People’s hero, Police Officer, Sergeant of AFU Oleksandr Panchenko: "Survivors were ordered to take off their pants to calves so that they could not run, because there was nothing to tie them up with. And I realized by underpants that something was wrong. Two of them turned out to be women."
Ten years ago, on July 5, 2014, Girkin’s convoy was breaking through from Sloviansk to Donetsk. They were not allowed to pass through the Ukrainian checkpoint near the stele with the name of the city. A direct participant in that fierce historic battle tells us about it.
This is perhaps the first major interview with Oleksandr about the events of 2014. He is a man of action rather than words. Conversations and meetings with journalists are not his thing. But we still managed to persuade him to talk about his memories. And everything he said is worth its weight in gold. Because that battle is a significant event in the history of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
We heard about that battle from paratrooper Andrii Tkachuk, who was already awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. He is still serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and defending the country. He always said that it was not only his unit that was striking the enemy, that there were other fighters there besides him - the National Guard, the Zaporizhzhia Berkut... But the very name of the police unit in the early years of the war caused anger - because it was the Berkut who shot up the Maidan in Kyiv. And the fact that these were not those fighters, that these were law enforcement officers who had voluntarily gone to war, was not accepted. However, Andrii Tkachuk himself and those who knew about the battle noted: "Oleksandr Panchenko, who was at the head of the security forces at that checkpoint, did a lot of work to prevent the convoy from passing."
When the award council of the People's Hero of Ukraine mission voted and decided to award Oleksandr Panchenko with the People's Silver Trident, he said when invited to the ceremony: "You will get a lot of negative. They will start talking about me commanding Berkut again... But there are indisputable facts and testimonies of people about that battle and about the determination of Oleksandr Panchenko himself. Yes, perhaps he has a rather direct personality, he says everything he thinks, but this does not minimize his contribution to the defense of the country.
"THE POLICE IN DONETSK WERE COMPLETELY PARALYSED. IN THE WORD: "WHY AREN'T YOU WORKING?" THEY ANSWERED: "YOU CAME AND LEFT, AND WE STILL HAVE TO LIVE HERE..."
- In 2014, you served as a...
- ...commander of the Sokil special forces unit in Zaporizhzhia region. At that time, the Berkut guys had just come back from the Maidan, and they had a change in leadership - they expressed distrust in the commander in connection with the events on the Maidan. He was removed from his post. The head of the Main Department of the National Police, General Olkhovskyi, called me and said: "Sasha, you have to agree to go to this unit". I explained to him all my pros and cons of this unit. And he summarized: "You are appointed."
- What was your attitude to the events on the Maidan? And to the way Berkut behaved there?
- I analyzed all the events of Maidan. I saw all the attacks against the unit. I can only say one thing: the guys served there were decent and normal. However, the commanders were not prepared for such mass events. What I saw was that they did not have to respond to the actions and challenges that came from the protesters. Protesters, for example, can afford to throw a stone at a police officer. But the police officer cannot respond in the same way. There were overreactions on the part of the police (at that time, militiamen), and this was not allowed.
I was on the Maidan during my last rotation. I saw everything. It was very hard and difficult for me because there were people on one side and people on the other side. In that situation, the leadership of the state, the leadership of the police, the Ministry of Internal Affairs - I was just shocked by the orders they gave. They simply did not fulfill their constitutional duties. And all this, unfortunately, led to such consequences. I saw the helmets of the National Guard burning, I saw ordinary people burning...
Our unit was defending the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Cabinet of Ministers. We were armed with weapons. The guys from Maidan came up to us and said: "Guys, you are here with us, right?". We said: "Of course. We are defending the administrative buildings". As a human being, I saw some people lying on the ground, freezing, and others. It is clear that everyone wanted changes in the state, for the state to value people and not fool them.
- Did you realize that there would be a war after that? Or did it come as a surprise to you? Well, the Maidan is over, everything is over, we are at home, living on, building a new country. And then...
- I thought that the shooting of Maidan was the last bad thing that would happen to Ukraine. I mean, really. I had a feeling that everything had to end. I thought that after Maidan, our politicians, businessmen, and oligarchs would not allow this to happen again. But, unfortunately, everything went wrong. I think that people wanted some changes, while others wanted completely different ones.
When the Maidan ended, I immediately started training the guys. You remember how Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, etc. were on fire.
On the Maidan, when people came to me demanding that I lay down my arms, I said: "Guys, understand: I have personnel. Everyone has a weapon, it is fixed, it has been through a bullet and shell casing repository ". I understand that every bullet fired from a machine gun will remain somewhere. I explained to the guys in the unit: we must always remain human, we must prepare for any eventuality both physically and mentally. Because in any situation, a person can grab an assault rifle and start shooting out of fright. And, unfortunately, he will kill someone. On the Maidan, I saw people shooting from one building, from another, flying in different directions over our heads. Shooting from the Ukraina Hotel, from somewhere else, three people climbed the dome, one fell down... So, remembering all this, I forced the guys to train. I took selections of the Chechen war - battles in forested areas, in mountainous and steppe areas, where Russian special forces soldiers and Chechens took part. All this was analyzed. I brought the guys to the point where they could analyze the situation, set themselves the right tasks and fulfill them.
I got to Donbas before the fighting started, at the end of March 2014. I went on the orders of the Minister, at that time Avakov. The task was to go to the city of Donetsk and help the local police restore order there. The regional state administration had already been captured there. Well, it was captured - a couple of tires were thrown, some "miners" and drunken guys were walking around. The command came at night: to take 30 people with them. I had already been in a unit called a company of special police, the former Berkut. The guys were all, so to speak, manageable. What does this mean? When they know and understand the commander, they perform all the tasks and only look at your gestures to understand where to go and what to do.
As soon as we got to Donetsk, we were ordered to go to the local Berkut office. There I was told to hand over my shields and receive weapons. This command was given by the then Deputy Minister, General Serhii Anatoliiovych Yarovyi. I received 30 assault rifles - all of them were from the Kyiv region, which were distributed to Berkut members on the Maidan. After receiving the weapons, I received an urgent command to come to the TV center in the city center, to go to the station itself, where the transmitter and antenna were located, that is, the entire complex that broadcasts Ukrainian channels. I told the manager: 'Yes, I have been given the command. And he said: "I am very glad." He spoke in pure Ukrainian, and I was surprised that a person in Donetsk spoke like that. The girls ran and made us tea and cookies. We started our shift. There was a wrought-iron gate at the entrance to the TV center. To the left was a room where an old lady was sitting, a gatekeeper, opening the gate for entry. I went behind the building and began to instruct the staff: who would rest, who would go on duty with whom. Before that, I had already walked around the entire facility to determine where the observation points could be, where the areas of destruction could be, in case there were any actions against us. At this time, literally 20 minutes later, I hear shots, machine gun bursts on the territory of our facility. I give everyone a command to quickly disperse and take up firing positions. The guys quickly scattered and took up positions. I took one fighter, and we reached the corner along the wall of the building. I saw five people standing there, all wearing masks, helmets, body armor, with assault rifles, pistols, grenade launchers. Some people were already lying down, and next to them were two or three security guards who were guarding the building. And one of the bandits went around and took the weapons from these policemen. I racked the gun, pointed it at the first one, who was standing about twenty meters away, and said: "You don't have a chance." And he was a well-fed guy, probably 120 kilograms, with a grenade launcher... All of them had their weapons pointed downward - they were pointing their weapons at those who were lying down. And I pointed my weapon in such a way that I could completely kill these people. I said: "Guys, I've been in the Special Forces all my life, I shoot very powerfully. I give you a chance to surrender". They replied that they would not surrender and asked me to let them leave in peace. I said: "You have such a chance if you calmly turn around and run back now". At the same time, I make a short burst to the left of one of them. He wanted to raise the grenade launcher he was holding, an RPG-26. I fired next to his feet and said: "The next shot is in your forehead". He said: "Okay, I got it". They turned around and ran downstairs, shouting: "We'll find you again! We will kill you! We know who you are, we have all the information about you! You're from Zaporizhzhia, so-and-so", they even called my name. I said: "Okay, okay".
