Evgeny Norin - Battle of the Year: Defense of Saur-Mogila. Evgeniy Norin "Abandonment of Slavic" Ring "Uranus". The defeat of the German army at Stalingrad
The fall of the Donetsk airport: how it happened
WITH A NEEDLE. AIRPORT BEFORE THE WAR
Donetsk International Airport named after Prokofiev became one of the most significant infrastructure projects in Ukraine in the early 10s. On the eve of the European Football Championship, the air harbor of the capital of Donbass was radically modernized. A new runway was built, a new spacious passenger terminal was erected. “We expect that in 2015 the Donetsk airport will be able to serve about four million people a year,” Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Borys Kolesnikov said at the opening of the new terminal. The new runway was capable of accommodating any type of cargo or passenger aircraft. The fifty-two-meter control tower proudly towered over Donetsk. The rebuild cost almost $900 million, but the builders had every reason to be proud of their success: it was a truly impressive air port. Hardly anyone could have imagined that not a valuable infrastructure facility was being erected on the outskirts of Donetsk, but a future battlefield and the last refuge of hundreds of people.
Donetsk Prokofiev Airport before the war. 1/2
To understand the meaning of what is happening, you need at least in general terms to imagine the location of the airport and its main buildings in space. So. The airport itself is located close to Donetsk on its northern outskirts. To the west of the airport is the village of Sands (about 4 km to the terminals). To the north there is a small radar station, further behind the fields and a chain of ponds - the village of Opytnoye (almost 3 km to the terminals), even further to the north - Avdeevka. From the northeast, near the airport, there is the village of Spartak. Not far from him - part of the air defense. To the east of the take-off - Putilov interchange, the intersection of the highway and the railway.
What does the airport look like? Its main area is occupied by a four-kilometer-long runway, stretching from west to east. To the south of it, close to the eastern end of the runway, are both terminals. To the west - a new one, much larger than the old one, located a little to the east, but in the zone of direct visibility and reach. To the southwest of the new terminal is a monastery with an adjacent cemetery. To the southeast of the old terminal is the Polet hotel, and further south is the Metro supermarket and car center. A little to the east - a lot of various outbuildings (hangars, a boiler room, etc.) To the south of this whole complex - garages and the private sector. Finally, to the west of the terminals is the fire station and control tower. Usually in photographs it seems to be located very close to the new terminal, but this is an illusion caused by its cyclopean size, in fact, the distance between them is about eight hundred meters. What is important here is the circumstance. The large size of the tower and the new terminal give excellent visibility, especially since the surrounding area is not rich in large buildings, so these positions are excellent for adjusting gunfire. The second important moment for our story: the airport buildings turned out to be very durable, and withstood despite the long ruthless artillery shelling. The same control tower eventually fell only after a long targeted shooting, and its ruins could still give protection to the remnants of the garrison for some time. Under these buildings there is a fairly developed network of underground communications: parking lots, basements, communications of military facilities. Finally, the following factor is an important circumstance: from the north of the terminals and the tower there is a huge flat expanse of the runway, which gives excellent visibility from the airport buildings themselves, but creates serious problems for those who need to quickly and without loss slip through this sector. In general, when talking about battles for an airport, they usually mean a space of about 1.5 by 0.6 km, including terminals and adjacent buildings, plus a slightly separate control tower.
Donetsk airport general plan Donetsk airport detailed plan
THE PRICE OF FLIGHTNESS. MAY STORM
In Donetsk, as in other cities in eastern Ukraine, the movement in favor of joining Russia intensified in the spring. On April 6, pro-Russian protesters seized the administration of Donetsk after a rally and issued an ultimatum to the authorities to hold a referendum on the future of the region. The next day, in Donetsk, the Donetsk People's Republic, the DPR, was proclaimed, and in Kyiv, and. about. President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov announced an anti-terrorist operation. Gradually, the protesters occupied various facilities in Donetsk: local television, the prosecutor's office, police stations. At the same time, the same processes were going on throughout the Donbass. From local residents and Russian volunteers, armed formations were created on the fly. The level of coordination of the various detachments was low: in fact, each protest leader himself created a detachment to the best of his own understanding and the qualities of a leader. One of the most numerous detachments was the Vostok battalion, led by the former commander of the Donetsk Alpha group A. Khodakovsky. It was these people who became the main characters of the first clash for the airport. The bulk of the "Eastern" were local, but the number of Russian volunteers was significant. Although propaganda loved to present these people as mercenaries who came "to make money easily by killing Ukrainians", the only thing Khodakovsky could really give them at that time was machine guns (at that time - from captured Ukrainian warehouses), free food and a promise to transport the body to Rostov in case of death. The nasty political games that accompany the history of Novorossiya should not hide the genuine enthusiasm, altruism and courage, the desire of these people to protect the Donbass and build a new, better society on the ruins of the former state and social institutions.
Battalion "Vostok" in Donetsk. Then everyone was full of hopes for an easy and bloodless resolution of the crisis.
It cannot be said that the Ukrainian side did not take countermeasures at all. In particular, in mid-April, as it turned out later, a strong and correct move was made: a large detachment of the 3rd Special Forces Regiment from Kirovograd arrived at the airport. The 3rd Regiment was (and is now) the elite of the Ukrainian armed forces, and one and a half hundred special forces could make storming the airport a rather difficult task. SWAT took up positions in the old terminal and control tower.
Another review of the film "28 Panfilov". Original .
"28 Panfilov" became a cult film long before the release. The first major mass film in our cinema, for which money was raised by crowdfunding, based on the legendary but controversial episode of the Great Patriotic War.
Long before the release of "Panfilov" just the same scandalized the public. The circumstances of the battle at the Dubosekovo junction and the biographies of the participants were studied under a microscope, the discussion about the admissibility and desirability of using this topic regularly broke into a squabble, and the Minister of Culture condemned skeptical historians in almost unprintable terms. So the directors of Panfilov's, Andrey Shalope and Kim Druzhinin, had to work with the utmost attention and prepare for a detailed analysis of their creation.
A detailed analysis of the circumstances of the battle near Volokolamsk is the topic of a separate text (we will definitely have it), but now we will try to watch "28 Panfilov" in isolation from true history real fight. Let us recall only the main thing: November 1941, Volokolamsk Highway, the 316th Infantry Division holds the defense under the blows of the Panzerwaffe - German tank troops.
Film directors: Andrei Shalopa and Kim Druzhinin
The film begins - almost the rule for films about the war - with a purely peaceful pictures. In the middle of a frozen village, people are preparing for battle: the soldiers, together with the instructor, are training to repel attacks, the commanders are discussing what the coming day has in store for them.
The atmosphere is set right away and is maintained until the very credits - this is a purely Soviet film at a modern technical level. The style of communication of characters, dialogues, we have already seen all this in the old military epic. For some, this style seems strained, for others, on the contrary, the top of organicity, but in fact this is exactly the case: the Soviet “pedigree” of the film can be traced instantly from the replicas of the characters. The language of the characters is emphatically out of date, and this is perceived quite well - as a noble retro. At least, there is no feeling that in front of you are Moscow hipsters of the beginning of the 21st century, who fell into the trenches due to a misunderstanding.
Fortunately, there is not a single famous actor in the frame, which also works for the general feeling of naturalness. The authors initially do not try to introduce insane and boundless reflection on the line of fire. Soldiers and commanders talk mainly about business, bait stories, and only the political instructor makes speeches about the Fatherland, which, in the mouth of a political instructor, is just quite natural. The heroes of "Panfilov" are generally defiant, militant normal. There are no criminals, no one performs mysterious pagan rituals, the army is like an army, not a big top.
On set
True, with all this, it is extremely difficult to single out individual characters. In general, it is difficult to divide a company into separate individuals. There is not a single personal destiny here, all destinies are merged into a single one. Even the names and surnames are not mentioned by almost anyone, they can only be recognized from the credits. Only someone’s Ukrainian accent, the Asian appearance of some of the soldiers are remembered (the 316th was formed in Kazakhstan, which is why there are quite a lot of fighters from Central Asia in the frame, as in life).
Interestingly, they remain very alive and real - there is no feeling that they are mannequins, they are just people whom you did not have time to get to know properly. And this move in itself turns into a dramatic success: after all, in a real war, they often died without having time to really get to know each other. Perhaps, some opportunities are not even used here: the film is well, convincingly played, and human stories, perhaps, would add depth to it. Be that as it may, our heroes do not have their own dramas. This is not a movie about people, it's a movie about war. By the way, about her.
"Panfilovites" pay great attention to war as a technological process. The machine gunners busily study the sectors of fire, and then hide the Maxim so as not to unmask themselves. What's more, they know what flanking is - and position accordingly!
The trenches are cranked - right, so that a bullet that flies in from the flank does not hit many at once. Having dug trenches - first individual cells, then a network of shelters - no one falls to sleep, instead the construction of spare and false firing positions begins. Shooting, careful disguise - where have we seen this before? It seems to be nowhere at all.
Preparing for the battle takes up a good third of the film, but despite the complete absence of the enemy, there is no need to get bored. A log model of a tank is built in advance, and the soldiers practice throwing grenades on it, the instructor draws the silhouettes of German tanks so that the soldiers know what they will face. Sometimes there is a feeling that we are being shown a training film for junior commanders.
The characters in the film act tactically competently.
The authors stubbornly press on one point: war is not fireworks, not a chain of individual feats, it is work with a lot of nuances, where everyone performs his function. The Motherland does not expect everyone to throw themselves under a tank with a bunch of grenades, the Motherland expects everyone to do their duty. Moreover, here the authors even somewhat sinned against the historical truth, but they sinned reasonably, and also firmly understanding what exactly they want to say.
The refrain goes through the whole film: one must die for the Motherland only if there are no other ways out. As long as there is an opportunity, one must live for the Motherland. "To stand not to death, but tightly!" - it is characteristic that this remark is said on behalf of the officer personally by the screenwriter and co-director Andrey Shalyopa. And this is really a new word, which never happened in Soviet cinema: it is necessary not to die, but to live in the name of the Motherland.
