"On first day of war, there were no weapons, uniforms were burned. It was chaos" - Colonel of MIA Oleksandr Panchenko
What happened in Zaporizhzhia in the first days of the full-scale invasion, how many law enforcement officers remained in the occupied territory and why? ATO veteran and retired MIA Oleksandr Panchenko told about this and more. In the program "Who is with Miroshnychenko?" you will find out whether they had weapons and the ability to defend the territories, why the uniforms of the security forces were burned, and what the outcome of a full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war could be.
- What happened in Melitopol?
- The shelling of Zaporizhzhia airport began, and Melitopol was left without any protection at all.
- Closing warehouses, fleeing, leaving - how were decisions made?
- I called the Deputy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yenin, and then we found out that the weapons were gone. It could have been avoided and the border line would have been in the Melitopol area. By then, if we had smashed 3-4 of their cars, they would have turned around and gone the other way.
Panchenko Oleksandr Volodymyrovych, I live in Zaporizhzhia, I am a veteran and pensioner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
- You know, Oleksandr, there are a lot of stories from the time of full-scale invasion about who surrendered the South, how Kherson was surrendered, but not much information about what happened to the Zaporizhzhia region. What happened in Melitopol? What happened in other cities of the Zaporizhzhia region, and I would really like to talk to you about it. How did the full-scale invasion begin there, in the Zaporizhzhia region?
- On 24 February, the shelling of Zaporizhzhia airport and the radio detection and ranging that controlled all ground services began. I went out on the porch, saw missiles exploding on the airfield, and saw a Russian plane arrive. I called the Deputy of the Minister of Internal Affairs Yenin and reported that Zaporizhzhia was being shelled. He gave me a task and said: "Go ahead, report to me on the whole situation in the Zaporizhzhia region". That was it. I arrived at the Main Department of the National Police in Zaporizhzhia region, thinking that the command of the head of the Main Department of the National Police would be coming, but he had to do this - open the safe with the package, which would be ripped open and contained all the actions prescribed for martial law. Apparently, the head of the Main Department did not open the package, and there were about 40 pensioners and veterans who wanted to receive weapons, but it so happened that later we found out that there were no weapons. Why were they gone? Mr. General gave the order to take the weapons out of Zaporizhzhia region.
- And when did this happen? Did it happen before the full-scale invasion?
- No, it happened on that day, on the 24th, when there were no weapons in the storage rooms or in the warehouse. Then he gave the order to burn the uniforms of the personnel, they were taken to Zaporizhstal and burned there. The same motivation, I heard this motivation, was that the Russian army, which had already invaded Prymorske, had captured the border guard detachment and there were uniforms there, they changed their clothes and were going to our positions, allegedly. Then, on the second day, we agreed that the National Guard would provide us with weapons, there on the available stock, as they had up to 10,000 assault rifles in their warehouses, and through Mr. Nesterenko, the Trade Unions, Viktor Viktorovich, we began to write lists and distribute these weapons for the record, so that we could actually form response teams, so that there would be a commander and his subordinates who would perform certain tasks, such as patrolling or guarding buildings and administrations. The main task of the police in wartime is to organize checkpoints, filter, guard administrative buildings, protecting medical facilities and the infrastructure that can be affected by the enemy for sabotage.
- It turns out that when the full-scale invasion began and it became clear that the Russians were advancing, someone called the Zaporizhzhia region and the police and said to close the warehouses, run away, leave - how were decisions made, where did the commands come from - what do you think?