Then, just a couple of minutes later, I received a call from an unfamiliar number: "Are you so-and-so?" - "Yes." - "Have you been contacted by the Russian Federation's special services?" - "No." - "A person will come to you now, talk to you, and they will not touch you anymore." I said: "I don't need superiors to command me here. I have one boss, General Olkhovskyi. If he gives me an order to leave, I will leave. If he doesn't, I won't go anywhere." - "Who sent you here?" - "The minister." - "We'll settle this issue now." - "Okay, settle it."
Within 20 minutes, officers from the Donetsk Criminal Investigation Department arrived, then three colonels from Donetsk arrived, bringing their personnel with them: "They will help you". They were with body armor and rubber batons. I asked: "Why are they needed here if people come here armed?" It was on that day that the Donetsk SSU was captured, and all the weapons were from there.
Soldiers who guarded the Donetsk TV tower under the command of Oleksandr Panchenko
So we guarded that building for three days. No one attacked us again. Because I told them I would not meet with anyone else, I would shoot to kill. The only thing I asked was if I could get some ammunition because I had only two magazines for each machine gun. I was told that everything would be delivered. Avakov called me and said: "Well done, hold on". Then the deputy minister also called: "I am proud, well done guys, you repelled the attack." Serving Ukraine !" I replied. Three days later, I was summoned to the Donetsk police with my unit and removed from there. I asked who gave the order, and they said: "Pozhydaiev ordered you to go to the regional department." He was then the head of the main department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Donetsk region. We arrived at the regional office, and there were several special forces standing in the yard - Donetsk's Sokil and Berkut, and there were also Kirovohrad's Berkut. I was told: "You will now guard the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Donetsk region." There was a threat of capture, because allegedly Bes, a well-known Russian MID officer, left Horlivka with his gang to shoot the police department in Donetsk. We had been there for literally half an hour when they said: "Let the Zaporizhzhia people go to the TV tower again". As we approached, I heard a heavy battle going on, large-caliber machine guns and automatic weapons were firing, and grenades were exploding. I started calling: maybe someone needs help. But no one gave any command. At that time, there was the 3rd Special Forces Regiment in the city, they were stationed at the regional military commissariat, and the National Guard was at their location. There were enough forces and means to prevent the capture of the city. I don't know why they didn't do it, but... I asked, even called Kyiv: come on, coordinate actions. The answer I got was that there was no connection with the police leadership. I started calling my supervisors (in each region, when you come to help, you are assigned a supervisor). The supervisor replied that he had no contact with the department, he did not know what was happening there.
That was until the evening. In the evening, we learned that Bes and a group of terrorists had shot up the department. Pozhidaiev, the driver, was shot dead, he drove himself to Mariupol. Another guy from the Donetsk Berkut was shot dead. I asked why I was not called," they said: "Everyone ran away, there was no one to give orders". All the guards who were there, I don't know where they went...
Then they said that all the police from Donetsk had left for Mariupol. I called Olkhovskyi: "So and so, Mr General, this is the situation. What should I do?" He said: "Give me ten minutes, I'll talk to the minister and we'll make a decision about you." Literally 20 minutes later, Olkhovskyi called me: "You have the order to go to Zaporizhzhia".
- Ten years have already passed. Do you think it was possible to stop all this in Donetsk?
- Yes. At that time, there had to be... The political will is clear. At that time, Alfa and a lot of parliamentarians came there, trying to negotiate with someone, to do something. My vision was that at that time it was necessary to use the force method... The administration had seven floors, and on these floors were seven different groups that did not communicate with each other. On one floor there was the group of the 'people's mayor' of Donetsk, on the second floor there was the group of Khodakovsky, the former head of Alpha, on the third floor there were some other Basmachi, on the fourth floor there were some 'camp' people, some from Rinatov's group, some from Kolesnikov's group... Different groups were sitting on different floors and did not communicate with each other. It was possible to simply conduct a series of special operations, take them out and transport them outside the Donetsk region. But at that time, my impression was that the police were completely paralyzed. They were saying: "Why aren't you working?" they answered: "You came and left, and we still have to live here..."
If one person, Rinat Leonidovich Akhmetov, had given the command, nothing would have happened. This is my personal impression.
- Do you regret that you did not exceed your authority and that you could have played a key, historic role?
- There was such an opportunity, and more than once. But you always start thinking: who will follow you? Who will be able to stand by your side, who will support you? Isn't that the way it is in Ukraine? Today you're a hero, and tomorrow you're an anti-hero, you can be imprisoned for exceeding your authority somewhere. This happens because our political forces change very often. For example, I joined the police in 1993, when General Anatolii Piantkovskyi was the chief of police in the Zaporizhzhia region. He was a respected man, everyone knew him. And after him, this position was held by General Karaban, Colonel Varenko, and then Smirnov... These were leaders who came for six months or a year and then left. They came and said: "You are all fools. I have a better team, they will come and work." And it turned out that those people who grew up to become operatives were told by their new bosses: "You're stupid, you're doing everything wrong, this is how you should work." And they stopped those young people who were ready to develop.
Yes, I could have done something in Donetsk. But there had to be support. In Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, there were definitely curators from the Russian Federation. They went there in advance. I am a former operative, I know how to analyze, I understand how it is done. The same thing happened in Berdiansk during the full-scale offensive. Long before that, the future curators had bought apartments, wore tracksuits, went in for sports, lived for their own pleasure... But the time came, and on the 24th they came out with posters and started telling people what to do. And after that, they put on the uniforms of Russian FSB officers and are currently working on all our patriots and our military who remained on the other side. Our intelligence services did not do this, did not prevent this information and implementation operation. They simply overslept.
