Confessions of a fighter. Revelations of a Volunteer

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You wrote to us that to want to join the Ukrainian National Guard?”

Now I remembered. Yes, a few weeks ago I had written to them and asked if any punitive measures would be taken against me if I took part in the war on the side of the National Guard.

“So that’s it! I’m on my way to join up now. I was just going out the door.”

“Where exactly are you going? To the Donbass? Could you come to our office now?” he asked, in a quite different tone.

“I’ll come right away. I am right here in Ivanovo.”

“Come in, we’ll be expecting you”, was the reply.

I called a cab and went there. The cab driver was thinking his own thoughts, but I was talking non-stop.

“‘No, look,’ they told me, ‘You mustn’t go to the National Guard.’ And when I said I was joining the militia, that really put the cat among the pigeons”, I said.

“Are you out of your mind?? Two guys have already been brought back from there in caskets”, he said in amazement.

Indeed, two volunteers from Ivanovo had died in May in the storming of Donetsk Airport.

“That’s war, what do you expect?” I replied. “You can get killed.”

The FSB asked me to sign a declaration that I refused to answer the question.

“I understand”, I thought. “It’s a tricky business for you.”

But that was not all. They asked me under official interrogation where exactly I was going and how I intended to get there. I refused to testify anything. To which the officer objected:

“It’s simply better to testify here than later in Rostov, where our people will deal with you. They know about you anyway”, he said.

“You won’t betray me to the Ukrainian side? You aren’t passing information to them?”

“Why do you think we would share information like that with them?”

“Anything’s possible. One lot in power today, another lot tomorrow, and you would drop us right in it. Today we’re freedom fighters, tomorrow we’re terrorists.”

But they assured me that this information would not be given out, and only then did they ask:

“But why did you write us such a query about taking part in the Ukrainian National Guard?”

I replied:

“It’s hard to understand clearly just what our state’s policy is. Maybe I didn’t get something.”

“Do you get it now?”

“Oh yes. I get it all now.”

“What impels you to make this journey?”

“I want to defend our fellow countrymen. This amounts to a war against Russia, and the forefront of it is there. Ukraine is just a platform for the West to wage war on us.”

“It’s good that you understand that. There are very few people like you just now, unfortunately. Good health! And good luck!”

Rostov-on-Don

The instructions I’d been sent from the Donetsk People’s Republic draft office in Moscow asked me to get to the railroad terminal in Rostov and when I got there, to ring a number they gave me.

“Hello. I was given your number to call.”

“Hi. Where are you now?”, a male voice replied.

At the railroad terminal.»

Take a No. 75 bus to Megamag. Then walk towards Left Bank Street to the Smirnov café, or take a cab. Then call this number.»

It wasn’t far to go, only one stop, then I walked one or two kilometers and asked myself: “Where am I going? Why do I need this? I could get killed.”

I stopped, sat down on my backpack, thought a bit, then got up and went on. This way it took me two or three hours to cover a distance I could have done in half an hour. It was hard for me to decide to fight, doubts overcame me, my commonsense was beside itself with its failure to understand or accept what was coming. But I went on slowly… After reaching the appointed place and dialing the same number again, I realized the boathouse was right opposite me. I went on about fifty meters and saw DPR flags fluttering. Lonely exhausted people were walking round the building. You couldn’t mistake these sad sacks. It was obvious they were going there too.

I entered the yard and approaching the kiosk, asked:

“Who’s the senior?”

“Sova”, they told me. “She’s taking a break. Tea, coffee, something to eat – help yourself.”

It was an old wooden building, rising about two meters above the ground. On the street there were two large tents, for six men; the boathouse, a wooden toilet and a shower. There was a punch-bag hanging up. By the kiosk was a large table, to seat about ten to twelve people. They were watching a film on TV.

For the first few minutes, I felt out of place here. They were such different, strange people. Some were in military uniform, some in a sports outfit or beach garb. But they were all friendly, and I soon felt at home. Some people had come with experience, they stood out at once: kitbag-size or assault backpacks on their shoulders, shooting mats, beards and military uniforms. They were Cossacks, all well over forty.

The main building contained two dormitories with 30 beds each. The mattresses lying at the exit were like those in old hospitals, worn-out and covered in spots. There were stretchers here too. I could not bear to look at them, they made me feel ill. Looking at these stretchers, I smelt the stench of war for the first time. One of the journalists once asked me: “What does war smell of? What is it like? The smell of gunpowder or what?” Gunpowder smells natural, but war smells of something rotten and cold. Are there words to describe this smell? Hardly. You have to smell it yourself.

I saw some wounded by shrapnel from an AGS[5 - AGS-17 Plamya: a large 30 mm. automatic grenade launcher. Intended to hit enemy personnel and artillery not under cover, in open dugouts (trenches) and behind natural folds in the landscape (in gullies and ravines, and on the reverse slopes of heights).] and some by bullets. They were getting about on crutches. “There they are, the first casualties of the war.”

One of the wounded advised us to hide our weapons when we put them down in combat zones. In Donetsk, they were selling at a thousand dollars for an automatic rifle and 300 for a Makarov pistol. This seemed wrong to me. I had come here not for money, but to fight and help.

Sova woke up. She was a likeable girl aged about thirty. She noted down all the new arrivals. She was the senior in the camp while Alexey and Nikolai were away getting the volunteers through the border.

I went up to her and told her I had arrived from Moscow. The girl looked at my passport and asked:

“What’s your callsign?”

“Thirty-seven, from the number of my district in Ivanovo Province”, I replied.

After taking down my details and other information about me, she issued me my bedding.

I was in a tent on the street, with some Ossetians and Russians. I quite soon became friends with them. They already had experience of combat operations and told me a lot about it. We were lying in the tent. It was nearly midnight. From the other side of the river came noises from a restaurant: shouting, merriment, music. But we were going to war… Turning to Alan (as my new friend was called), I said.