- What I saw was that there were no commands from the center at all, I asked Yenin myself to call the heads of the main departments on the selector and give them a command to make a decision for themselves and go on television and reassure citizens and personnel, to give them an indication that everything was fine, that we were starting to organize defense, that we were deploying personnel, that somehow the personnel would react to the command of the head so that they could see who was in charge. In general, it turned out that at that time the head of the National Police gave the command - the Fortress plan is for the protection of administrative buildings, it is for peaceful life, when there are some incomprehensible strikes or something else, and it is not suitable for martial law, we saw how the Russians entered. They just drove around and kept driving. Then he gave the command to take all these weapons from the personnel, seal them off and put them in a warehouse. We handed them over to the warehouse, sealed them up, and that was it. People were not given the command to leave the regions where they were, nor to bring out their weapons, nor anything else. Some heads of police departments did not know what to do - they called and asked: "We should leave, we should not leave, what should we do?" We organized a group in messengers, the Russians turned off the Internet, and we started to make messages in Telegram, Viber and Whatsapp so that our people, the police, could send us information about the movement of Russian army personnel, equipment and everything else. The guys and girls were signed under their call signs - Bear, Scythe, Hare. Why, on the one hand, I also cannot understand, the general said, "Enough with this menagerie, write your surname, name, patronymic, position, and rank". After a while, our employees were detained by the Russian FSB for all these transmissions of information, and that was the end of the information transfer. There was also a command to hide the vehicles, and there were 300 vehicles left on the other side in the Zaporizhzhia region, Mitsubishi Outlander, Duster - new cars that the police received. This equipment was also hidden by the personnel who remained on the other side, who were not given the command to leave, and on the third day, they wanted to announce that they were traitors to the police, traitors to the people of Ukraine.
- Couldn't they have taken these cars without an order?
- They had to be given an order, but no one gave them an order.
- Couldn't they have done it themselves, without an order?
- Some were taken away.
- Were there any meetings before the full-scale invasion? Remember, it was called for all the world to hear and said that there would be a full-scale invasion. I understand that there were some business trips where generals came to the regions and told them what to do. Did this happen in the Zaporizhzhia region?
- Unfortunately, I can't say this, because before the Russian army attacked Ukraine, I was not in the main department of the national police, I was sitting at home waiting for an order, but when I was interviewed by Mr. Klymenko, it was in January, somewhere in late January, he said to me at the interview: "Are you ready to take personal files of people, agents and secret documents out of the region if necessary?" I said: "No problem". "Do you understand how much equipment you will need?" I said, "No matter how much, there are factories, there are organizations where you can get this equipment." And then he said, "It's good that you're resigning, something is coming up and the state needs fighting people like you." I didn't pay much attention to it, I didn't believe it could happen, and since then I started thinking that something was wrong with the state.
- And then what happens, which cities do the Russians enter first, and how do the police who stay there behave, how do the National Guard behave?
- The Russians entered through Chonhar, passed through Henichesk and reached Melitopol, at around 5 p.m. they were already at the roundabout at the entrance to Melitopol from the Crimea, where advanced units and tankers were stationed. They stood by the kiosks, drinking tea and coffee, a police unit arrived, I personally spoke to these guys, they drove up and asked why they had come. They said, "Everything will be fine, just stay out of trouble." The city was in chaos, figuratively speaking. Ivan Fedorov, I know, gathered some of the police, gave them a command to communicate with the local services and protect public order from looters and guard all critical infrastructure - water and gas pipelines, all communication, there was no leadership, that's why, I think, a lot of people and employees stayed there - firstly, because no one gave them permission to withdraw those regions, and secondly, because there was no leader who would lead them and say, 'Guys, come on, let's get weapons. What is Melitopol? Melitopol is practically closed by channels, and it was necessary to pull two tractors with shovels onto one road, and no tank would have been able to get there, but this was not done. The tanks that were leaving Chonhar were our tanks, the marines' tanks, and they stalled before Melitopol. Again, Ivan Fedorov and the head of the SSU at the time, Maksym, went to meet them, agreed with the tankers that they would refuel these tanks, and they did, but the tankers said they had orders to go to Zaporizhzhia. And Melitopol was left without any defense at all. I sent a police group, a group of RPP to the airfield, and I told them to look at what was happening at the airfield. At the airfield, where the 25th Aviation Brigade is stationed, there were ammunition depots and the guardhouse of the battalion that guarded it. Everything remained in place, the personnel fled, weapons were lying on all the beds, under the beds, a bunch of assault rifles, Igla anti-aircraft missile systems, machine guns, all of which were loaded onto a bus and taken to Zaporizhzhia.
-Helicopters?
- A local said that the pilots had taken off at night in an unknown direction, got into planes, including transport planes, and they all flew away, no one was left at the airfield, and the city of Melitopol was left without military personnel.
- Do you say this now with condemnation of the military or do you understand that they did not understand what to do?