When Sloviansk was liberated, a group of operatives, my good friends, went there. In the first days they started working on terrorist groups. They found caches - those that were still mothballed. These caches were for special forces groups that were entering Sloviansk at the time. One of these groups was replenishing its stocks of weapons, ammunition, equipment and money in the monastery - this is one hundred percent certain. This was confirmed by the seizure of weapons and explosives. There were also such caches in the city of Berdiansk in 2014. They were brought in from the Volnovakha direction. I remember this because, after my first business trip to Donetsk, we worked in Berdiansk. If you remember, there was a situation like this: The "people's mayor" of the city proclaimed himself as such after Mariupol, where the situation was the same before May 9. The Alpha special unit, my unit and the counterintelligence department worked on a group that led to the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Mr. Yakymenko. Yurii Zhuravlev went there, unfortunately, he is no longer with us, he was killed in the ATO. He went to the Crimea himself, established a trusting relationship, and was brought to Yakymenko. He said that he could organize a coup in Berdiansk on May 9, seize power and wait for the Russian army to enter. He went through... how can I say... all the circles of hell there, he was checked with a detector and beaten. But he passed everything. They believed him, gave him weapons, explosives, loaded a boat from Crimea with a hundred assault rifles, six RPK assault rifles, three PK machine guns, 40 RPG-18 grenade launchers and 40 boxes of RGD-5 and F-1 grenades, 21 thousand rounds of ammunition for these weapons.
Why I remember this is because we detained this group. But it was a special operation. Representatives of the Mariupol authorities at the time - the self-proclaimed mayor and his brother, and several other local security officers - went to get the weapons. They arrived in Berdiansk, where they were provided with weapons. And when they were unpacking the weapons, we detained them, and one was wounded and one was killed during the detention. Then we exchanged one of these people, who came from Mariupol, for the chief of the Mariupol police. Remember, there was a situation where he was tortured, beaten, and hung by his feet. And this person was exchanged for our detainee - he was the brother of the 'people's mayor' of Mariupol.
There were such caches all over the country. Apparently, there are still some now. Special forces have always used caches. The Soviet Union was a forge of special forces. There were many brigades all over the country, most of them in Ukraine. They were in Zakarpattia, Prykarpattia, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Crimea, and there were special forces companies that made these caches. They are both long-term and short-term. The purpose of these caches was to replenish the ammunition load, weapons, and currency (dollars and hryvnias were supposed to be available on the territory of Ukraine) for those groups that entered. In 2014, several priests in the Zaporizhzhia region owned such caches, and in 2022 they opened them. I know that there is a priest in the Kuibyshev district, he is a former paratrooper, graduated from the Ryazan school. He finished his service in the armed forces as a senior lieutenant. He was the first person in Kuibyshev to receive a permit for a Kalashnikov rifle. When the Russians invaded in 2022 and reached Kuibyshev, Zaporizhzhia region, their first patrol group on three Tigers (they were scouts) stopped by this man's place and replenished their ammunition load and everything else there. So there are such stories in our country.
"AT THE CHECKPOINT, SOME SOLDIERS TOLD ME: THIS IS NOT OUR WAR. I TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO THEM: IF THEY KILL YOU, YOU HAVE TO BE READY TO REPEL THE ATTACK."
- How did you get to the checkpoint through which Girkin was leaving Sloviansk?
- After the operation in Berdiansk, General Olkhovskyi gave us two weeks to put ourselves in order, because we lived in the fields, spent the night in the beams, so as not to enter Berdiansk and not attract attention. We lived in the fields so that everything would be like in combat conditions and no one could "burn us". When we arrived, we were honored, awarded with diplomas and prizes. And we were given two weeks to rest. Then Viktor Ivanovych called me. He said: "I have a new task. Select 25 people. You need to go to the city of Sloviansk, there are already battles going on there, there are first victims. Find those who are ready to fulfill the task. The most important thing is that after the mission, you should make sure that everyone stays alive and returns home." I lined up the personnel. There were about 70 percent of the Berkut guys left. It was a small company, up to a hundred people, about 60 people.
I come back to the Maidan: why did police officers kill people? Maybe someone lost their nerve, someone didn't understand why they had joined the police in the first place... There were many such cases. If a person has a weapon for a long time, there is always one thing going through his mind. At that time, there was Article 15 and 15-explanatory notes - the use of weapons. After firing a shot, you had to write a report: what was the justification for using it. At all assaults, at all detentions, I divided people. We are all different, we have different psyches. Nowadays, all those who held weapons and those who did not hold weapons are taken to the front. But there are choleric people and melancholic people. There are people who, when they take up arms, immediately shout: "We have to shoot!" They don't even understand what they are doing, but they do it. Each unit had a psychologist. I gave him the task of identifying a person's psychotype. For example, twice I detained Serozha and Vania. Vania was pulling out his weapon when it shouldn't have been pulled out. There are situations like this: why pull out a weapon when you need to run to the target in two or three seconds, throw a shot at his legs, put him on the ground, handcuff him, and that's it. You don't have to hit him, you just catch his unaware and detain him. And there are situations when you need to use weapons. But you have to understand how to do it. You can easily kill a person, but it's someone's son, someone's father, someone's husband... A police officer should always aim for the limbs when shooting. It is not easy. I taught my men: when you realize that it's over, they are killing you - only then inflict a wound that leads to death. In my unit, there were no such cases at all; they fired, but only wounded people.
I selected the guys for the temporary duty leave to Sloviansk based on these principles. They lined up, and I talked to them. 25 people came out, I thanked them and said: "Let's get ready. We have three days". I gave them a task to take old bulletproof vests, cut them into armour plates to strengthen the side plates, and make a groin part. Because, no matter what the task, I always stood by the idea that we should be one hundred per cent ready. Once, in Crimea, I went to detain a criminal group, and we were going for one thing, but it turned out to be something else. Since then, I have always prepared my personnel for the fact that we are going on one mission and arrive to find everything different.
We prepared, gathered everything we had. I took all the ammunition out of the area, even though we were told to do so: "Two ammunition sets". But I understood that two ammunition sets were nothing. I took a tonne of ammunition in the region, grenade launchers, machine guns, and collected all the grenade-launcher attachments I had taken from other units. I had five RPG-25s, three RPG-7 grenade launchers, two PK machine guns - enough for 25 people. There were ten BCs for each of us. I knew that I would need all this.
We received an order to arrive in Izyum on 6 June. General Olkhovskyi arrived, gave us parting words, shook my hand and said: "Sasha, I'm asking you that everyone come home." I told him: "Everything is fine, Viktor Ivanovich, we will do it." At that time, there was a center in Izyum where the National Guard was stationed. A colonel from the National Police, the head of the public order department, came. He said: "Sasha, are your people ready? We have a Berkut from Ivano-Frankivsk at the fifth checkpoint, but they have already killed one with a mortar, and shot down a helicopter that was landing. Fourteen people have already been killed..." I said: "No questions asked. If there is a command, I will fulfill it." - ‘No, you talk to the people.’ - "What do you need to talk to the people if I make the decisions? People trust me." He said: "Okay. Then tomorrow at four o'clock you will come here, they will pick you up and take you to the helicopter regiment. You will get on board and fly there."