The whole picture is imbued with that spirit of calm military professionalism, when they are not afraid of death, but only do not want to. Moreover, this professionalism manifests itself on two planes at once. Soldiers do their part of the job, commanders do theirs. During the scenes at the headquarters, there is a completely substantive discussion of the action plan, no one falls into hysterics, no one threatens to shoot anyone. People work. And one of the most dramatic moments of the entire tape comes when the commander, realizing that soon he will have to fight with enemy tanks, looks out the window of the hut and sees soldiers resting peacefully, not yet knowing what awaits them.
Panfilovites in the cinema emphasize their own Russianness. The concept of "Russians" appears in the film five times
Another innovation unusual for the old cinema is that the Panfilovites in the cinema emphasize their own Russianness. The concept of “Russians” sounds five times in the film, and once there is even a mini-dispute under fire between a Slav and a Kazakh on the topic of whether an Asian soldier can be considered Russian, since he is fighting for Russia. However, the time is mostly filled with non-philosophical debates and tales around the campfire. The focus is on the battle.
The connection of the battle shown in the film with the specific story that took place near Dubosekovo is not emphasized too much. Moreover, we dare to say: "Panfilov's men" is not a film about a specific battle at all. Exhausting, turning the earth inside out, shelling, tanks, ironing trenches, earth mixed with iron and human meat, a steel horde rushing ahead on a narrow front - all this happened hundreds of times.
In the frame, not only and not so much Dubosekovo, the very name of which is mentioned once and briefly - you perceive what is happening in the frame as a story about all such fights at once. This is Buinichi field near Mogilev. This is the Ilyinsky line near Moscow. This is Verkhne-Kumsky in December 42nd. These are Ponyri, Fastov and Mius on the 43rd, this is Vroblevizh and Kovel on the 44th, this is Balaton and Bautzen in the 45th. And the atmosphere is brilliant. When the shells start to burst, the heart really stops. Fortunately, the soundtrack is more than successful. The soundtrack builds tension, it is very well built into the film and works on the atmosphere all the way.
Filming
The film's budget was one and a half million dollars. Hearing the roar of howitzers, seeing quite convincing models of tanks, explosions, sensibly and appropriately selected props, well-shot mass battle scenes - I want to ask where the budgets of blockbusters that are filmed for big money go, if Shalopa and Druzhinin give an excellent picture for such by the standards of modern cinema pennies.
The battle was filmed technically optimally. Amazing frills are not visible, but everything that a large-scale war film should have is in place. Tanks are shown as dinosaurs of enormous destructive power - half-blind, but smashing with fire in all directions, pouring from cannons and machine guns, crushing people with caterpillars.
What is very pleasing is that these are exactly the tanks that should be near Moscow in November 1941. No compromise: modern technology, depicting something remotely similar to the "Tiger", was expelled in disgrace. Shooters of the Red Army are attacked by "Troikas" and "Fours" of just those modifications that fought near Moscow. The credits indicate the company that made the scale models of the "Panzers" - and it can only be congratulated.
Wehrmacht soldiers are purposely depersonalized
It is the tanks that become the main “villains” of the picture, and no time was spared for them: the cars are shown from the inside, from the driver’s seat, gunner, commander, from the outside close and in a general plan, the authors simply enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate their monsters in detail.
In contrast to technology, the Wehrmacht soldiers themselves are deliberately impersonal. Russians (including Kazakhs) are people with faces, characters, emotions, while the Germans are unified parts of the mechanism, an application to howitzers, tanks and "mashinengevers". They are not human at all. They attack, I must say, also surprisingly without fiction, with naked force. This is even somewhat disappointing: after showing smart pros from the Soviet side, you expect the Wehrmacht to also demonstrate not only ferocity, but also efficiency. However, the Germans were honored with exactly one tactically meaningful action - the tank once hid behind the skeleton of a lined comrade.
The rest is revealed artlessly and head-on. "Combat robots" of the Reich attack and mow down crowds of machine guns, cannons and anti-tank guns. True, again a good idea of the directors - the tanks do not start to blaze like a tank farm from the very first hit. Shooting down a caterpillar is a success, getting into a viewing slot from an anti-tank rifle is a rare and important success. Throughout the "combat" part of the film, clicks of PTR bullets on the armor are heard, the calculations of "rods" put bullet after bullet into the tanks without visible effect, trying to still heal vulnerable points. Having knocked out a tank, they must finish it off, otherwise the Germans will repair it. Fortunately, the Germans act much more artlessly than in real life, and allow you to do a lot with yourself.
Getting from the PTR into the viewing slot is a rare and important success
Toward the end, the authenticity even sags, the film changes the genre on the go - and from a “production drama” on the battlefield it turns into pure heroics. However, the effect of presence has already worked one hundred percent, you are so rooted in these trenches that the transition from a reliable battle to a heroic legend is completely insensitive and noticeable only after the fact.
But one aspect is excellently shown, which is often forgotten. The Wehrmacht is perceived as an army of tanks and bombers, but the real Germans had a huge advantage with powerful, well-stocked artillery. Here, this feature is reflected at the proper level. Exhausting, painful artillery raids, interfering trenches and dugouts with the ground - everything is as it should be. This is reliable. By the way, their own artillery also exists and is active. Not only that, she also changes positions after volleys so as not to be covered - damn it, this is a film whose heroes know about counter-battery combat!
There are many authentic details in the film. Starting from the props - PPD was pleasing back in the Brest Fortress, here Tokarevsky self-loading joins them, and ending with purely everyday moments - in the dugout some fighter hung a shard of a mirror for the greater convenience of the morning toilet! The edges of the trench, after a long wait for an attack, are littered with cigarette butts. Niches dug (hollowed out in cold weather) in trenches for ammunition and equipment are a wonderful detail. Horses as the main vehicle - and after all, how often in military films “lorries” and “jeeps” drive around everywhere, while the peasant Sivka was the main draft vehicle in the Red Army of the 40s. It would seem, trifles. But it's the little things that build trust.
There are quite a few simply cinematically successful shots here. The operator is always trying to show the events on behalf of one of the participants - the camera moves between the fighters with some fuss, sometimes the world is visible through the periscope, sometimes through the viewing slot of the tank, through binoculars. One of the best scenes is a look from a warm hut into the frost, when the soldiers, alerted, pour out one after another - to the sad chorale, as if they were being buried in advance.
Many of the shots are really beautiful - the rural landscape delicately drawn against the background of the evening sky, the night formation under the snowfall in the moonlight, the German assembly line of war unfolding at the same time with dummies in identical uniforms running through the beams of spotlights past the orderly rows of tanks and howitzers.
General plans also work for the atmosphere. Much has been done in contrast - the snow-white landscape quickly takes on a dirty black, smoky appearance, and at the end the setting sun paints the field crimson, and fountains of earth rise up from hits - like blood from a torn living creature.
And when the shadows of the survivors rise in the sunset haze, you don’t understand whether these are the survivors, or the ghosts of those who fought. The sentries look after the leaving tanks, rooted in the position they defended, becoming a monument to themselves - here you already stop being aesthetic completely, then a lump rolls up in your throat.
At the end of the film, the audience applauded. We are joining.
If someone promises to kill you, trust him. Do not look for explanations why he really means something completely different, do not tell each other that this is just some kind of politics and other games. Just believe.
The massacre that took place on May 2, 2014 in Odessa is a key link in the chain of events that led Ukraine to a full-scale war. The uprising in the east at first went without much bloodshed, and against the backdrop of shooting and corpses on the burning Maidan, it did not look very brutal even after Kyiv announced a military operation.
Odessa has changed a lot. Odessa has changed everything. A psychologist who worked with Ukrainian soldiers who returned from captivity later noted that in late spring and early summer, the militia began to perceive the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as fascists by default. Ukrainians considered and continue to consider this attitude as the result of propaganda. This is debatable: yes, there really was propaganda and told the South-East about the Nazis, and then the Ukrainians ... gladly confirmed all expectations with deeds, even the darkest and most fantastic ones. They killed almost fifty people - defiantly ferociously, under cameras, finishing off the wounded and mocking first the bodies, and then the memory of the dead.
Odessa buried the hope for "federalization" and "constitutional reforms" and began a truly massive volunteer movement.
Two years have passed since then. The official investigation never yielded any clear results. At the end of 2015, the report of the experts of the International Advisory Group of the Council of Europe, presented in Kyiv, dryly stated that the investigation into the events of May 2 had failed. But in addition to the official investigation, there were also independent researchers, journalists, a huge amount of video material - the picture of the massacre can be restored quite accurately, although not without white spots.
TOY REVOLUTION
While Euromaidan was burning in Kyiv, Odessa was also worried. The main drama unfolded in the capital, but the sea also had its own provincial struggle: on November 22, 2013, local Odessa Euromaidanists built a small tent camp, and three days later, on the 25th, it was demolished by the police. Several people were detained, some were beaten (there were no serious injuries). For some time skirmishes continued, arson of cars, attempts to block the location of internal troops and Berkut, but in general, until February, nothing particularly disturbing happened in the city. In January, the radicals, with the participation of the Kyiv self-defense of the Maidan and the Right Sector, tried to occupy the Regional State Administration, but this story also ended in nothing: the leaders of the local Euromaidan ... did not come, and after a while the crowd dispersed by itself.
The first mass clash happened on February 19: with the full connivance of the police, the Euromaidanites were attacked by unknown people in helmets and with wooden bats. After that, both sides - both Maidan and Anti-Maidan - almost simultaneously began to assemble their paramilitary structures. In terms of equipment, they were similar to each other: sticks, shields, motorcycle or army helmets. In Odessa, many did not accept the Maidan, there were also enough activists, so at least two groups were formed in parallel. One - led by local public activists brothers Davidchenko ("People's squad"). Another was formed on the basis of the Odessa squad movement, headed by Dmitry Odinov and Sergey Dolzhenkov.
No one wanted to kill each other yet. At times, the parties even managed to find mutual language- passed even at least one joint rally. The radicals have not yet taken power in either movement.