- No, this is not a condemnation, if there was someone who commanded all these people and organized this work, I think this would not have happened. Unfortunately, why I can say this, I have participated in anti-terrorism exercises several times - Plan Boomerang. In my opinion, if the head of the Security Service of Ukraine in Zaporizhzhia region had made such a decision and taken responsibility, he would have assembled the ATC ( Anti-Terrorist Center) headquarters, which includes all the security forces of Zaporizhzhia region - the National Police, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Guard, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, administrations, district administrations, regional administrations, prosecutors - then everything could have been settled like a chessboard, with the checkers being controlled, there would have been a report on all the passages of Russian troops and it would have been possible to resist them even with the forces that were in Zaporizhzhia region at that time, and the borderline would not have been like it is now in Vasylivka, Orikhove and Huliaipole, but it would have been somewhere in the Melitopol area. But again, coming back to the fact that by the time I was already in the administration and talking to the head of the administration, his deputies, I did not see the head of the SSU, I saw him a week later in Zaporizhzhia region, and I saw the employees of the Security Service of Ukraine in the same way. On the one hand, they are right, on the other hand, they are wrong - we condemn or not and support them.
- Do you think there is one person to blame for what happened and for the fact that the Russians entered the territory of Ukraine and were able to advance so far? Can we say that one person is to blame, or is it a group of people? This is to the question - who surrendered the South?
- I think, no, not in one person. Any person who would say now or at that time would say, "Everyone leaves that territory, the Russians will come in, meet them with bread and salt". One person might say, "Yes, I will go," another person might say, "I will defend my state. The third person said, "I will go to the stake, I will lie down". It's not because of that. It's just that there's a concept when arresting bandits: if you're the first to shout "Get down, police!", then if one person falls down, all of them will fall down. It's exactly the same here. There was a pyramid formation where only one unit tucked tail and left, and all the units followed. Again, there was no executive officer, if you take the Soviet Union, who would have shouted, "Follow me!" and everything would have ended in the other direction. The Russians were also not sure that everything would be fine here. If we had smashed 3-4 of their vehicles at that time, they would have turned around and gone the other way. As intended, afterwards, when I talked to the minister, what was needed to protect the city? I told him: "I need special forces, if you give the command to Mr. Lushpiienko to give me full command and the weapons that are currently available, which are machine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles, I will fulfill this task." These are three units of about 300 people, plus the Alpha fighters who arrived, there were a lot of them, and there were good sniper pairs, both in Korda and in Alpha. We deployed on all the buildings at the entrance to the city of Zaporizhzhia, set up strongholds and sniper pairs, plus a bunch of grenade launchers. My task was to block them: to let them in, to allow tanks and equipment to get 700 meters into the city of Zaporizhzhia, then to block them, because if we block them, no tank, even if it is intact, will get through, there will be no road. We planned it all out, I reported to the minister, and he said, "Everything is fine, go ahead and do it." So we mounted, it was very good.
- We talked about the fact that law enforcement officers were leaving the city, and I told you that this happened in Sumy, and I think it happened in many cities in Ukraine. How do you think it is possible to build trust in the law enforcement system now if people in these small towns know that their chief, or the head of the local police, has gone somewhere, or has not opened a warehouse, or has not allowed them to take weapons. How can people now coexist on the same territory? They have all returned to their jobs now, right?
- In fact, yes, some resigned, and some are still working, this decision must be made by the head of the National Police and those who left their staff, and these are not only lower-level managers, but also senior managers - there are heads of main departments who at one time - some left at night, left their staff, some left for three days, some left for the aggressor state altogether. Unfortunately, there are some of them. I think we need to choose from those guys who are not currently proving themselves at the frontlines, but those who can do it, because they have ways and methods of getting people to like them, of leading them and whom the personnel trust. Why didn't I say not those who are fighting - well, fighting is fine, but communicating with people is fine, you communicate with 2-3 people in a trench, but if you have 2-3-4 thousand personnel, then you need a little more intelligence and more opportunities to communicate with people and use these criteria to select the person who more or less fits these parameters.
- Are you currently following the investigations into the start of the full-scale invasion? You know, we were talking about how they were starting to look into what happened in the south, criminal proceedings would be opened, the perpetrators would be punished, why it happened. Are these criminal proceedings still ongoing, are there any developments?
- I don't know of any such cases in court, there is nothing in court yet.
- Will we ever find out the truth about what happened at the beginning?