On the morning of 7 June, we arrived at four o'clock at the aviation regiment, which was standing in the fields - tall sunflowers and helicopters... From morning until 5 p.m. we were sitting at this airfield. Groups of special forces were flying back and forth, wounded and killed were arriving. We saw it all. Some guys had already started to wipe their sweat. I was encouraging them all: "Guys, this is nothing. The main task is to look after each other and cover each other. And then we will all make it through the battle". For myself, I knew that in the first battle, someone would fall out...
We boarded two helicopters and flew to Sloviansk. Five of my men were supposed to go to Mount Karachun to reinforce the Karachun group. The other twenty were to go to the fifth checkpoint. That's what happened. One helicopter landed on Karachun, calmly, without shooting, and the other at the fifth checkpoint. We landed and unloaded the ammunition load. At the time, there were paratroopers from the 25th Brigade, several platoons from different parachute companies, guys from the National Guard, Kulchytskyi's brigade. (Kulchytskyi himself died at the same post, a hundred metres away from the guys.) I met the paratrooper commander Andrii Tkachuk there, a senior lieutenant or captain at the time. He was a young guy, thin but cheerful. He had three platoon leaders. I asked him what the situation was. "They are shooting. In the evening they shoot, in the morning they shoot, during the day they fire with mortars". I asked where we could be deployed. "You can choose wherever you want". There were places left over after the guys from Frankivsk left. I put the ammunition load in one place and appointed a lookout. And to keep the guys on their toes, I held a political information meeting: a bonfire, tea...
The first shelling started around 10.30 p.m. Those who were at the fifth checkpoint know that if you stand with your back to the planting, there is a stream on the right side. That's where the stream came from... Apparently, there was a machine gun on top of the landing and it was shooting at the landing with tracers. We saw the bullets flying. My guys were not under fire, they had not been in combat yet, so they ran to hide, and I started shouting: "Take up a circular defense!" I know from the army (I served in intelligence) that if the shelling starts, you have to take up a circular defense, understand where the shelling is coming from, and give the command to hit the positions from which the fire is coming. I shouted. The guys lay down. Then the paratrooper said: "Don't shoot yet, because we don't know where to shoot". The shooting lasted literally half an hour.
We spent the night. And in the morning I said: "That's it, the party is over. Take shovels and dig dugouts." I realized that we couldn't just lie on the grass, as those who came before us did. We were left with an improvised tent made of plastic sheeting and sleeping bags on the ground. There were no defensive structures. There were four armored personnel carriers on the road, two of them were BMD-2, one BRDM and one BMD-1. I asked the commander: "Do they have ammunition?" - "Yes. But they have high-explosive ammunition load, no cumulative ammunition. If the tanks come, there is no point in shooting at them". I asked: "Do the machine guns work?" It turned out they were not. In general, the situation with the equipment was sad. One would start, two would not. I had these four, and the National Guard had one more upstairs, and it was in working order. It had an ATGM on it. I asked why the unit was on top, and Andrii answered: "I put the National Guard on top because the guys there are patriotic. The locals are approaching, and to avoid any quarreling between them, I gave the command: go to that line and hold it from above, from the garden." I said: "Okay". "We had an unpleasant situation with them... for them, a jacket with the inscription 'Berkut' is everything... 'Berkutnia', killers'... I said: "Guys, we are not all murderers, understand!" - "No!" They wouldn't let us charge our phones - they had a generator, but we didn't. Well, that's it... Then we figured it out, and the guys cooked us borscht, brought us soups, everything was fine. In the end, they shook hands, hugged us and said: "Thank you!"
We dug trenches, and everyone took their positions. I ordered to make the right and left flanks. I organized a tactical group among my men: if there was a breakthrough from the right flank, the tactical group with me moved to the right, if from the left - to the left, if from the front - we ran there, if from the back - we run there. In general, we distributed roles. The paratrooper commander saw this and said: "Thank you, commander, because we have guys born in 1994, very young." Indeed, the men were recruited from the civilian population, they had never held a weapon in their hands. That's how our daily combat routine began. Before lunch, we were shelled by a mortar, the notorious "Nona". In the afternoon, some subversive group would come running from Kramatorsk, shoot from the shield - there was a big shield on the left side of the road to Kramatorsk, so they would lie down under the shield, get out of the planting and shoot.
On June 8, at about four in the morning, I was lying down, with my machine gun next to me, as usual, and I heard the rustling of caterpillars. I said: "Guys, it's tanks..." I shout: "Get up planting! Battle alert!" Everyone jumped up. By that time I heard the noise getting louder. Everyone started to take out grenade launchers. Nearby was the dugout of a paratrooper, a senior lieutenant, a smart guy. He took out a grenade launcher and said: "Commander, take this!" It was an RPG-26. And then I saw: it was not a tank flying, but an "imerka" - a tank-based demining machine, a big machine with a bucket and a shovel, on which several terrorists with machine guns were sitting and shooting at the plantation. It was going over the plantation in the direction of Sloviansk. I pulled out a grenade launcher and made a shot. I fired from the top down, the missile ricocheted and went on. I asked who else had a grenade launcher. The paratrooper pulled out another one for me. Another Imerka is coming, and I shoot at it. But between the trees, I can't see the track, only the cabin, it's like this... meter by meter. I shot at it - it ricocheted again, and there was no effect. But some guy fell out: he saw me shooting from the side and jumped out. The vehicles turn around, drive down the planting and start crushing our guys. They gave me another grenade launcher. "An Imer comes up literally 15 meters from me, and I shoot. I hit it. I see the turret between the truck being burned by a jet stream, entering the tank. But still, he drove off in the direction of Kramatorsk. On the bridge over the pipe in the asphalt, it almost overturned. The second one went to Sloviansk.
Everything is quiet. I ask on the walkie-talkie if everyone is alive. I got a report: yes, one terrorist was shot dead. I said: "I heard the report, I'm going to the spot". My ears were bleeding because I had broken my eardrums and had post-concussion syndrome, but I was coming. There was a man of about 45-50 years old, with an assault rifle and a pistol. I asked him what happened. The paratroopers said: "He jumped into our trench, and there were six of us sitting there. When we saw him, everyone's hands were stuck in fear. He said: "Well, guys, hello, you're in trouble!" The first one tried to move the machine gun, but it didn't move. The second one didn't either. Only the third one fired a round. ....." I said: "Show me the guns". They pointed, but all the weapons were rusty, the ammunition was rusty. I called their commander: "Andrii, drain the oil from the tank and clean the weapons." We cleaned them and went through the magazines. The weather was damp, sometimes rain, sometimes sunshine, and the weapons instantly caught rust.