Anti-Maidanites mainly gathered on Kulikovo Pole Square, next to the Odessa House of Trade Unions. The rally on the Kulikovo field went on indefinitely, the square turned into a forum in the original ancient sense of the word: a place for communication, discussion of news and almost joint choral singing. The audience there came rather motley, from energetic youth to pensioners. There was no formal unity: "People's squad", Orthodox activists, Cossacks, smaller groups. For some time, the Kulikovo people were united by the figure of Anton Davidchenko.
This idyllic civil strife could not last long. Ukraine became more and more radical, and the slogans of the Kulikovo Field changed along with it: federalization, autonomy. Soon - on March 3 - the region was headed by Vladimir Nemirovsky, one of the cohort of "patriotic oligarchs" appointed to govern the regions. Nemirovsky was going to resolutely deal with any protests. The liquidation of the camp on the Kulikovo field became one of the important points of his program. Soon, Anton Davidchenko was arrested by the SBU, but so far the repressions against Aitimaidan have been limited to this.
In March-April, the situation continuously heated up. A flywheel of violence was spinning in the east. In Odessa, however, it was possible to prevent mass wall-to-wall campaigns with human casualties, as in Kharkov, not to mention what happened in Donetsk and Lugansk. Against the general background, relations between the two Odessa camps looked almost friendly. An activist from St. Petersburg lived on Kulikovo Pole, who offered to kill the head of the local Right Sector and even volunteered to do it personally, but was categorically refused.
It is curious that later Governor Vladimir Nemirovsky (already former) blamed the Euromaidanites for the neuroticization of the situation:
It was their paid (I don't know at what level) job - to troll. Someone worked in the dark, but we have people who are led, but there were also sighted people. It was some kind of mass hysteria created by representatives of the so-called "Euromaidan". I emphasize - the so-called. About "little green men", about breakthroughs, breakthroughs, about "how will you protect us." The main problem is not in the "little green men", which do not exist, not in the GRU officers, but in general in you and in what you have spawned here.
After the announcement of the start of the military operation, Euromaidan supporters began to set up roadblocks at the entrances to the city. These were very strange checkpoints: it is not known what and from whom they protected, but a total of up to five hundred people stood at them - and not only from Odessa. The same Nemirovsky noted that in the last days of April, people from Self-Defense gathered in buses to Odessa:
By that time, Self-defense buses began to go to the region. A lot of. As far as we could, we did not let them into Odessa. But they went to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, somewhere else. They spread throughout the region. [They were driving] in the direction from Kyiv. Law enforcement officers completely stepped aside, they were already demoralized.
Interestingly, on May 2, Nemirovsky said exactly the opposite things. On April 24, the head of the regional police, Lutsyuk, raised the issue of roadblocks at a meeting of the regional council. He gave obvious and quite reasonable arguments against: some paramilitary-looking people search cars at the entrance to the city. Why - do not say. What legal status they have is unclear. What is it all about? Nemirovsky replied that checkpoints were needed "to control the actions of the police." How this remark and his later statements are combined is difficult to understand: it can be interpreted both as a simple desire to disown unpleasant connections, and as an attempt to cover up the tracks.
The day after this meeting, a grenade exploded at one of the roadblocks. The parties reacted predictably: “volunteers” from checkpoints announced that a grenade had been thrown at them from a passing car, anti-Maidanists advised them to be more careful with their own ammunition.
Soon, the head of the National Security and Defense Council, Andrei Parubiy, visited Odessa with unclear goals. He drove to checkpoints, handed out bulletproof vests to the fighters, but did not say why he came. Then Parubiy was directly accused of organizing the riots on May 2, but what he really wanted and what he discussed with the city fathers during his visit - one can only guess about this.
A curious commentary on this topic was given by Colonel Fuchedzhi, then the deputy head of the Odessa police:
You know, Governor Nemirovsky is the culprit of all this, he repeatedly turned to the leadership, to my boss about the dispersal of the Kulikovo field and received an answer that this was impossible in the conditions of Odessa, it was impossible. But he, having received the answer, was dissatisfied. And then he began to pull people from the Maidan. Having met with Parubiy, he pulled up the people of Maidan at 13 checkpoints, this is in the range of 500-800 people, and under the conditions of the administration he held meetings with them, with the foremen, began to feed them, provide them with fuel and lubricants, and so on. (...) [Parubiy]
He handed over bulletproof vests, held a meeting in the military unit with commanders and centurions who had come from Kyiv. The meeting lasted 3.5–4 hours.
He first said that it was control over the activities of police officers. But after the arrival of Parubiy, and when they began to distribute bulletproof vests of the 5th class, which protect against AKs, another thought began to be seen that they were preparing for something. But when it will be and why, we did not know. (...) They are already with Molotov cocktails, there are already three or four boxes of Molotov cocktails at checkpoints.
The anti-Maidanists found themselves in a difficult position. The initial enthusiasm subsided, rallies without a coherent program attracted fewer and fewer people, the project of the Odessa People's Republic did not find support among the local elites and died out. But the Odessa authorities - either out of fear of the "separas", or wanting to demonstrate their capabilities to Kyiv and Odessans - tried to force events and quickly dismantle the camp. Negotiations on the peaceful closure of the Kulikovo field were led by Fuchedzhi.
An important point: both at this and at all other stages in the case, no traces of the notorious “hand of Moscow” can be found. There is no serious evidence of the participation of "GRU stormtroopers" or even just people from Russia (except for a couple of enthusiasts who acted as private individuals) in the Odessa opposition. Nemirovsky stated, describing the political struggle in the spring of Odessa: “These are all scoundrels of the local flood. These are all Odessans.”
TWINDING ROAD TO DISASTER
The picture of the fire itself was restored - but there are a huge number of white spots in its prehistory. Shortly before the tragedy, Nemirovsky said that by May 9, the Kulikovo field would be cleared in one way or another: “We will decide on the tent city on Kulikovo. Let's try it good first. The parade on May 9 will definitely be there.” At the same time, behind-the-scenes negotiations were going on with the leaders of the Kulikovo people. The leaders of the Anti-Maidan - this is confirmed by many witnesses, including Sergei Dolzhenkov, one of the key leaders of the "Odesskaya Druzhina" - were offered money for moving the camp, and at least some of them accepted this offer. Part of the anti-Maidanites moved to the outskirts, to the memorial of the 411th coastal battery.
Money, by the way, according to rumors, was transferred by the same Fuchedzhi. In general, it is customary to demonize this police chief, but he just tried to make the mildest decisions and clearly maneuvered between the two sides. Say, around the same time, in response to demands to act more harshly, he said: "I have no right to demolish this tent city."
A number of sources claim that simultaneously with the negotiations, the authorities were preparing a violent destruction of the camp on Kulikovo field. According to the most common version, the attack was planned for the evening of May 2 and it was by the forces of football fans. Verkhovna Rada deputy Svetlana Fabrikant, secretary of the Verkhovna Rada commission to investigate the events of May 2, subsequently stated:
It was not a tragedy that was planned, but a cleansing of the Kulikovo field by the fans after the match. There was a staged mess.
In its fullest version, this version was presented by the May 2 Group. This volunteer organization did a titanic job trying to establish the circumstances of the tragedy. It is curious that the "Group" cannot be reproached for pro-Russian sympathies - and yet its representatives confidently and even casually (but without disclosing sources of information) declare the existence of a plan for the violent defeat of the camp on Kulikovo field.
Football fans were supposed to smash the Odessa Anti-Maidan after the match between Chernomorets Odessa and Metalist Kharkov. Both clubs have close-knit fan groups who are also warm to each other and equally badly received the pro-Russian protests of the spring of 2014. This is an important point: the inhabitants of Odessa had every reason to be afraid of football ultras. Kharkiv fans by this time had a very specific reputation: on April 27 - just a few days before their arrival in Odessa - they got into a fight with pro-Russian activists at home. According to the Ukrainian side, it looked like this: a peaceful crowd of five thousand in a suicidal impulse was attacked by three hundred supporters of federalization (including women and children).
The decisiveness and aggressiveness of the Kharkovites made them excellent candidates for participation in the destruction of the Kulikovo field. On the other hand, the ultras were ahead of their notoriety, and the inhabitants of Odessa were well aware that the fans were not just going to football.
“That these freaks were supposed to come, it was known a week before,” Stanislav Kulta, a participant in the events of May 2, later said later, better known as the Gambit motor catcher. Approximately the same thing was said in an interview with Novaya Gazeta by another Anti-Maidan activist: “We knew a week beforehand that there would be a fight on May 2. We were told that Kharkovites were coming, who were supposed to arrange a provocation and demolish the Kulikovo field.”
If they wanted to keep the dispersal plan a secret, then by May 2 it became pointless: they didn’t write about the future fight except in the daily newspapers. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Odessa protest did not perceive it as the end of the world, were not going to give up, and certainly did not expect that they would have to die in the last battle. The main forces of the Kulikovo have already agreed to move to the 411th battery - under the influence of a kind word, a pistol and a classic donkey with gold.
“April 30, late in the evening, Cap came to us and said that we were moving to the 411th battery. Many call us traitors today, they say that we left the Kulikovo people without guards, but this is not true, we all came second. Cap scheduled a meeting at 13.30 on Aleksandrovsky Prospekt. As far as I know, the notification was wide: they called someone, sent SMS to someone, ”the Odessa combatant said in an interview.
This, by the way, is the main weak point in the version of the planned defeat. It turns out that the local authorities were going to take by force what they received just a day later. On the other hand, Nemirovsky certainly wanted to demonstrate strength. In the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, the rebels occupied one city after another, and against this background, the dispersal of the Kulikovo field would have looked like a bright, spectacular victory. Secondly, in Odessa, in addition to the official authorities, there were many different characters and organizations, including ultra-right ones - they wanted to crush the opposition in order to score points. Later, some of these people will play a role in the events between the two main clashes on May 2.
In addition, some of the anti-Maidanites refused to move to the 411th battery, and these most persistent ones had to be somehow pushed out of the city center.
The most fundamentally important fact is this: the people on the Kulikovo field were absolutely sure that on May 2 they would go to smash the camp, they had good reasons for this - and such a plan really existed.
