaving one long lock of hair. It is also an ethnic slur for Ukrainians.

[61] Tatars are Turkic speaking ethnic groups in Eastern Europe and Siberia.

[62] MANPADS – Man-Portable Air-Defense System. The Igla (Needle in English) MANPADS
are a Soviet era missile that can home in on air targets by following infrared radiation.

[63] SVD or Dragunov sniper rifle is a semi-automatic sniper rifle that shoots 7.62x54 mmR
rounds. They are effective up to 800 meters. Soviet infantry doctrine differed from Western
infantry doctrine, and called for a larger number of designated marksmen. As a result, many
SVDs were manufactured.

[64] Cargo 200 is military slang for a death. Cargo 300 is slang for wounded.

[65] Ossetians and Kudars are descendants of the Alans, who were descendants of the
Sarmatians, who in turn were descendants of the Scythians. They live in the Caucasus
Mountains and have a longstanding conflict with the Georgians and the Ingush. In 2008, Georgia
invaded South Ossetia and was repelled by Ossetian and Russian forces.

[66] In the Russian language, “russky” refers to an ethnic Russian, while “rossiysky” refers to
a subject of the Russian state regardless of their ethnicity. 80% of the Russian Federation’s
population is ethnic Russians, but the government still prefers the civic “rossiysky” identity to an
ethnic “russky” identity.

[67] SKS – Russia abbreviation for “Self-Loading Carbine of Simonov” – a semi-automatic

7.62x39 mm rifle used in the Soviet military from 1949 and the Chinese military from 1956. After
the Soviet adoption of AK-47 model rifles, millions of obsolete SKSs were donated to Communist
movements around the world.

[68] Antratsit literally means “Anthracite” –a type of coal mined in the Donbass and a number
of other parts of the world

[69] Ukrainian currency

[70] The song name is “Soldiers of Group Center” (Soldaty grupy “Tsentr”). The song is from
the perspective of patriotic German soldiers sweeping through northern Ukraine in 1941 who
expected an easy victory. Vysotsky, the singer-songwriter, was very famous in the Soviet era.

[71] Kollontay was so old that he had to lie about his age when he volunteered for the
Second Chechen War in 1999-2000. He met Strelkov in that war.

[72] “N” is the first letter in the Russian word for “unknown”

[73] Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Serbia from 1989-1997. Serbia was
dismembered under his rule, and hundreds of thousands of Serbs were ethnically cleansed by his
enemies.

[74] The patriotic opposition are those who oppose the rule of Vladimir Putin for a number of
reasons (usually related to his undemocratic style of governance) but who are proudly Russian.
This contrasts to the liberal opposition, which also opposes Putin but hopes for the
dismemberment of their motherland or the installation of a Western puppet government.
Internationally famous Russian dissident Aleksey Navalny has been on both sides of the
opposition, but most are more consistent.

[75] Afrikaner, while wounded by the blast, survived. His memoir, “The Freedom Fighter”,
discusses his memory of the Battle of Yampol as well as his recovery from his wounds.
 [76] Rheostat-2s are artillery fire control vehicles similar in design and armor to the BTR-D

[77] 2S3 self-propelled guns are 152.4 mm artillery pieces known as Acacias

[78] Komsomolskaya Pravda literally translates as “Communist Union of Youth Truth”, It was
founded in 1925 and aimed at teenagers and young adults. After the collapse of the Soviet Union
it evolved into a tabloid.

[79] BM-27 Hurricanes (Uragan in Russian) are self-propelled 220-mm rocket artillery. They
were introduced in service in the Soviet military in the 1970s.

[80] Russian All-Military Union – an organization formed by Russian anti-Communist exiles in

1924. It was originally headed by the “Black Baron” Pyotr Vrangel. It became active in Russia in
1992, and has agitated against the communist legacy in the Russian Federation.

[81] The Drozdovites (Drozdovtsy in Russian) were some of the fiercest units in the anti-
communist White Army in the Russian Civil War. They were named after their original
commander, monarchist general Mihail Drozdovsky.

[82] MRLS - Multiple Rocket Launcher System

[83] Lada Niva is a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle manufactured by Russian automobile
company AvtoVAZ. It is comparable to a Jeep.

[84] Maxim guns are a recoil-operated machine gun invented in Britain in 1884. They were
outdated by WWI, but due to their reliability the Russians chambered their own version for the
7.62x54 mmR cartridge and produced them until 1945.

[85] Zaporozhye is a city and region in southeastern Ukraine

[86] 7.62x39 assault rifles are Kalashnikov AK series assault rifles