After that incident, two sappers came to us by helicopter, one from Kamianets-Podilskyi, a captain, and the other from Sumy, from some kind of sapper unit. I said: "Guys, help us. We have few weapons and they are ineffective if we shot at the 'imers eight times and did not hit them..."
By the way, more about that battle. Literally an hour after the attack on us, Russian public pages reported, allegedly from Strelkov, that a special operation was carried out by the Lynx special forces, during which 20 'fascists' were killed, half buried and half shot. During the battle, one Imer was shot down, and Mikhalich made it to Kramatorsk and burned to death inside. We were pleased that we managed to take out one vehicle, plus Michalich...
A helicopter brought us water. And those two sappers brought TM-62 mines. I told them: "Help me, please. I am not a military man. I used to serve in intelligence, but I've been in police special forces all my life." They made two twists. They put them in front of the post and behind the post. These were twists on a rope, with TMs tied together, for two lanes of the roadway. Plus, the guys put a couple more mines, because we made a line of defence not only in the planting but also beyond it.
It seems that planting gives you some kind of advantage - you get the impression that trees will save you. But this is not the case. Firstly, it is a good reference point for artillery. The artilleryman sees the planting: he hits to the right 50, to the left 50, in front 50, behind 50... It's also very bad when an artillery shell hits a tree, the fragments hit it, fall to the ground, and those on the ground are hit. With UBGL, it's the same story, the bullet ricochets - the same story. In other words, the planting is not the right place. We made step-backs from the planting so that the soldiers could move left and right, take up defence and fight.
A couple of days pass, and in the morning, another subversive reconnaissance group passes in our direction. My group was working from the place where Kulchytskyi's National Guard was sitting. They were part of the general group that Andrii Tkachuk and I commanded. Why is that? Let's reeling: I started checking the posts - everyone was sleeping... Everyone, both mine and his. "No, guys, this is not going to happen." And I started duplicating them. In this post, there are two paratroopers and two of mine. I gave them the night vision devices I had, thermal imagers - I already had them at that time, because I am a hunting enthusiast, I took them with me and knew how to use them. In the morning, at about four o'clock, the battle started from the direction of Kramatorsk. There is a sewage treatment plant there, and they started shooting at our post from it, at the group where the National Guard soldiers were sitting. They had an AGS-17. Two National Guardsmen were wounded, not very seriously, and they were evacuated later. We sent a tactical group there and repelled the attack. It showed the effectiveness of my reshuffle.
Oleksandr Panchenko and Andrii Tkachuk, paratroopers of the 25th Brigade, two People's Heroes of Ukraine
I can frankly say that some officers said: "We are having the Spring Storm exercise. This is not our war". I tried to explain to them: "Guys, if you are killed, it doesn't matter if it's Spring Storm or not. You have to be ready to repel an attack on yourself." Some people understood, others did not. Some went looting - there was a petrol station with a cafe nearby - and stole coffee or something else. I told the commander once, and again: "You can't do that. We are human beings. And the locals will later say that these were not Ukrainian soldiers, but real fascists robbing the people."
Several times we were parachuted in with parcels. I took my tactical group and started two armoured personnel carriers. One would start, and the other would be powered by it, because there were no batteries, and there was not enough oil in the tanks to start it. We were going to pick up these parcels. It was during such a drop that our An-30 aircraft was shot down overhead. It dropped everything it had on board to the next checkpoint, and then crashed in Luhansk, killing the entire crew... After that, they stopped sending us parcels.
One day, one parcel fell in Sloviansk. I drove my BMW straight into the city. There were Russian Cossacks at the checkpoint, and shots were fired in my direction. Well, we took the parcel. It contained dry rations, stew, potatoes, water. And one parcel with ammunition fell right under a Russian checkpoint. If you were driving to Kramatorsk from Sloviansk, there was a red petrol station on the right hand side. Our parcel fell between the petrol station and the checkpoint (about 500-700 metres away). I went there too - I ran across the field, found the parcel with the parachute: there was a high-voltage line, and a parachute was hanging on it. I jumped from an armoured personnel carrier that had stopped at the planting to avoid being shot at. I said: if I don't find it, I'll run back, if I do, I'll wave. I ran across the wheat field. I saw the ammunition load there, waved and they came. While we were loading, they were shooting at us, but the distance was long, they didn't hit us. We loaded up and left.
Then we ran out of water, probably for a week. It was good that it was raining: the guys collected rainwater, drank it, and washed themselves with rain and dew. And at the checkpoint behind us on the Rostov-Kharkiv highway, there was a canal. There was a Ternopil special forces unit, my friends from Sokil. They called me: "Sasha, are you here?" - "Yes." - "So you were repelling there?" - "Yes." - "Well, we understood that. "How are things going?" - "Well, there's no water." - "And everything else?" I said: "We have everything else." - "Let me try to borrow an Ural from the paratroopers and bring you water. There's a field behind the garden where Kulchytskyi was killed.’ - ’Good. We looked at the time. I took a BMD, put my group of six people in it, and we drove off in the BMD. I took a paratrooper, Maksym, a young guy born in 1994, who was still happy to go somewhere and fight. He is a mechanic-driver. We left at about 12 am, at 1 am we met the guys in the fields. Of course, we got lost, because it was dark and we were driving without lights. Behind the garden, where? The garden stretches far away. We didn't understand where we were, what we were doing... We heard a car driving across the field. I ordered them to stop and turn off the engine. We took up a defensive line. Literally 15 minutes later, an Ural approaches. I shouted my call sign (my call sign was Khokhol), and they said: ‘Sania, it's us!’ They loaded us with everything they could, gave us all the water they had. They said: ‘Sania, thank you for sitting there!’ - ’Thank you very much.’ That's how we got water.
Everything was fine, but I understood that the time would soon come when the raids would end and there would be a real war, real fighting. Because the frontline was closing in. Our forces began to approach the city. I understood that Girkin would be looking for a way out of this situation. Plus, at that time we heard on the walkie-talkie that two tanks and four armoured personnel carriers were coming to help him. I asked: ‘Did anyone here before me make any exits within a radius of one kilometre to find out where everyone was? Someone went somewhere from the checkpoint, saw something - where are our guys, where are not our guys, where are the separatists?’ I took a soldier with me, and we started walking around the plantations. We got to Kramatorsk, looked at the situation at the checkpoint. Then we went towards Sloviansk. There were two checkpoints there, one was patrolled by Tersk Cossacks. They were drinking, shouting, shooting all night. And behind them were Chechens. Every two or three days, a fight broke out between the Chechens and the Cossacks, they were shooting at each other. Why? We reached the checkpoint, lay down, listened to what they were saying to each other. They said that they hadn't been brought food, so they were fighting with each other.
