Maksym Bilousenko, AFU sergeant: "They are not interested in rebuilding destroyed towns and villages. Due to someone’s sick imagination, they just want to get territory, and it will be "dead zone"
I met Maksym Bilousenko long before the full-scale war, when he was working at the State Bureau of Investigation. Back then, we mostly talked about crimes committed by top officials. Now we are talking about the horrors committed by the Russian military on our land. Because now he is serving as a member of the 135th battalion of the 114th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade and sees it all with his own eyes.
And also about those who still believe that this war does not concern them and are quietly trying to hide out the mobilization.
"A WELL-KNOWN JOURNALIST MADE A VIDEO ABOUT OUR UNIT, WHERE SHE CALLED IT 'CONCHA-ZASPA'. BECAUSE IT IS UNIQUE IN ITS OWN WAY"
- You joined the territorial defence from the first days of the Russian offensive, and now you are in Donbas. However, when the territorial defence units were created, it was said that those who joined them would defend their home town or village. But the war made its own adjustments. Do you regret joining as a volunteer fighter?
-When the full-scale war began, territorial defence was formed at the community level, as, for example, it was in our Obukhiv district of Kyiv region. At first, people united in volunteer formations of territorial communities (VFTC). Back then, no one understood how to do it properly. I, as the deputy head of the Feodosievka territorial community, was in charge of this. We received calls from deputies and local residents who wanted to join. One of the local residents, former Deputy Head of the NABU Anatolii Novak, headed our VFTC. Then members of our and neighbouring communities, who had also worked for many years in law enforcement and other government agencies, started to join us. Among them were serving judges, generals, People`s Deputies and other high-ranking officials. I met some of them at that time. I received a call from an unknown number, which later turned out to be Mykola Lytvyn, the former head of the State Border Guard Service. I could hardly hear him, so when he introduced himself, I asked him again: "Who, who?". He repeated his surname and said: "You read about me on Google, then call me back".
- Has he read it?
- Of course (smiles - author). It was an ironic situation. Even though, by and large, we all had no time to laugh. We were preparing for defence and trying to coordinate as much as possible.
When the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions were liberated, the question arose as to what to do next. Should I return to civilian life or join the Armed Forces? I consulted with my family and went to serve. I was not the only one from our VFTC who decided to join the Armed Forces.
Our battalion's first visit was to Bakhmut. And when we came out of it, a well-known journalist made a video about our unit and called it the "Koncha Zaspa Battalion" (smiles - author). Because it is unique in its own way. There are quite unique people here, with connections, and positions, who before the full-scale war lived in one of the elite districts of Kyiv region. People who have three children and had reasons to avoid mobilization. In other words, they had every reason to be legal " draft dodgers," but instead they all stood up to defend their country and have been defending it for three years now.
- What did you see in Bakhmut when you first came there?
- Ruins, basements, dampness, darkness. It was the Novyi neighbourhood unit, near the famous aircraft, where our battalion held the line. You may remember the video that went viral last year, showing Russians shelling high-rise buildings with phosphorus ammunition. It was filmed by our aerial reconnaissance with drones.
When we were travelling east, we realised that we knew what we were going to do, what was expected of us, and that we were morally prepared. However, when you first jump out of the car and run through the mud to the basement, you think: "Here we go" (smiles - author).
We were in Bakhmut with the 128th Brigade, and they were assigning tasks. Our units took up defensive positions in certain buildings and mined others that the enemy could potentially enter.
Then there was Chasiv Yar, Klishchiivka, which is not much better than Bakhmut.
- You said that there are many law enforcement officers among your fighters. You also worked in the law enforcement system for some time. So you had the skills to use weapons. But you had no combat experience. How difficult was it to adapt to being in combat conditions? Did you feel like you were frozen and didn't know what to do?
- Since the beginning of the war, the battalion has been forming compsite companies that have been performing tasks at the front since the spring of 2022. Most of the soldiers were people who had already had combat experience at that time and had been involved in the war since 2014.