On May 2, a march of fans across Odessa was planned - it was assumed that they would march for the unity of Ukraine in the direction of the stadium. Euromaidanists claimed that this was a peaceful event. Anti-Maidan believed that this was a cover for a pogrom.
On the night of May 2, Sergei Dolzhenkov contacted a member of the Odessa City Council and suggested at least a ban on the fan march:
“The main decision of the court is to make. They brought us by bus to the match, they took us away from the match. No marches. People saw Kharkiv, Kherson, Donetsk. Where the fans went wild. The main thing is to prevent blood. If there is no march, there will be no blood."
“On the first of May, I was just at Kulikovo Pole, Artem Davidchenko announced from the stage that the Right Sector was coming to the city, they would come to demolish Kulikovo Pole, and we must rebuff them here. Therefore, the meeting is at 12.00 at Kulikovo Pole,” Maxim Firsov, an activist of the Borotba movement, described the atmosphere on the eve of the fight.
Another important factor that seriously influenced the events is the lack of forces among the anti-Maidanists. They had a lot of people, but a significant part of them were women and old people, from whom it was simply impossible to assemble a phalanx. In addition, a split began (someone left the Kulikovo field, someone remained), but a single leader never appeared. In short, in a purely forceful sense, the number of fans and Kulikovo was incomparable. Apparently, that is why the commanders of the anti-Maidanists decided to act actively. On the Kulikovo field, they would simply be crushed - and there were also too many frankly peaceful people who themselves needed protection. Judging by the recollections of ordinary participants, the plan for May 2 was to accompany the Euromaidan column - without starting a clash and blocking the enemy if the fans turned to the camp.
On the side of Anti-Maidan there were people who did not like this plan. Dmitry Odinov, the leader of the "Odessa squad", objected to active actions, but Dolzhenkov intercepted control, who wanted to leave the camp and meet the enemy face to face - Odinov left for Moscow and returned to Odessa only in the afternoon, when there was nothing left before the first skirmishes.
On the eve of May 2, Artem Davidchenko (brother of the arrested Anton) attended a meeting with Fuchedzhi and the head of the SBU of Odessa. The SBU officer said that after the first corpse, he would "close everyone." And he summed up: "The first corpse will be necessary."
Despite the general alarm, no one expected war yet. On May 1, anti- and Euromaidan supporters managed to meet, if not in a friendly, but at least in a calm atmosphere. Were you expecting a fight? Yes. Waiting for what happened? No.
THE ROAD TO GREEK
So, the morning of May 2nd. A train with Kharkov fans, about 500 people, arrives in Odessa outside the schedule. People from roadblocks, Euromaidan activists from other regions, from Rivne to Kherson, are gathering in the city. A very strange company for a peaceful march is being selected: for example, fighters from the 14th hundred of self-defense of the Kyiv Maidan with their symbols on their shields were lit up. The march before the match is scheduled for 15:00, the bulk of the people converge on the Cathedral Square.
At this time, Kulikovo people gather on Aleksandrovsky Prospekt under the general leadership of Sergei Dolzhenkov and Alexei Albu. For a decisive clash, they are hopelessly few - according to various estimates, from 150 to 300 people. The only advantage of the Kulikovo people is quite high level discipline and tolerable equipment (helmets, shields, melee weapons). Did Dolzhenkov and Alba know about their weakness? Yes, they couldn't help but know. What did they expect? Unless they hoped to avoid a direct battle and protect the camp by simply indicating their presence. There are simply no other reasonable explanations for the actions of pro-Russian activists. Sergei Rudyk, one of the anti-Maidanists, later stated: "The goal was simply to march towards the stadium, to prevent passers-by from being beaten, etc."
A separate issue is the actions of the police. Theoretically, significant forces participated in the protection of public order. In practice, the policemen were so scattered around the city that it looked like the self-elimination of the police authorities. According to rough estimates, 700 people guarded the stadium, about 80 accompanied the anti-Maidan column, about 60 were on duty at the Kulikovo field. Another 100 stood in reserve. Not everyone had riot control equipment. And these ridiculous forces were supposed to block 150-300 "vigilantes" and a huge crowd of Maidanovites.
The entire leadership of the local police at 12:00 was convened for a mocking meeting on the topic "The state of the organization of work to counter the manifestations of separatism, public confrontation and ensure law and order in the Odessa region." The state of the organization was discussed for three hours, turning off mobile phones by order.
In the middle of the day, having gathered their small forces, Dolzhenkov and Albu lead them north, towards Deribasovskaya. At 2:40 pm, a strange incident occurs: a certain young man approaches the anti-Maidanites and starts firing at them with a non-combat (probably pneumatic) pistol. The weapons are taken away, the young man himself is handed over to the police.
The column is accompanied by a group of policemen. Kulikovo leaders assure law enforcement that they are going to move parallel to the column of fans, and will only take action if they turn towards the camp. Where Dolzhenkov wanted to lead his people, one can only guess - but, judging by the later reports of his comrades, the detachment was moving towards Primorsky Boulevard. It is easy to see that in this way the routes of the two columns dangerously intersected.
After passing quite a bit, the column turns to the gateway on Zhukovsky Street, 36. The anti-Maidanists - it is not known from what source - received information about the distribution of weapons to Maidan activists in the office of the Ukrainian nationalist organization Rada Hromadska Bezpeki. However, an attempt to pass under the arch stumbles upon a police barrier and a "phalanx" of Euromaidanites.
The stupid confrontation at Zhukovsky 36 might not be worth mentioning, but there is one important point. Ruslan Forostyak, head of the Rada of Hromadska Bezpeka, said: “We showed them the AKSU in order to excite them even more.” Forostyak claims that it was about MMG, which is not necessarily true. Dolzhenkov's group was finally convinced of their suspicions and made sure that the enemy had firearms.
The Zhukovsky incident is another blank spot in this story. Not only did the anti-Maidanites learn about the distribution of weapons - Forostyak, who showed him, successfully turned up on his arm. Whether it was a real barrel, or MMG, as the activist claims, is not so important. The Ukrainian activists were keen to let the Kulikovo people know they had firearms - a curious wish.
Dolzhenkov's detachment again goes to Deribasovskaya street. In this scenario, their route should intersect with the trajectory of the “March for the Unity of Ukraine,” and Fuchedzhi, who accompanies the convoy, orders his policemen to put a barrier on the way of the anti-Maidanists. In general, the police honestly tried to separate the parties: the riot police were running ahead of the “vigilantes” and blocking the street. Presumably, Fuchedzhi tried to lock the anti-Maidanists in a dead end.
However, Dolzhenkov realized at the last moment that he was being lured. He abruptly stops the column and turns it to the south, 180 degrees. The “Odesskaya squad” runs back to Grecheskaya Street and quickly moves west, bypassing the Athena shopping center, along Grecheskaya Square towards Cathedral.
This point is important in several respects. First, we see the diligent attempts of the police to isolate the anti-Maidanites. The thesis that the police were on the side of the anti-Maidan is not confirmed. Fuchedzhi diligently tried to block Dolzhenkov's detachment. In general, the image of Fuchedzhi as an insidious conspirator is hardly fair. Of all the police chiefs in Odessa, this was generally the only one who was at the forefront, tried to the last to prevent bloodshed and was wounded - by the hands of the Euromaidan, by the way. He dragged Dolzhenkov's group into a trap, but from his position he did everything right: the police were required to protect public order and prevent the parties from killing each other - which they tried to do to the best of their ability. There was not much sense from these attempts, but that's another story.
At this time, a significant mass of people accumulate on Cathedral Square - probably at least a thousand. Most of those present did not really belong to any rioters, they were civilians, some even with children. But they didn't come alone.
The Ukrainians then claimed that the march was purely peaceful. It's… debatable, to put it mildly. The video clearly shows a close-knit group of self-defenders who came to the square even before the collision - a well-coordinated, well-knocked combat unit, equipped with helmets, shields and clubs (partially - bulletproof vests). In the very first minutes of the fight, one of the Maidanites used a pistol (most likely a traumatic one, but possibly a combat one), and the first Molotov cocktail flew 6 minutes after the start of the battle - that is, it was obviously brought in advance. On the "peaceful march" "peaceful Ukrainians" gathered in outfits for street fighting. It is interesting that Vitaliy Kozhukhar, deputy head of the Odessa self-defense, stated: “It was supposed to be a rather cheerful, in general, procession. Nobody thought it would turn out like this."
Well, of course - why not put on your favorite body armor for a fun procession and take your favorite Molotov cocktail with you. An important point: the Euromaidanites from the checkpoints were either already walking in a column, or were gradually being pulled into place. In total, up to four thousand people gathered for the march, and many of this huge crowd had nothing to do with Odessa at all. Dispersed, but combat-ready forces gathered to disperse the Kulikovo field.
BATTLE IN GREEK
At about three o'clock a column of Kulikovo marches along Grecheskaya to Cathedral Square. A significant part of the commentators describe this moment as a general attack by the anti-Maidanists, during which they broke through the cordon. The episode is often called an attack by the Kulikovo on the ultras - and in this form it looks like a completely crazy idea: 300 people rush into a crowd that is ten times their size. However, upon closer examination, the situation is different.
An eyewitness - from the Ukrainian side - described the collision as follows:
Within five minutes after that, militants appeared on Grecheskaya, whom the police tried to restrain. She obviously received some kind of reinforcement, but they did not have enough people to block off the entire Greek one.
Seeing the opponents, a group of football fans rushed to them.
By the way, this is also noticeable in the video filmed from the side of the marchers. The picture in which 200 anti-Maidan berserkers are heroically killed against the superior forces of the ultras and self-defense begins to look at least ambiguous: Dolzhenkov’s group sees the enemy, who immediately proceeds to active actions, but does not go into decisive battle. Many commentators subsequently claimed that the anti-Maidanists broke through the cordon, but this statement is not entirely correct - so incorrect that it changes the meaning of what is happening to the opposite. The anti-Maidanites do not break through the cordon: before it was formed, literally two or three people slipped onto the Maidan side, who were immediately attacked by self-defenders or hooligans - they quickly rolled back. This is important: Dolzhenkov's detachment did not break through the police cordon and went on the defensive from the very beginning. Hand-to-hand skirmishes immediately begin, but so far no more than a few fighters are participating in them at the same time, and the entire Anti-Maidan phalanx stands still while skirmishers throw stones. The video clearly shows that the anti-Maidanites do not run, but walk, and for the most part stop in front of a line of riot police.