Whenever possible, the fighters repaired their equipment in preparation for possible heavy fighting
Then my fellow soldier and I went to Mount Karachun. What was the purpose? We had to find ways to evacuate us, rescue the wounded, and take out the dead if a big battle started. In Russian, it means to prepare ‘withdrawal routes’. At that time, according to the information we received on the walkie-talkie, there were up to 1,500 militants in Sloviansk. In Kramatorsk, this figure was slightly higher, up to 1,700 militants. I don't know how true it is, I didn't count them, we saw them only through binoculars. They had an armoured group. I thought that if I were to retreat, I would not retreat to the Kharkiv-Rostov road, because there were fields, everything was open, and I would be shot there. There was no point in going to Kramatorsk because they would welcome us there with ‘open arms’, going to Sloviansk would be suicide... If we retreated, it would be only to Mount Karachun: the mountain is high, artillery could cover us, and there we would only have to cross the river, and then the wounded would be taken by BMD, and we would walk.
Everything seemed to be done correctly. We went down to the river with the soldier - we were so thirsty for water, we wanted to swim too. But there was a huge gas pipe, about a metre and a half in diameter. I realized that we could use this pipe to transport the wounded if something happened. But there was a terrorist stronghold near this pipe. Music was blaring, a generator was working - there was no electricity at the time, the whole of Sloviansk was without power. I saw that there were armed men there. If we had to evacuate the wounded, this would not have been an obstacle - we would have shot them. But at that time, I did not join the battle - why "burn" the only corridor through which we could leave? We went back and thought it over again. I appointed retreat teams and repulsion teams, just in case.
"AFTER THE BATTLE, I REPORTED TO MY COMMAND: "SO AND SO, ALL ARE ALIVE AND WELL, ONE IS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED"
- "Heavy fighting began in Semenivka, then in Mykolaivka, in Sloviansk itself," continues Oleksandr Panchenko, "I realized that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow there would be a breakthrough. I reported this to everyone. Unfortunately, for some reason, everyone thought that Girkin would not come here, that it was an easy way out. I said: "On the contrary, the enemy is the same person, just as tactically skilled." I understand well how to bypass any checkpoint. You take two KAMAZ trucks, four machine guns - two in each vehicle. One machine gun works, three are silent. The second one works - everyone is silent, the first one reloads. There was shooting. And since at that time our military and everyone else did not know how to fight and did not want to fight, no one stuck their heads out, everyone was lying on the ground: let them go, as long as they did not touch us. I understood this. And I always said: if a battle starts, yes, you have to hide, but someone has to sit in a safe place and look at the battlefield. I gave several examples. When they shoot from a mortar while we are lying in the trenches, then come to a distance of 200 metres and shoot from under-barrel grenade launchers, our guys lie down. They come to 50 metres, throw grenades, then come to ten metres and shoot us in the trenches... And now the situation is the same. I taught my men that you always have to look, find a place where you can observe the battlefield. The trenches should be trenches, the strongholds should be at a height where the machine gunner can move the machine gun left and right and mow down all the enemy infantry. We did all this.
The day was approaching when the wind really smelled like fighting. It was from Semenivka, where black smoke was coming to our checkpoint. Everyone understood that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we could be there... On the Fourth of July, on the walkie-talkie, I think it was General Muzhenko, he said: ‘Hold on. There is a column in the city’. They replied: ‘Okay’. I ordered my tactical group to reinforce all the posts. Everyone ran to their prepared positions, and they were not only in front but also behind and on the flanks. Because I understood that you always have to calculate how the enemy might move. I wouldn't just make a frontal attack on them, I would make a frontal attack on them from the side, and from behind - from all sides. And that's exactly what the enemy did.
At about 10 p.m., the equipment started to make a lot of noise. The guys from Karachun started shouting to us on the walkie-talkie: ‘Look, the convoy is coming from the SSU in Sloviansk and is almost at the stele on the way out’. Well, it was not near the stele. There was a rather sharp turn behind it, so they were behind it. But we could hear what was going on somewhere nearby. I took the grenade launchers, probably six of them, took a bag with about 50 grenades, up to 50 rounds per VOG-55.
I approached the driver's mechanic, he was sitting in a trench. I said: ‘Please, get in the car, for one purpose.’ - ’What purpose?’ And the rest of the crew was sitting in the trench behind the car, in the planting, while I was on the road near the armoured personnel carrier. I said: ‘Your goal is to switch on the headlight.’ - "Why..." - "You're a tanker," I said, "you understand that the optics..." - ’Okay, commander, I understand!’ I wanted to blind the optics with a powerful searchlight.
The mine trawl was already on the road, right on the carriageway. And there was also an island there - a green distribution zone. The terrorists had been coming there on bicycles and motorbikes for several days: "Should we bring you water, should we bring you bread? Maybe we should buy you some sweets, cigarettes..." They were looking at our minefields. And at that time, they were all lying just like on ordinary weekdays, on the left and on the right. And in the middle of the road, where the tank exploded, there were no mines. I climbed into the BMD-1 that was on the right. Before that, we had repaired three machine guns - we collected, sorted and repaired all the machine guns. We loaded one and a half or two thousand rounds of ammunition, hammered the BMD, and put grenade launchers in it. I loaded a shell into the gun, thinking that if there were a lot of infantry, I would jump in, shoot, and jump out... Let's do such ambushes with soldier Oleksandr Bondarenko. We stood behind the tank opposite the mechanic Bazhura. I was standing with a grenade launcher. Suddenly everything went dark. I raised the thermal imager and saw a tank coming. I told the mechanic: "A tank is coming. I'll hit your armour when it switches on". I went ahead of the BMP about ten metres with a grenade launcher, and Sashko Bondarenko followed me with an assault rifle to cover. At that time, Bazhura switched on the toggle-type selector switch (I don't know if he heard something or not), and the headlamp switched on. I'm standing in front of him, out there, with a grenade launcher, shouting: "Turn it off!"(laughs), but he's already gone: he's in the tank, wearing a helmet and sitting steamed up. At the same time, a shot was fired in my direction from the tank. The tank hit, there was an explosion somewhere behind the BMD, Bondarenko and I were thrown to the ground, and we did a somersault. I get up and shoot at the tank from my knee. I shot, and the second shot came at us. It fired again, somewhere up into a tree, and it ricocheted off the tree and hit Tkachuk's BMW, which was standing in the plantation. Tkachuk's assault rifle was lying on top, it was pierced and bent. And Tkachuk was in the dugout - it was later, in the morning, that I learned this story. The tank stopped after my shot. Bondarenko and I were forced back behind the BMD, I took another grenade launcher and went outside. The tank is standing there, doing nothing. An armored personnel carrier drives out from behind it and flies past us. I pressed the RPG-22, but my partner didn't prepare it, so I threw it and took the assault rifle. A BMD is driving ahead, with a bunch of enemy infantry sitting on it. I see that a mechanic in a helmet is sitting in front of it, he is driving like this and looking at me. I pulled the trigger and everyone sitting there... I heard a scream, the one in front of me fell to the left, and the armored personnel carrier went towards our planting. A small turn and it stopped. I see it like in German war movies: the tracks are scratching, but the tank is standing still... I see that my guys are already hitting the vehicle from above, so I don't have to run there anymore. Sashko handed me a grenade launcher. Another armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle passes by. I said: "Sania, I probably won't get there - it's dark". Everything is on fire, but it's dark. I take aim, shoot from a grenade launcher - a grenade flies, an explosion. Immediately, the two rear hatches of the car fell off, I saw a light, and some people were flying out of the car. Sasha fired at them.