Our battalion also pays considerable attention to personnel training. In the summer of 2022, Americans, veterans of the wars in Iran and Afghanistan, joined our battalion. Among them was Nicholas Maimer, after whom our training centre is now named. He was killed in May last year in the battle for Bakhmut.
Nicholas dedicated 20 years of his life to the US Armed Forces. After completing his service, he moved to Poland, where he taught English to adults and worked as a DJ. And when Russia's full-scale offensive began, he decided to come to Ukraine to help our Defence Forces in the fight against the invaders.
They taught our battalion fighters a lot.
There was no such thing as arriving, freezing and looking at each other, not knowing what to do. The guys knew how they had to work.
- Were there still civilians in Bakhmut at that time? What was life like in the city?
- Our soldiers saw a small number of people in the basements who did not want to leave. I don't know what keeps people in such conditions and makes them deliberately expose themselves to danger. It's the same in Chasiv Yar. Sometimes I read in the news that a house was hit and a person died. I think about how they survived there in general. We were there a year ago, and even then almost all the high-rise buildings were completely destroyed. You drive around the city, there is no electricity, and sometimes you come across a working generator. We met people mostly when they were gathering somewhere to receive humanitarian aid.
- Maybe they simply have nowhere else to go.
- Still, there are some volunteer organisations and people who can help.
- I remember Bakhmut before the Great War, it was a beautiful, cosy town.
- When it was still called Artemivsk, my father did his military service there. In 2014, my friends and I transported humanitarian aid there. I remember one night we arrived in Bakhmut. It seemed like the city was frozen: the windows were boarded up, the lights were off. There were no people on the streets.
Of course, over time, the situation levelled out and it came back to life, but the first impression was this.
We then visited our guys who were in a military unit at the time, gave them everything we had brought and left.
At the time, I didn't even think that I would eventually have to return here. And under such circumstances.
"EVERYONE WHO CONSIDERS HIMSELF A MAN SHOULD TAKE UP ARMS AND GO TO WAR"
- In a recent post by the deputy commander of the Third Assault Brigade, Maksym Zhorin, I read that he assessed the situation at the front as the most threatening since the beginning of the full-scale invasion and drew attention to the fact that in 2022, "an outdated Russian army, 'chmonia's (chmonia (Andrei Rjazantsev - the 37-year-old former teacher from Horlivka, drafted into the Russian Army and captured by Ukrainian soldiers on March 1, 2022, turned into a Youtube and Tick Tock war celeb with millions of views.- ed. note) and an insufficient number of officers with combat experience" invaded Ukraine. But today, according to Zhorin, a completely different army is fighting, because Russians are learning and developing. Have you noticed this too? Have the Russians' behaviour and tactics changed?
- On the battlefield, each side tries to dehumanise the other in every way possible. That's where all these "chmoni", orcs, etc. come from. But when they started the offensive, they probably really expected that everything would be easy and quick. They were not prepared for the kind of rebuff they received from the Armed Forces and the resistance of the population.
When it became clear that it would not happen quickly, they began to dig in, as military science teaches, build multi-layered dugouts, and pay attention to training. Because not everything can be solved by GABs and high-precision weapons. There must also be trained infantry.
However, they have not changed their attitude to their fighters, they have no regrets, and they are still sending them out on assaults en masse.
Combat actions in general are like a sine wave. It goes down and then up. The advantage is either on our side or on theirs. We hope there will be more positive news from the frontline soon.
- What is the most difficult thing about such a positional war?
- You don't know when it will all end and you will return to your family and friends. It's hard to read the news, where they discuss that someone has been served with a draft notice by the TCR, and that they are running away and being "taken in"... Or that the body of another drowned man was found in the Tisza River, and that "those not born for war" were detained at the border.
You limit your communication with your family and friends. Because you consciously made a decision to fight for your country, and someone else is thinking about how to run away or how to hide. This is demotivating.
- You know very well what information policy is. How do you think it is possible to motivate those who are not yet at the front so that they do not wait to be 'taken in' but go to war voluntarily like you did in 2022?