The fight went over the head of the police. The law enforcement officers managed, despite their small numbers, to effectively block the street and separate the fighters, and the anti-Maidanists also built an ersatz barricade from improvised means.
Another key point: the Kulikovo team from the beginning to the very end are on the defensive. The only episode of the whole day that can be interpreted as an attacking movement is, in fact, the march of the Dolzhenkov group to Cathedral Square, but it is simply impossible to call it an attack: when they see the enemy, the activists stop, and then they only retreat and fight back. It is not clear what Dolzhenkov wanted to achieve - why was it necessary to bring his people so close to an obviously stronger enemy? But this circumstance clearly explains the actions of the police. The Maidanites then furiously accused the security forces of helping the Kulikovo people. To a certain extent, this is true: police chains are indeed almost always deployed in the direction of the Euromaidanites. For an obvious reason: from this side, a continuous stream of stones, Molotov cocktails, stones and bullets flies into the riot police. One of the participants in the battle from the side of the Maidan, “Sotnik Mikola”, shouted at that moment on the phone: “There are more of us, but we are not allowed to do anything!”
The battle on Grecheskaya gets bogged down, and then the Maidanovites come up with the idea to bypass the enemy along Deribasovskaya. The idea is quite logical: all you need to go through is nothing, but a quick raid brings the attackers to the flank of the anti-Maidanites. A large crowd of pro-Ukrainian activists goes there. At this time, a small detachment from Dolzhenko's group is moving towards them, very small and looking either like a raid group, or even like power intelligence.
It is on Deribasovskaya that one of the key events of the day takes place. Two Euromaidanists, Igor Ivanov (foreman of the Right Sector) and self-defense Andrei Biryukov, die from gunshot wounds. It is believed that Ivanov was mortally wounded by a firearm (soon died in the hospital), and Biryukov died from a bullet fired from an air gun that damaged his lung.
Probably, Ivanov was killed by Vitaly Budko, known under the pseudonym "Boatswain".
Here begins one of the most difficult episodes of the Odessa drama. Budko was part of the “mobile group” of Anti-Maidan, a small detachment of “vigilantes” in a car. He did not participate in the very first skirmishes, the anti-Maidan minibus arrived at the battlefield later, at about 4 p.m. After the death of Ivanov and Biryukov, Budko was seen with a weapon in his hands - he fired from behind the backs of policemen.
What can be said about this story exactly? Firstly, the “Boatswain” does not have an airsoft gun in his hands, and it does not shoot blanks: shell casings are visible on the video. The "boatswain" was indeed present in the battle area and fired. Most likely, he is in the hands of a civilian carbine based on a machine gun.
He, obviously, was not involved in the death of Biryukov: he died from a bullet from a pneumatic weapon. But the question of Ivanov's death remains - most likely, the foreman of the "Right Sector" was shot by the "Boatswain".
True, this picture is missing one important fragment. The carbine (?), from which Budko shot, disappeared after the battle, he was never found. Who, where and why hid it - we cannot judge about this. Moreover, the data on the bullet that killed Ivanov disappeared from the bullet casing. In general, the investigation was conducted ugly - so ugly that it looks like an attempt to cover up the traces: none of the trunks from which people were killed that day could be found.
So it remains to fix the fact: two Maidanites died, and, most likely, one of them was killed by Budko. Boatswain himself is now hiding abroad, probably in Transnistria. Was he a provocateur? Hardly. Rather, having received a signal for help, he arrived at Grecheskaya, barely managed to figure out what was happening, and immediately began to shoot at the attacker.
A brief digression on bitterness. From the point of view of the pro-Ukrainian side, the point of no return, after which the fight for extermination began, was precisely the death of Igor Ivanov, and it is from this death that further actions on the Kulikovo field are derived. However, the chronology of the confrontation makes this interpretation skeptical. Both sides had firearms. The first shot from some small-caliber weapon (pneumatics or Flaubert's revolver) sounded even before the start of mass clashes: they fired at the emerging column of anti-Maidanists. Note that with a sufficient level of bad luck, pneumatics can cause life-threatening harm.
After the confrontation at Zhukovsky, the Kulikovo people were absolutely sure that the enemy had firearms - moreover, Forostyak claims that they were shown firearms on purpose. That is, the combatants believed that the enemy came with machine guns - and they saw the pistols themselves.
Thus, no one was going to spare the enemy from the very beginning. But despite the severity of the fight, all the dead were killed with firearms - that is, the level of bitterness at which they try to destroy the enemy in any way is also out of the question. And, by the way, even the final assault on "Athena" cost no dead. But if it was, as the Maidanites claim, about revenge for the dead comrades, then this simply cannot be - the perpetrators were just in "Athena", and not at all on the Kulikovo field. Nevertheless, no one died at the hands of the crowd in the shopping center, that is, commentators from the “Maidan” side clearly exaggerate the level of noble fury.
Since the anti-Maidanites had few people on Deribasovskaya, the crowd armed with stones and bats quickly drove them away towards Admiral Zhukov lane leading south to the Athena shopping center. A barrier of policemen with shields was already waiting here. Law enforcement officers, as well as on Grecheskaya, tried to separate the fighters, and they succeeded. However, a hail of shells and Molotov cocktails fell on the police line, which did not allow them to raise their heads. As usual, the policemen turned their backs on the anti-Maidanists (and what else could they do?). OMON essentially protected the Kulikovo from a crowd of pro-Ukrainian militants attacking from all sides.
The Ukrainians then blamed the police for not disarming the Boatswain when he (again?) opened fire from behind the backs of the police. The problem is that at the first attempt to turn their backs on the Maidanites, any policeman would immediately receive a stone in the back of the head. It hardly ever occurred to the law enforcement officers to turn around: a continuous stream of cobblestones rained down on them.
Soon, the anti-Maidanites also had gunshot wounds.
From the very beginning, the wounded man is seen lying on the ground. He was wounded on Grecheskaya: the case takes place right at the steps of the Odessa Russian Theater. At 03:47 you can hear the words “There is a gunshot, this is his gunshot”
By this moment, a full-fledged encirclement ring begins to form around the “vigilantes”. Approaches to Greek Square are packed with Maidan supporters. The Kulikovo people themselves cut off their phones all this time, asking for help, and did not receive it. For some time, escape routes were still open in the rear, but gradually all exits from Grecheskaya were blocked. True, a deaf cordon did not work out even where the battle was going on. The journalists of the Vesti.Reporter noted an amazing detail:
Some of the "travelers" for mysterious reasons are taken to be active from one side or the other, and even throw stones where they walked just recently.
Stones and Molotov cocktails are still the main tools. A large support group breaks the paving stones behind the backs of pro-Ukrainian activists. The flow of stones does not stop for a minute, but the battle is still fought by "skirmishers" - numerous, but almost devoid of equipment, fans. "Phalanx" with shields and clubs at this time is removed from the place and goes ... towards the Kulikovo field! This mysterious maneuver was performed at approximately 16:15. There is no doubt that if this group had appeared on Kulikovo, the camp would have been destroyed in the afternoon. However, the "heavy infantry" just as inexplicably and unexpectedly turns around and returns back to the "Athena".
During this raid, the Maydanovites seized a fire truck, driving the crew away. They subsequently used it as a ram to demolish the barricades.
One of the strangest moments: what did the police do? The clashes started a long time ago. It became clear that in the center of Odessa there was a fight with the wounded and the dead. Nevertheless, the security forces acted passively - and they could not work differently, there were too few of them at the epicenter of what was happening. For everyone, Fuchedzhi continued to take the rap with his small detachment. The head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine for the Odessa region, Petr Lutsyuk, had a developed plan for countering the riots (“Wave”) and even signed it - but did not register and did not implement it. Lutsyuk himself spent the entire fight at the stadium, and explained this behavior simply: “There were a lot of people there.” There - it's at a football match.
Meanwhile, small groups of people from the Kulikovo field are trying to break through or make their way to the Greek, but they are intercepted - the reinforcements either disperse or fall into the hands of the Euromaidanites. Noteworthy is the story of the car intercepted by the Maydanovites and searched by policemen at their suggestion. Inside they found a pump-action shotgun and traumatic pistols. In the office of the "Council of Public Safety" a few hours earlier, no less interesting objects were probably lying, but this did not interest the police at all.
By five o'clock in the evening, the Odessa squad was in a "semi-boiler". Ambulances are still approaching the Kulikovo people from the east, through Grecheskaya Square. The police finally turned their backs on the anti-Maidanists: they have less and less forces for active resistance, more and more wounded. We must pay tribute to the foresight of the police commanders: they built cordons not only where the attacks were already underway - from the west (Greek) and from the north (Zhukov) - but also where there were no attacks yet (south, also Zhukov). Soon this barrier was also tried on the tooth.
Note. At some point, red armbands appeared on the hands of the policemen (pro-Russian activists marked each other with red tape on their sleeves) - then a lot of conspiracy theories were built around this fact. The anti-Maidanites themselves, seeing their colors on police uniforms, perceived this either as a provocation, or as a symbol of the unity of the security forces and pro-Russian activists. In fact, everything is simpler - the equipment of the Odessa policemen was in a very poor condition, and their sleeve shields held on by Velcro began to quickly slide off. When it turned out that the anti-Maidanists had some scotch left, they shared it with the policemen - for quite practical, not symbolic reasons.
The Euromaidanites are making their last decisive attacks. Having tried to break through along Grecheskaya and through Zhukov lane from the north, they are now advancing from the south - from Bunin street. They tried - unsuccessfully - to use the fire truck as a water cannon, but the breakthrough also did not take place on this side: the streets were clogged with barricades, in addition to the Kulikovo people, the police also defended themselves, there was not enough water pressure.