I grabbed the grenade launcher again, but then they started shooting at us - the tank came back to life. My version of why it came back to life: when we hit them, I blinded the tanker, he couldn't see through the triplex, so he opened the hatch. I have a feeling that I hit the hatch. Later we found this tanker: his head, arm and two ribs were damaged. He was lying about ten meters from the tank. I think he was thrown out of the tank by the blast wave, and the tank stood up. I was standing a little higher, the tank was down, and I hit it so that the hollow-charge grenade actually hit the tank. Machine gun fire started from there - two tankers were alive and started working. Smoke was coming out of the hatch. Then an infantry fighting vehicle came behind the tank and exploded. It hit a minefield. The tank was standing on the green zone. I saw the BMP drive in, exploded, and stopped. But the front track exploded, and the gun turned around and started shooting at us. He realized where we were. And he fired so that Bondarenko and I lay down next to the asphalt in a hollow for water drainage. We were lying there, and everything was flying - stones, debris... I was lucky. I was lying on my back, unable to roll over on my stomach - a piece of shrapnel broke my body armor, cut my stomach, another piece of shrapnel came in and lodged in my Kevlar. We were lying like that... During the battle, you don't even realize how much time has passed - explosions, noise, shooting. I said: "Sanya, we have to do something". And we started crawling on our backs closer to the BMD where Bazhura was.
I turned over, got down on my knees, and Sashko and I started working in that direction: we took grenades and threw them there. The fire was so intense that I thought they had captured our armoured personnel carrier and were shooting at us from it. The crew that was sitting there... My fighter Bulhakov Oleg was there, a bullet hit him in the shoulder and remained in his neck, he was wounded but alive. The paratrooper was killed - his head was torn off by a shell fragment when it flew from the tank and exploded in the ground. And Maksym was covered with earth. Three of them lay down alive, and the one whose head was blown off fell on top of them - he probably saved them all. They were fighting from above, covering me, and they got fired there.
I said to Sashko: "We need to run to the other side so that they don't capture our tank." I was thinking all the time: our tank! We ran to the other side, I sat on the right side, Sasha on the left. I asked him: "What do you see?" - "Commander, there is a tank ahead, but it is already on fire". The shots were coming from the tank - ding, ding, the ammunition was detonating. At that time, two men jumped out of the tank and ran towards the planting, into the gully. I started shooting at their bottoms, they fell down - I couldn't see them. I took out a thermal imager and looked...
No, it was a bit different. At first, there were two cars in front of the tanks. We stopped one of them and hit it, and people jumped out of it. Then, when we were standing near the armored personnel carrier, I saw through the thermal imager that there were some people lying down in the field. I made several shots there, shouting at them: "Surrender, please!" in Russian. They were silent. We threw grenades at them. They were silent. Then we threw grenades again. Then I said: "If you want to stay alive, come out!" I see they start to rise. I said, "Throw your weapons on the ground and come here". It was probably already in the morning, it started to get a little bit clearer. And at this time... And there is a big rise to approach us. I see three people coming, but I don't understand who they are. For safety reasons, I ordered them to take off their pants and put them down - to tie their legs so that the man could not run. They took off their pants. We came closer, and I saw that some of them had the wrong underpants... They started to rise, and it turned out that among them was a woman from the REN-TV channel, another from the Lynx battalion, a sniper. The third was a guy driver. We picked them up and brought them to our building.
They then helped to treat our wounded.
- Where was the whole column?
- When we hit a tank, an infantry fighting vehicle, a second one, and a BMD, the battle was over, and the column was no longer coming at us. They reached us, turned around and immediately drove in the opposite direction. I asked the guys who were on top: "Block them, they are going through the garden somewhere". But no one was going anywhere. And they went through the garden and came to Kramatorsk...
I gave the command to clear all the positions with wounded, unkilled, and alive men, to provide some help, and to count our men. We found another separatist hiding in the bushes. He was given a command: "Come out, surrender, drop your weapons!", to which he did not respond. They used weapons and killed him.
Then we approached the BMP, where later everyone took pictures.
- With a blown-off tank turret?
- No, that one was blown up by the 128th. The green one, with open tanks, a pile of garbage, one corpse, another body... It was the green one, it was in front of us, facing Kramatorsk. We approached it. My soldiers said: "Commander, do not approach, someone is shining a torch there. They are shouting". I gave the command: "Guys, surrender!" No one responded. My soldiers: "Commander, let's work it out". I said: "Okay, take two grenade launchers and shoot". They fired a couple of rounds from a machine gun in that direction. Then I approached. Two terrorists got out of the BMP, one sat under the BMP and the other behind it. My guys neutralized them. When I approached, they didn't need any help, they were already dying.
We gathered our weapons and put them aside. I gave the command to count everyone. They said there were three missing. I ordered everyone to quickly take up the defense on the left and right because now there will be a command that the column is shot, separatists from Kramatorsk will go to their aid, they will leave Sloviansk, and we will all be shot here. I realized that we were all going to be brought to bay here. The guys took up the defense. Well, everyone was on adrenaline... After all, they had smashed so many things, no one thought it would happen. And when it happened, everyone cheered up.
I went to the place where there was nothing on the walkie-talkie. As I got closer, I heard someone on the walkie-talkie saying to me: "Commander, I'm here!" I approach the trench, but there is no trench, it is buried. I shout: "Quickly, bring a shovel!" Paratroopers who had been drafted for mobilization ran up - men, not children, about 45 years old. I said: "Dig quickly!" The first to be dug up was that guy without a head. The second one was our Oleh Bulhakov, he was in a difficult situation, he had lost a lot of blood. He was immediately taken to a doctor, who began to resuscitate him. Luckily, we had all the medicines, so we had something to replenish the lack of blood. The girls we had captured helped, they were really good, they cried, but they did it. Then we dug up Maksym. He was just... You put him up and he was standing, you put him down and he was sitting. He was sitting with a grenade and a ring in his hands. I took it away: "Why do you need it?" - and he did not understand anything. Probably, he met the battle and remained like that...
- Who was on the walkie-talkie?
- Oleh Bulhakov. He was lying down and pressing the button. I heard it beeping, but I didn't understand who it was. I could barely hear him because he was lying in the ground. A little more and they might have suffocated.