- I think we will find out, we just need to wait a little bit of time, although, for me, as a military man who has worked in law enforcement for 28 years, I can say one thing - in my opinion, it should have been like in '41, when Stalin summoned General Pavlov and executed him for his miscalculations, and that was the end of it. This is my point of view, because these words that are out of time, let's do it later, and let's not forget that among us, we serve with people who have seen it all, who have experienced it all. An example is the people who stayed in that territory, if we take Zaporizhzhia region - more than a thousand police officers. Mr. Klymenko is now saying that the number is different, but it is more than a thousand.
- Do they work in the law enforcement system there?
- They work there in the law enforcement system, some district police departments only evacuated 1-2 people, but the entire Pryazovskyi police department is now working there.
- The Russians?
- The Russians. They are fully operational, they changed their uniforms and continue to work. The blame is not only on them, yes, we understand that they are collaborators, they cooperate with the Russians, they cooperated, but who gave them the impetus to stay there? If, at that time, Mr. Klymenko, as the head of the National Police, had given the command to evacuate all personnel from the territory that was already being seized by the Russian Federation, then these employees would have taken their families and moved to the city of Zaporizhzhia, taking with them their weapons and the vehicles they had left there. But no one gave this command. Only those who were not local left. According to statistics, 300 vehicles and 2,500 weapons were left on the other side - two regiments of regular soldiers to fight. If we took girls and 2000 boys, we could have fought and fought. But this did not happen. And the responsibility falls on the leaders who did not give the command to these people to leave, and then, on the third day, Mr. Lushpienko gives the command to the head of the inspection to fire everyone from the National Police. I called Yenin and said: "Do you understand why people are being fired? No one gives the command, and he already wants to fire them". This order was canceled. But if it had been, even more would have stayed there. The order to leave that territory was issued on 15 May, and people were sitting there, reporting to Zaporizhzhia that I was sitting in my office, a Russian bearded man was sitting next to me, and I was talking to you on the selector - that was the situation.
- How do you assess the current stage of the war? This summer, how do you see it? Some say it could be decisive?
- I believe that we will have a chance to end some part of the war this year, and then negotiations will take place and the entire territory of Ukraine will be returned to us.
- How do you see this happening? Where will it start?
- To begin with, the Russians have now, I think, sent all the reserves they had, all the weapons they have, according to the rhetoric of their president, I won't even mention his name, he is shouting from all sides that he is ready for negotiations, because, as he says, he says that Ukraine is already running out of breath, there is no ammunition. This is his side, and his economy and pension fund and the security of families will collapse, and I think that through material values and benefits Russia will give us all the territories, give us all the territories.
- How will they then explain to their population why this "special operation" is being terminated?
- He will explain all this to the population by saying that corruption was rampant in the Russian state, he just didn't see it, his superiors didn't report to him, and today the FSB officers, represented by Mr. Bortnikov, who shows the detention of Interior Ministry generals, Defense Ministry generals on Russian TV every day, heads of regional administrations, officials of various kinds, and he writes it all off, saying that we could have done it, but you see, the situation is that they stole, and I didn't go into it, because of this, we will now overcome all corruption in our country, and then we will restore order in "Novorossia," as he called it. You see, today Mr. Balytskyi wrote an article yesterday or the day before that the Russian president will sign a decree in the coming days, that will not state that Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are part of the Russian Federation, but will be listed as Novorossia, as they were before. These are "newly born territories" that will be like opposition to Ukraine, a new territory, the same Ukraine, only in their vision. And I think he brought Yanukovych for these purposes, to have Yanukovych stand on this territory.
A fine way of putting. And if we are given Western weapons and support in the volumes we are asking for, do you see any prerequisites at all for our offensive, I mean, our advance through our own territories, no matter how crazy it sounds?
- One thing I see is that our Western partners are currently providing us with weapons that are technically 10-20-30 times more powerful and accurate, a good example is that to break a Russian stronghold, the Russians will spend up to 12-15 shells, while we need 2-3 shells to hit their stronghold - this is accuracy, this is precision, and this reflects the policy that our Armed Forces leadership is currently pursuing. Our UAV units are also developing very well, with our Western partners providing us with a lot of support, which will also speed up the process of liberating our country. We are on the defensive, the Russians are always trying to advance us from different directions, so their logistics are expanding very far, and soon they will not be able to bring ammunition to the front line, and this will be a turning point for us to launch a counter-offensive, they will run out of things to fight with on the front line.