Nevertheless, sooner or later attacks from different directions were to bring success. Again, let's pay attention to this fact. For people driven by spontaneous anger for their fallen comrades, Maidan fighters work very well together. An unsuccessful attack from one side is quickly replaced by an offensive from the other, the crowd performs clear and rather complex maneuvers. The leaders of the Euromaidan show clear tactical thinking, and people effectively carry out the orders of commanders who act with a cold head. Yes, there are many times more Maidanites, but the pattern of the battle does not resemble a stupid frontal attack.
It is interesting, by the way, that at 17:10 the Euromaidanites considered it necessary to carry out an SMS distribution, calling for help from their comrades and further increasing their numerical superiority.
Having failed to succeed in three offensives, the Maidanites did not lose courage and launched the final attack, which turned out to be successful in the end. The Anti-Maidan had already accumulated the wounded, people were physically tired, and reinforcements were constantly arriving to the enemy.
In this battle, the Maidanites throw all their forces into the cause, and those who died from firearms appear near Anti-Maidan. The last attack began at about half past six, this time the breakthrough came from the northeast, bypassing the Athena shopping center.
They fought with the utmost fierceness - home-made explosives, Molotovs, were used (they were poured nearby, on Deribasovskaya, and professionally, mixing ersatz-napalm). Shooting began from everything that was - from pneumatics, Flauberts, traumatic pistols ... and firearms.
A group of Maidanovites climbs onto the balcony of the Center for Bulgarian Culture and starts shooting at the crowd with a gun. In general, at that moment, the Kulikovoites were hit with at least three barrels: one bullet and a buckshot of at least two different calibers were later removed from the bodies of anti-Maidan activists. The shooter turned out to be a certain Sergey Khodiyak.
It is interesting that if the place and time of the death of both Euromaidan supporters is known quite accurately, then in the case of anti-Maidan supporters, everything is more complicated. Only the mortal wound of Yevgeny Losinsky was well recorded. Losinsky was noticeable thanks to his equipment (a reenactor, he went to Grecheskaya in a helmet shining brightly in the sun), and several photographers and streamers worked nearby at once - the recordings clearly show how Yevgeny is taken out of the battle with canister wounds to the abdomen. Probably, the journalist and at least one policeman were wounded by the same volleys. The moment when Alexander Zhulkov was mortally wounded is also known - there is at least one video recording showing Zhulkov falling. Gennady Petrov and Nikolai Yavorsky were also killed from firearms. But these are the dead - little is known about the wounded from a firearm, but there were such.
Shooting from above proves to be one of the turning points of the day. Volleys in total wounded several policemen, killed four and wounded an unknown number of Kulikovo, a journalist Oleg Konstantinov was seriously injured. Sergei Dolzhenkov was wounded in the legs. The defense of the police and Kulikovo begins to burst at the seams.
At about six in the evening, Colonel Fuchedzhi was wounded in the arm. We must give him his due: he walked around the battlefield all day, not bowing to stones and bullets, and on the whole reasonably led his policemen. Now he is injured and the doctor insists on evacuation. Interestingly, the notorious "Boatswain" left in the same ambulance, although he looked alive and perfectly healthy. No one has offered a convincing explanation for this situation.
In the meantime, the first half of a long-uninteresting match ended, and a significant part of the Kharkiv and Odessa ultras left the stands - those fans who nevertheless went to the game. New reinforcements are moving to the battlefield.
At "Athena" - the agony of the combat wing of the Kulikovo field. If, before the final attack, the anti-Maidanites still held the line, despite the huge numerical superiority of the enemy, then further on, a hail of buckshot severely thinned their ranks, and a fire truck ramming the barricades allowed the Euromaidanites to come very close. It is not known who commanded the remnants of the fighters - probably Alexey Albu, an Odessa deputy from the Borotba movement, assumed this role after Dolzhenkov was wounded. Part of the Kulikovites breaks through in those places where the barriers of the Maidanists are less strong, several dozen people barricade themselves in Athena. Half past seven in the evening.
On Grecheskaya everything ended: someone is beaten, someone manages to surrender to the police earlier. In the end, the anti-Maidanites who had settled in the shopping center surrendered to the security forces - they were taken to the pre-trial detention center in paddy wagons. On the clock 19:24. Six people are dead, a lot of people are injured. But the real nightmare of the day had not even begun.
INTERLUDE
It would seem that the collision has exhausted itself. Crowds of victors randomly roam the square and adjacent streets, wounded prisoners are handed over to the police - all this continues until at least half past seven. The football game ended, and several hundred more people joined the crowd.
Let us note that after five SMS mailings have already brought another wave of Maidan activists and sympathizers to Greece, and now they have come fresh forces. That is, a significant part of those present either no longer participated in the battle, but in finishing off the remnants of the "Odessa squad", or did not take part in the fight at all. Now these people need something to do with themselves. The occupation is located.
There is a fundamental difference between the two main episodes of the Odessa confrontation. The fighting at Athena is a fight that arose due to natural causes: both sides did not love each other very much, their routes intersected - a mass brawl could not help but start. Although the fight at the mall was brutal, all the deaths of this clash on both sides are on the conscience of a few people. Further events developed according to a different logic.
After the success of Athena, there was a hitch in the crowd of pro-Ukrainian activists, and the way they went from confusion to an organized march on the House of Trade Unions is one of the most important moments of the whole day.
The decision to go to the Kulikovo field was not spontaneous. The crowd was led by leaders, known by name, who had megaphones and turned on the crowd. These people gave the crowd direction. At least two people were involved in this process. The first is Mark Gordienko, one of the leaders of the Odessa Euromaidan. Back in March, he said literally the following: "We will shoot down all the separatists first of all, we will not fight with the Russians in the first place."
From the 29th second, Mark Gordienko tells who exactly he will shoot
To go to the Kulikovo field - that was exactly his call. The call of a man who had recently promised to kill the separatists.
Last seconds: Gordienko starts chanting "Kulikovo!"
Subsequently, Gordienko chose to tactfully keep silent about his role in this event. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta, he stated:
When the insurgent people won, we had a common cry to go to the Kulikovo field. That's why people went there. And where was he supposed to go after we defeated them at the Greek? It was a spontaneous mass movement. I saw all this and went to TV again to tell what happened, and so that people understand that there will be such a thing on Kulikovo.
About what to chant "Kulikovo!" he started himself, Mr. Gordienko fortunately forgot. For some reason, it seemed important to him to lie in this particular place. By the way, a year later, he, along with other such patriots, disrupted a mourning meeting in memory of the victims of the Kulikovo field.
The second reliably identified instigator was Andrey Yusov, head of the Odessa branch of Vitali Klitschko's UDAR party. It is interesting that the mention of this person as one of the organizers of the movement on Kulikovo was later included in the report of the Verkhovna Rada commission, but he was deleted from there - at the insistence of the People's Deputy "BLOW" Chernega. Meanwhile, Yusov not only invited them to go to the Kulikovo field, but also gave out very specific instructions: to line up in 6 people and move towards the camp.
Let's pay attention: in both cases, people at first do not look at all purposefully hurrying somewhere. By this time, the Maidanites already believed that they had won. However, the crowd needed to be turned on again - and it was turned on.
By the way, the photographer who was present on the spot, who gave one of the most detailed reports on the events (blogger napaki.livejournal.com), commented on what was happening on the Cathedral as follows:
At Soborka, people are gathering to go to Kulikovo Field, where there is a permanent camp of pro-Russian activists.
Keyword: "gather". We already know two of those collecting by their last names - perhaps someone else helped them.
This is important for the following reason: in the case of the Greek, we are talking about a head-on battle between the two sides. At the very least, Dolzhenkov's detachment walked to the place of the fight with their own feet. But in the case of the House of Trade Unions, one specific side attacked. And we are not talking about the spontaneous movement of a furious crowd. People are "gathered", lined up in a column of six, they have agitators and organizers. Later, at least one of these agitators lies to the journalist about his role in what is happening. The crowd makes a not so close way to the goal - from the Cathedral and "Athena" to the House of Trade Unions three kilometers, at least forty minutes on foot. In forty minutes any affect passes. By the way, a curious recording of the negotiations was subsequently published: Igor Bolyansky, an assistant to the governor, calls the head of the Maidan self-defense Dmitry Gumenyuk and suggests that he deploy people to Kulikovo field. It is not known exactly when this conversation took place. By the way, one more important point: both are already “in the know”, only the technical details of the crowd’s turn on Kulikovo are discussed, and not the idea itself.
That is, it was not an angry mob, controlled by its own arbitrariness, that set fire to the House of Trade Unions, but an organized column led by specific people.
What was going on at the Kulikovo field at that time? Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, Artem Davidchenko announced a fight on Grecheskaya - those who, for some reason, did not go there from the very beginning, went there in several parties. These are only a few dozen people, and, of course, they cannot turn the tide. With one of these groups, just "Boatswain" - Budko left. Some ended up at Athena, where they could not change anything, many returned.
Confusion reigned on the Kulikovo field. They offered to disperse, to defend themselves in the House of Trade Unions (the doors of which go directly to the square). In the meantime, the area of Kulikovo field left the already small policemen. Calls began from Grecheskaya: those who were there asked to scatter and warned that a huge horde of rioters was coming.
One of the activists described the audience:
It was clearly seen that on the Kulikovo field, the majority of the call-up was made by people who could not help in any way. There were a lot of elderly people, up to half of them were women. And even those men who were were, at best, armed with some kind of stick. And no protection, it was warm and people dressed lightly.
Deputy Vyacheslav Markin from the stage urged women to leave Kulikovo field. They refused. Moreover, there were people who ran to the Kulikovo field at the very last moment, having learned that the crowd was going to smash their camp. The people who ended up in the House of Trade Unions, for the most part, did not participate in the fight on Grecheskaya.
And the end of the day was approaching inexorably. After six o'clock, rumors appeared about the defeat of the "Odessa squad", and soon the beaten warriors really appeared - from those who managed to leave the battle.