- Everyone who considers himself a man should take up arms and go to war. Anyone who cannot fight on the front line for health reasons can still find a place in the army to be useful to the country at war. And not hide and say that "this war does not concern me". And this, in my opinion, is what the state's information policy should be aimed at.
- I heard from my friends that some women are hiding their husbands at home, hoping that they will hide out the mobilisation quietly if they don't go out. I wonder who will go instead. The women who are hiding them now?
- The other day, my comrades sent me a video of a girl sitting somewhere in Europe, telling me how great she is, that she needs men, dates, relationships. And she's kind of thinking out loud: "Who should I meet in Ukraine? With flags at the cemetery or with the rich boys with military service exemption certificate?"
Can you imagine what a trigger this is? As for your question, I hope that it won't come to mobilising women. But men really need to stop hiding behind them.
When people read the news about the war, they do not see another side of it. Hospitals and the wounded.
My wife's brother was wounded near Avdiivka. My wife is now with him in a hospital in Dnipro. We are talking, and she says: "You have no idea how many wounded there are here. How many have no arms, no legs, bandaged heads...". No one wants to see this, because the human brain is wired in such a way that you don't want to read about sad things.
In the news, people are looking for something like this: war is interesting, our people have inflicted such and such losses on the enemy, so and so has been destroyed. Glory to the Armed Forces, and I went on to drink coffee in Pechersk. But what happens to the wounded there, how they are treated, and most importantly, who will take their place if they cannot return, no one thinks about this. This issue does not resonate in society at all.
However, everyone should understand that sooner or later someone will have to take the place of those who are currently fighting. But the widespread "let's think of something and decide" attitude, as long as they don't mobilise, still prevails.
In my opinion, those who wanted to join the Armed Forces voluntarily have already done so. Yes, perhaps when we were queuing up at military recruitment offices in 2022, we thought that in six months it would be over and we would return. But we need to realise that the war has moved into a protracted positional phase of attrition. The enemy is trying to destroy everything - our energy sector, our economy, our towns and villages. We do not know how long this war will last. But someone has to be at the front until then and do their job.
- When I watch the Russians destroy towns and villages to the ground, I don't understand why they are doing it. Even if they capture some territory, what will they do there in the future?
- As far as I can see, except for Mariupol, where they have built some houses, the occupiers do not show any more pictures. I understand that they are not interested in rebuilding destroyed towns and villages. Because of someone's sick imagination, they just want to get the territory, and it will be a "dead zone". That's why their propaganda is lying. They are not liberating the "people of Donbas", as they say, they are destroying everything around them, without regretting anyone or anything.
Once we have liberated all our land, we will need a lot of effort and resources to bring it back to a habitable state. Mine clearance, soil clearing. But we definitely have to do it. We have to return everything and rebuild everything.
- Maksym, what did the war change in your habits? Did you do anything you hadn't done before?
- I used to plan with my wife every week how we would spend the weekend with our children. Now you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You just do what you have to do or what you are told. At first it was quite difficult psychologically, but then I got used to it.
- Do you go in for sports?
- I try to keep fit: dumbbells, plank whenever I can.
- How long do you hold a plank?
- A minute and thirty seconds. That's not much (smiles - author).
- I ask about sports because I understand how heavy everything you put on is and how your back feels. How do you protect your psyche at war?
- You try to look for the positive in anything, you can't do it without it. Of course, it's hard when you sit in a basement for a long time. It's good if it's properly equipped. It's not always possible.
By the way, my comrades and I will now celebrate our second birthday on 6 May. It was a miracle we survived. An S-300 flew 20 metres from the house where we were. Life sparkles with new colors. But we are alive. So much for the positive (smiles - author).
You asked me what the hardest thing about war is. I would add that the worst thing is if it turns out that we have been doing all this in vain.
I would not want everyone to forget about this over time. About the dead, about the wounded. People need to realise the price of all this.
Tetiana Bodnia, Censor.NET