We waited half an hour on adrenaline for the attack. No one attacked us. Everything was quiet. But we were afraid because there was already information that they would take revenge for their armored group. Two hours later, a car came from the direction of Sloviansk. I said: "Do not open fire - we need to understand who it is". A red car arrives, and some guy gets out. The guys call out to me: "Come here, commander, there is a man here, he says he is a reconnaissance man". I got out: "Who are you, what are you?" He gave me a call sign. I said: "I don't understand this, I have such a grief here, and you with your call sign." He said: "I'm going to Donetsk, I'm going to do something there..." I said: "Good. What's in your car?" - "Nothing". We started looking. And there were lists of everyone who had received weapons from Girkin: copies of IDs, copies of passport data. I said: "No, you must have gone to the wrong place. Let's wait for our counterintelligence, let them deal with you."
Then the guys went through the plantation and found another one. A 19-year-old guy was sitting 700 meters away, he had this interesting device, a laser dot - he was sitting and giving the coordinates to the mortar guys. That day and night we were shelled from three positions. One position was the church in Sloviansk, where the Nona was stationed. There was a mortar down between the river, and another one was firing from Kramatorsk. This gunner was giving coordinates to shoot at us. He was 19 years old and stuttered a lot - he was probably afraid. I said: "No one will kill you!" And those girls added: "We were not killed, and you will not be killed." Another girl was pulled out of the tank - she was a gunner, a redhead. All of them told me that they had served under Strelkov, were in the Lynx group, a special forces unit, that the Russians had abused them there, forced them to engage in prostitution... Well, these are their questions. I told my men not to touch them, not to offend them, to feed them, to water them, to bandage them. This mechanic girl had cut legs because when the guys set fire to the BMD, her legs were badly injured by the tears. The doctor bandaged her up and treated her.
Immediately after the battle, I reported to my general: so and so, all are alive and well, one is seriously wounded. It was about three in the morning. He reported to the minister that the armored group had been stopped, everyone was neutralized, there were some captured, and all the police officers were alive. He said: "Good. Wait for the replacement". And literally a couple of hours later, the deputy minister called me and asked if everything was okay. I said: "Yes." And he said: "We are on our way to you now". We arrived. I see, first, some advanced group. The paratroopers of the 79th Brigade drove up, greeted us, shook hands, thanked us, and then passed. They were coming in three armored personnel carriers, drove behind us and stood behind the hill. Then more cars came up, generals got out of them. I see Muzhenko coming, and Heletei, our police leadership, came out. The commander of the paratroopers was sitting in a dugout, saying: "I'm shell-shocked". I told him: "Well, sit down". And then I said: "Andrii, you should probably get up, your superiors are coming. Go report." I could have reported to Heletei what had been done. But there is a military leadership and a police leadership. I told Andrii: "Go report, and I'll report to mine." I went to Heletei and reported that the group was neutralized. The deputy minister asked: "Did you bomb them with tanks, airplanes, guns?" I said: "Yes, with cannons, tanks, airplanes... (laughs.) We did it all ourselves..."
"SINCE CHILDHOOD, I HAVE BEEN PREPARING MYSELF TO DO SOMETHING THAT OTHERS CANNOT"
- How long did you stay at the checkpoint after that?
- Two more days. On the seventh or sixth of July, we left there in the evening. The battle was over... Even people with strong psyches were mentally tired... Some even wanted to take away their weapons and say: "Get out of here!" This one starts remembering his wife, whom he loved very much, this one thinks he will never see his daughter again, this one cries that his mother is his dearest, and this one remembers that he hasn't finished something... I say: "Guys, I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who served in Afghanistan. Since childhood, I've been preparing myself for the fact that you have to do something that others won't do (to be honest, I've always set myself such a framework). And when I talked to guys who came from Afghanistan, I really wanted to go there, but I went to serve in 1991, and the events there ended in 1989. I talked to the "Afghans" and took what they told me for myself. Any special operation does not mean that you have to buy a gift for your mother, you have to think only about the war. If you think about your family, you are killed. If you think you're going to buy a Sharpe cassette player for home, you're killed. Don't think about anything, think only about the war." And I told the guys in the plantation.
- 
I was sure about my guys. They were purposefully going to serve in the police! They had been recruited, tested by psychologists, and were mentally prepared and ready. And within a month, the war manifested itself... Even those people I could not have thought would do this, became worse. I had several young guys who just raised their hand: "Commander, can we go?" I didn't want to take them, but I did. I hid them, put them in a place where if everyone was killed, they would be the only ones left. But they were the first to get into the trench, where everyone else was lying down, hiding. And they fought. And there were such examples... When we ran out of ammunition, I told Oleksandr: "Sasha, we need to go to the paratroopers and take weapons". At the same time, the planting goes up a little bit, as if on a hill. We need to go there, and a machine gun is shooting at us. We are climbing - branches are falling, bullets are whistling. We reached the trench: "Give me a weapon!" and he: "Commander, I won't give it to you, it's my weapon". - "So why aren't you fighting?" - "Because this is not my war". And this was an officer! How is that possible? There are different examples...
- Tell me, was this battle the hardest in the ten years of war? Was it the hardest of the battles you took part in?
- Yes. We were all not ready for fighting at that time. What the militia is - it's a point battle, 45 seconds. We captured the terrorist and that was it. And what is it like to fight from 10 p.m. to 3:20 a.m., and you have no control levers... If my 20 men and 50 paratroopers were all fighting, there would be nothing to do. But a couple of people were fighting, and the rest were just lying in the trenches. And in the morning you see that everyone is a heroic person, they come up to you, shake your hand, say: "Thank you, thank you!"... I ask: ‘Where were you?’ But the answer is not very interesting
- Now the Russians are pushing to recapture Sloviansk. What do you think about this?
- Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka are also at risk. The good thing about the Donetsk area is that it is a braced area. If our people surrender Mount Karachun, this is it, the Russians will capture Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Therefore, the main strategic task is not to give up Mount Karachun. If you stand on Karachun and look at Sloviansk, it will be on the left, and Kramatorsk will be on the right. There is a forest on the right side, and our artillery was also behind that forest. We need all these heights to be ours, then no one will pass, never in their life. I think Syrskyi understands the task. He has an important feature - he understands war.
- What do the words "serving Ukraine" mean to you?
- I was a police officer for almost thirty years, and I am currently a sergeant in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and I hope to be re-certified and promoted to officer. For every officer, there is one oath that they take to the state. I once swore an oath to the Soviet Union. Sometimes people accuse me of not swearing an oath to Ukraine... But I did it five times! Why? Because when you move from the police to the police, you sign an oath. But signing an oath is one thing. Reading it is quite another. Everything in your soul is pounding when you read these words: "I, a citizen... will defend my country..." I always told both my subordinates and officers whenever there was a dispute: "Guys, the oath of allegiance to your homeland is given once. I have no other country but Ukraine. This is my Ukraine, and I am protecting it. I still feel that I am the person who has to fulfill my duty, to protect my children, parents, my state, everything on this earth. There were moments when I was asked: "Why do you need Ukraine? Come to us!" Only other people can change their colors like in the movie "Wedding in Malinovka", not me. I returned home from my service in the Soviet army to my mom and dad, and this is my land. And that's it. So I defend it, and that's the main thing for me.
Violetta Kirtoka, Censor.NET