Most of the leaders of the protest and the fighters who returned from the Greek urged to leave. Stanislav Kulta, who defended the "Athena" and left there at the end of the fight, recalled:
They began to take people away, because it was impossible to defend the House of Trade Unions without firearms. But either paid, or just fools began to yell that you need to stay there.
As a result, the Kulikovo people decide to lock themselves in the House of Trade Unions and use it to protect it. The front door is broken open, things from the tent camp are brought inside. There are still quite a few men in the square. A barricade of pallets, furniture and sandbags is built at the entrance to the building. A first-aid post is equipped inside, several firing points are placed, mainly equipped with bags of stones and bottles of combustible mixture (plus one or two hunting rifles for the entire DP, but that's all).
Davidchenko left during these preparations, but the “borotbist” Albu remained with the Kulikovo team. In general, people behaved very differently: someone left, someone was going to defend himself to the last drop of blood. By the time a crowd of thugs broke into the square, more than three hundred people had entered the House of Trade Unions. The clock was 19:20.
DEATH IN FIRE
The crowd begins to run into the square. There is a cry of "Everyone in the building!", and those who were still on the street take shelter inside. Just in time: the screaming horde is on its way.
The crowd that burst into the square, looking at a distance like a revived picture of a zombie apocalypse, begins to destroy tents and break property. Several people who did not have time or did not want to enter the building fell under this pogrom. One of them tried to fight back with an ax and a sapper shovel, but quickly ran away.
Almost immediately, the first Molotov cocktail flies towards the barricade in front of the stairs.
From the House of Trade Unions they begin to throw "Molotov cocktails" in response. At this moment, the journalist filming what is happening says: “What are they doing, now they will definitely be killed.”
Was the behavior of the Kulikovo people completely rational? No, it was not: the most reasonable thing in such a situation is to run. But only those who sincerely consider pro-Russian activists to be hired titushki can not understand how this happened. The anti-Maidanists really perceived their camp as the last frontier that should be defended at any cost, and they could not even imagine that they were going to be killed.
The tents on the field were smashed and burned, the scene was turned around, but now the rioters turned their attention to more interesting live prey.
A hail of stones and bottles of gasoline falls on the defenders of the barricade. Inside, they throw their Molotovs, shoot at least once from a gun, throw stones, but this is not even a drop in the ocean: there are too few combat-ready men inside. In the end, the barricade in front of the entrance was set on fire (this did not take much time) and the Kulikovo people began to retreat to the foyer.
At this moment, some groups of Maidan activists are trying to get inside through the side doors, but without much enthusiasm. The complex layout of the House of Trade Unions made it difficult to navigate - besides, they fought back with what they could from the inside, including bottles of gasoline. Then a couple of Molotovs, abandoned by anti-Maidanists right in the building, became an argument in favor of the version of self-immolation, but in fact, no other serious fires except the main one - in the lobby - were found. The direct assault failed, and, according to the attackers, one of them received a bullet wound in the leg.
The bitterness of the Kulikovo resistance will then be greatly overestimated. The pogromists outside calmly walked to their full height and were clearly not afraid of bullets and stones. In fact, very few people fought from the side of the defenders of the Democratic Party. Yes, there was some kind of weapon inside, but the shooters obviously had a meager amount of ammunition - otherwise the crowd would have suffered at least some noticeable losses.
The Kulikovo soldiers, who retreated into the vestibule, are throwing fragments of furniture and wooden pallets at the entrance, which they brought there before the battle. So far, there is no real fire, but the smoke is still strong: tents are blazing outside, one of which contains a liquefied gas cylinder, and bottles with a combustible mixture fly in a stream through windows and doors. Outside, they fire at the windows - at least from traumatic pistols. In general, firearms during the assault were clearly used much more intensively than can be seen on streams from the crime scene. On one of the recordings, intense firing is not visible, but audible - a dozen and a half shots, but it is impossible to understand who fired at whom.
At this point, the police and the State Emergency Service are already aware of what is happening. A certain number of security forces even arrived at the square at the very beginning of the fire. However, they survived the burning of living people stoically, interpreting the slogan “the police are with the people” in a peculiar way. The militiamen made no attempts to neutralize the killers. Even more surprising is the behavior of firefighters. The nearest fire station is located less than half a kilometer from the scene. The reaction to the burning House of Trade Unions is zero. The May 2 Group later made public the transcript of the conversations between the defenders of the DP and the air traffic controllers. The first call sounded at 19:31, the conversation is worthy of being reproduced in its entirety:
Hello, urgently drive up to the Kulikovo field, the tents are on fire, come to the building.
- Which building?
- Please leave.
- And where are you?
- Where am I? On the Kulikovo field, please leave (applicant screams)!
- I'm asking, are you standing in an open area?
Yes, in the open.
- Well, a tent caught fire in an open area and no longer threatens anything?
- Why don't you leave?
Subsequently, a more or less convincing explanation was found for the inaction of firefighters. The head of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odessa region, Bodelan, ordered to send equipment and people only at his command, but he did not give the command, according to him, due to the fact that the militants had already captured one fire truck. The commission of the Verkhovna Rada even reports that this is not just a whim of the head: allegedly, the representatives of the self-defense of the Maidan prevented the firefighters and gave the corridor only after negotiations.
The police did not try to separate the sides and neutralize the rioters. Firefighters did not go, despite the constant calls.
At 19:45, at least the fifth call to the fire service follows, and this time the applicant says: “They threw it into the building, and it starts to burn ... The trade union is already on fire inside.”
The fire started at 19:44. The attackers are throwing "Molotov cocktails" into different rooms on different floors, but the main source of ignition, which eventually killed people, is in the foyer. The fire is not allowed to die down: more and more bottles with a combustible mixture fly through the doors, and some rioter throws a burning tire into the lobby. This is also an interesting moment: the Euromaidan supporter carries his load slowly, almost solemnly, to his full height. In general, the behavior of the attackers perfectly shows the strength of resistance: the Kulikovo people were able to draw attention to themselves, but at least scare them - no longer. They shoot at the windows - it was then that shots were taken with the "centurion Mikola" scorching upwards.
7 seconds: a burning tire is brought into the building
For several minutes, the lobby slowly flared up. And then disaster struck.
According to independent expert Vladislav Balinsky, while the doors and the barricade in the lobby flared up, the walls and ceiling heated up and eventually boiled paint and drying oil. The doors burned out, the windows were smashed one after the other, traction appeared. As a result, in the area of the central staircase, which worked like a chimney, everything that could possibly burn at all flared up. The flame spread rapidly, the temperature near the fire rose to 600-700 degrees Celsius. People who were nearby died very quickly from open fire - in fact, they burned alive in the most literal sense. Others had to flee to the interior. It is at this moment that they start jumping out of the windows: it seems that this is better than burning out or suffocating.
Not for all. Those who have fallen receive severe injuries, including fatal ones, but their torment does not end there. An “activist” runs up to one of them, still alive, and begins to beat him with a stick. The victim moved. What happened to this man is unknown, but later, a local journalist, Sergei Dibrov, after analyzing later photographs and videos, came to the conclusion that the victim remained alive and at least received first aid.
No comment
From conversations with the fire department dispatcher at 19:57:
Girl, are you going to go or not?
- They're on their way, they'll be there soon.
- ... (sobbing into the phone) but we will burn now ...
It was at this moment that the human prevailed among some people from the crowd and they began to help the perishing. Probably, many of them are not rioters, but ordinary passers-by, but the defenders of the Democratic Party were also saved by some Euromaidan supporters. Someone throws a rope to the floors, the remains of the metal structures of the stage are dragged to the building and used as a ladder. Thanks to this help, a lot of people are saved from the parapet of the second floor. True, at the bottom of some of them they begin to beat. The last Molotov cocktail was thrown into the building at 20:08. The militiamen who did appear are pushing back the most zealous Maidanovites. At 20:15 firefighters arrive (400 meters they covered for half an hour!) and begin to shoot those who have not yet fallen out of the windows with the help of ladders.
Gradually, the survivors are taken out of the House of the Trade Union, which turns out to be quite a lot. Chaos is replaced by more or less orderly work of firefighters and police. In total, more than three hundred people were evacuated from the building. The police got some of the people off the roof, others were taken out of the rooms, untouched by fire and smoke. The last Kulikovo left the building only on the morning of May 3. They hid in the attic and were able to survive the fire.
Yelena, an activist in Kulikovo Pole, who set up an infirmary in the last minutes before the massacre, later told reporters how she, having escaped from the fire, was driven along the “corridor of shame”, insults were shouted, and searched in front of the policemen. In general, the fire in the House of Trade Unions highlighted the strange ambivalence of the behavior of the winners: some sincerely - and even at the risk to themselves - tried to bring out people whom they themselves had just set on fire, others gladly asserted themselves at the expense of burned, mutilated victims.
48 people died and died in hospitals. On Grecheskaya - two Euromaidan and four Kulikovo, on Kulikovo field - 42 Kulikovo. Of those killed in the House of Trade Unions, eight people crashed when falling from a height, the rest were poisoned by carbon monoxide, suffocated in the smoke or died from burns. All victims are citizens of Ukraine. Per medical care 247 people applied, including 27 with gunshot wounds.
Subsequently, the fire gave rise to many different myths, but for the most part these stories were not confirmed (first of all, this concerns the hundreds of dead). In the end, even the results of the post-mortem examination of the bodies were leaked to the network - and the main sensational conclusion is precisely that there were no sensations. The causes of death in the House of Trade Unions are fire and smoke in one form or another (open fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, smoke, combustion products) or falling from a height. Information about the use of chemical warfare agents was not confirmed. Information about strangulation and rape inside the building was also not confirmed. To be honest, an attempt to wind up unnecessary horrors around the Odessa tragedy only harms the cause. Forty people died, they died because the crowd threw bottles of gasoline at the House of Trade Unions - is this not enough to draw all the final conclusions about the killers and the state that indulged them?
That same evening, a group of Ukrainian fighters quietly liquidated a small camp on the memorial to the 411th battery.