- You once had contact with the Russian military, you served with them, you fought with them, right? Who are they now, these people who came to kill us, who are they?
- By the time the war started, these were my commanders with whom I served, I talked to them, they were also friends, on the phone, by this time I told them not to call me anymore, some of them because the person said we came in peace, but they were killing our people, I told them why are you doing this? And he told me - what do you want, these are losses, and they are foreseen in any war. For me, this is not... I have become more humane, I have become more of a person who cares about everyone.
- I wonder if there are people on the other side who are in contact with you, in Russia, I mean, and support you?
- Yes, there are such people, and I am very grateful that there was a time when we met such people who... A lot of people called. The commander of my company, an Armenian, called me and said: "Sasha, I'm with you, like I don't understand what's going on here, but hold on, family, everything else. I'm with you." Some guys also called me, like, "Sasha (hypocoristic Sasha for Oleksandr - ed. note), hold on, I think it will end soon, this is all something reckless, that you are Banders, that you are fascists - everyone will understand this." But here we are, two years later, and they still can't understand. And there are those who really say that you were injected with the wrong vaccine, that you were brainwashed through some Western channels, that you are all Banders, that you are all fascists. On the contrary, I told them that you guys are probably the ones who have been brainwashed. You were an executive officer in my unit, and now you can't even understand one thing - we didn't attack anyone, we weren't preparing to attack anyone, and how could we attack if we had no weapons, is it nothing?
- If we go back to this story, where you said that there might be negotiations and we might agree on something, do you think that everyone in Ukraine will agree, let's talk about civilians and military, or will everyone agree to the scenario that the Russians stay where they are and we start sitting down with them and talking about something?
- This will be a very difficult question because we have declared that today Ukraine is within the 1991 borders, which means Crimea, Donbas and all the regions that are currently occupied should become Ukrainian. But they may make such a decision, it may be that it will be mutual, that Crimea will remain no-man's land for 15 or 20 years, and then the people who live there will make a decision, maybe they will agree on this. On the other hand, this is also wrong.
- We don't know what is right, do we?
- Everything should be right to give us the entire territory, but for this territory... Everything can happen, as I said, like dominoes - if we press at some point and the Russian soldier realizes that he has to flee, that domino plan will work and they will all flee from the territory of Ukraine.
- I see that you are so optimistic, you already have a plan in place. Well, let's see how it goes, Putin is like that, he says one thing today, but tomorrow he might say something else.
- I think he already understands that he has gone too far, I remember his words when he told Shoigu: "Do you realize how much this war costs me per day?" And I think that when he replaced Shoigu as Defence Minister and appointed his own man, he reports to him every day on how much money has been stolen, how much ammunition has not been supplied, how much has been stolen from buildings, how much has not been paid to the military personnel, and he understands this, and his only task is to show his brainwashed people that he is fighting corruption and that all his sins are in these corrupt officials who have brought their state to this point, and he wants to win the authority of the population so that it does not go further. But there are problems there too. We all understand that Russia is... For example, in Ukraine, we have seven big businessmen in the country, the kind of people who are featured in magazines, and we know them all. And in Russia, there are a lot of them, each region has its own tsar, its own god. According to this, their comrade president began to declare that, as in 1918, "everything for the collective farm, everything for the people and the workers - factories and land for the peasants". Today, this may affect his further stay in the state, because he can now take away their factories and they will not like it and they may have some kind of coup and shift of power.
-"Let's think about it, about the coup and the shift of power.
- However, whoever takes his place will continue this shameful story, but then the people of the Russian Federation themselves will realise that they have gone wrong, and accordingly, they will have some irreversible process, that the military will leave the battlefield and our counter-offensive will give them the opportunity to do so...
- You are the perfect ending. I don't really believe it, because I think if the Russians haven't realized what's going on since 2014, and this is the 24th year, I'm not sure they will anytime soon... But that's what it is... We have to do our own thing. I'm very grateful for the conversation, I'm grateful that you mentioned the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and I would very much like our next interview to be after some kind of investigation, because it is very important to understand the truth - what happened and draw conclusions.
Anna Miroshnychenko, "Who is with Miroshnychenko?"