One of the leaders of the hectic defense of the House of Trade Unions, Aleksey Albu, survived (later he ended up in the Ghost brigade), another, deputy of the regional council Vyacheslav Markin, died the next morning in the hospital from numerous fractures received when jumping from a window.
Activists with the inscription "Trident" on the shield do not deny themselves the pleasure of checking the car
Bullying of survivors from the House of Trade Unions
COLORADS
The reaction of the authorities and Ukrainian society to the events in Odessa turned out to be very characteristic. It all started with quite frank statements by the Odessa governor. Vladimir Nemirovsky already on the evening of May 2 announced on his Facebook: "The actions of the inhabitants of Odessa, aimed at neutralizing and detaining armed terrorists, are considered legal."
Against the backdrop of dozens of corpses, such a statement by a public politician already sounds wild. However, a wave of approving and joyful speeches by Ukrainian citizens about the tragedy overshadowed even this demarche. It cannot be said that all Ukrainians shared such a mood and joy about what was happening. A lot of people, including people who are far from pro-Russian sympathies, experienced shock and grief from what happened. Nevertheless, it was the conventionally patriotic part of Ukrainian society that turned out to be the most noticeable and loud - the patriots could not resist witty puns about “Colorado potato beetles that cannot fly”, about “kebabs for the May holidays”, “smoked hundred” and the like.
Odessa demonstrated that the Ukrainian society is not only not afraid of political terror with mass casualties, but also considers it a completely normal way of fighting. This is not a trifle: the ideological supporters of such methods soon appeared in the East of Ukraine with machine guns in their hands.
The majority of Ukrainians probably retained their human appearance, but this majority had only good intentions and a relatively clear conscience, but the radicals received everything - support from the authorities, organization, weapons, volunteer battalion uniforms, finally.
Applause in honor of the defeat of the Kulikovo field, broadcast by Savik Shuster
The media added colorful details to the picture. Ukrainian TV very quickly announced that the bulk of the dead were citizens of Russia and Transnistria. In itself an attempt to justify the lynching Russian citizenship is already interesting, but in the end, all the dead turned out to be from Odessa (except for two people from other regions of Ukraine). The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine issued the following statement:
From the upper floors, the attackers began throwing Molotov cocktails at civilians and firing at them with firearms. As a result of the use of "Molotov cocktails" by the attackers, a fire broke out, from the upper floors the flame spread to a significant area of the building and caused the death of more than 40 people.
Finally, politicians of the highest echelon instantly found the culprits. And about. President Turchinov announced that the riots in Odessa "were coordinated from one center, which is located in Russia," and. about. head of the presidential administration Pashinsky - that this is "a provocation by the FSB to divert attention from the conduct of the anti-terrorist operation", and the Foreign Ministry said that "the tragedy was a pre-planned action and generously paid for by the Russian special services."
The official investigation into the events in Odessa has been going on for two years. In parallel, non-governmental organizations and individuals conduct their own research. The most detailed of them is the investigation of the May 2 Group, which, despite the overall Euromaidan sympathies that clearly influence the interpretation of events, did a lot to establish the factual side of the case.
In addition, the result of the work of the commission of the Verkhovna Rada with a dissenting opinion of Svetlana Fabrikant deserves attention. However, this, of course, will not replace a full-fledged official investigation, about the course of which no one has yet said a single kind word.
From the very beginning, the Odessa authorities seemed to be deliberately trying to hinder the investigation. By the morning of May 3, the Grecheskaya area was cleared by public utilities, which immediately destroyed material evidence. The House of Trade Unions remained open for free visits for a month. The public was able to watch the streams from the ashes (“Well, it’s generally Romeo and Juliet,” the cameraman got to the corpses of a young man and a girl), and the Ukrainian authorities got the opportunity to do whatever they want with the crime scene. The weapon used to kill people on May 2 has not been found. And these are just a few arbitrarily taken examples of the negligent attitude of the investigation to the case. In September 2015, UN Special Rapporteur Christoph Heins stated that most of the evidence in the case of the events of May 2 was destroyed immediately after the crime.
In addition to the strange attitude to the material side of the investigation, the investigating authorities of Ukraine were noted for their peculiar approach to the suspects.
All officials suspected of the May 2 crimes were given the opportunity to escape. The head of the State Emergency Service of the Odessa region, Bodelan, whose subordinates ignored the calls of firefighters to the last, was put on the wanted list only in March 2016. Colonel Fuchedzhi also escaped.
Serhiy Khodiyak, an Euromaidan activist who shot at people with a hunting rifle, was released from custody, and the judge took the challenge under pressure from a group of Maidan activists led by People's Deputy of the Radical Party of Ukraine Mosiychuk. Vsevolod Goncharevsky remained at large due to lack of evidence, finishing off the Kulikovoites jumping from the windows with a stick.
Now only a few pro-Russian activists are in prison - their opponents are at large. At the same time, in the fall of 2015, the judges decided to allow the Russian suspects, including Dolzhenkov, to be released on bail. Representatives of the "Right Sector", "Automaidan" and a number of other organizations came to the court - and to the court itself. The participants in the process were so impressed by the people in paramilitary uniforms that three judges wrote their resignations at once.
It is characteristic that if the Ukrainians are investigating anything, then only the events on the Greek. The investigation preferred to simply brush aside the House of Trade Unions. So, the head of the Odessa Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination, Grigory Krivda, said that he had no information about beaten people:
We have no data on those who died from injuries caused by clubs, rebar - these are blunt oblong objects. We were asked such questions - we focused on these questions. 8 people fell from a height, they received severe bodily injuries, Markin received severe bodily injuries, but we have no injuries that could indicate that they were beaten. To say that some extraneous hand or some evil forces caused damage, we have no reason. And among the victims who are in the hospital, the same picture.
This despite the fact that the beating of at least one person who jumped out the window was filmed.
The cause of the fire, according to the Ukrainian law enforcement officers, fits into the immortal "burned themselves." "The Prosecutor General's Office believes that there is no evidence of a deliberate organization of a fire in the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014," said First Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Guzyr.
The ISG believes that in each of the proceedings the investigating authorities did not show due completeness and thoroughness - both at the stage of initiating the proceedings and during its further investigation, as a result of which the overall effectiveness of the investigations was jeopardized. (…)
Although the riots occurred during a conflict between two groups of activists who opposed each other, a year after the events, all but one of the 23 suspects ... belong to supporters of federalization.
All of these suspects were in custody, and seven of them have been there to this day since their arrest. However, only three supporters of unity - another conflicting group - were notified of the suspicion.
None of them was placed under house arrest or released on personal bond. When the deadlines for applying these measures expired, no other measure of restraint was chosen for these persons, although they were charged, among other things, with murder and attempted murder.
In addition, the CE noted that the police actions were investigated by the police themselves, the firefighters were inactive with the knowledge and order of the head of the fire service, but it is impossible to bring him to justice, since he has already disappeared, the Ministry of Internal Affairs deliberately falsifies documents about his actions - and so on.
The Ukrainians, of course, said that "the arguments of the Council of Europe pour water on the mill of Russian propaganda."
Well, the comment of the American diplomat Samantha Power turned out to be completely unexpected:
The investigation of serious crimes during the Maidan or in Odessa, unfortunately, ran into great obstacles, not only because of a lack of competence, but also because of the unwillingness to hold accountable those who carried it out.
From the quality of the investigation of the Odessa tragedy, quite unambiguous impressions remain. No one was going to establish the truth, it is no longer possible to bring the perpetrators to justice under the law. Instead, the Ukrainians appointed the defenders of the House of Trade Unions themselves as scapegoats. Odessa is a marker, a symbol of political terror: "In general, you can't burn people, but you can and even need to burn agents of the Kremlin."
Then it became a habit among Ukrainians - they fundamentally do not investigate high-profile politically tinged crimes. "This is a cannibal, but this is our cannibal" as a new foundation of law - that's the whole Ukrainian judicial reform.
The phrase “Odessa Khatyn” is extremely disliked by pro-Ukrainian commentators, but this is a metaphor. We should be interested in another question: was the murder in the House of Trade Unions premeditated?
We find no traces of a conspiracy to mass murder. Even Yusov and Gordienko did not call to go and kill more people on Kulikovo. Moreover, such plans could not be hatched, for example, by Nemirovsky, for whom the massacre eventually planted a huge bloody stain on his jacket. Yes, the new owners of Odessa wanted to destroy the camp, but in such matters it is very easy to overdo it and instead of several broken heads get a mountain of corpses. Did the Ukrainian leaders know that people could die? Of course, they knew, but they treated such a threat philosophically: chips fly.
Another thing is the direct participants in the burning. And here we cannot get away from the obvious fact: yes. Yes, the mob wanted to kill people in the House of Trade Unions. You can't pelt a building with gasoline bottles and not know it's going to burn down. On the DP (this is confirmed by absolutely all available information - videos, testimonies of witnesses) a downpour of "Molotov cocktails" fell. People who continue to insist that the building was set on fire by accident are lying - at best to others, and at worst to themselves. Not only that: those who survived were beaten, and beaten severely, and this also got on video. In the photographs, most have at least broken heads.
The crowd outside understood that the people inside would die, wanted it and could justify it with patriotism, provocation, games of politicians, whatever. The House of Trade Unions is a classic case of bloodshed with the clean hands of the organizers and the clean conscience of the performers.
“But after all, the Euromaidanites not only killed, but also saved people!” - Yes it's true. Does it matter? Yes, it's important. Any crowd is characterized by mood swings, any crowd consists of individuals, and the excitement of a fight can be replaced by natural human feelings. But from the fact that some militants, in a fit of shame, set up a ladder for burning people, 42 corpses will not go anywhere. If the Euromaidanites had not saved the dying, there would have been more victims. If the Euromaidanites had not gone to burn the Democratic Party, there would have been no victims at all.
Once again: this is a purposeful, meaningful action. The winners walked three kilometers from Athena. The rage passed, they understood very well what they were doing. The loss of life on May 2 is the result of deliberate efforts.
The pro-Ukrainian version of the events in Odessa looks not just controversial, but openly mocking. The governor accidentally promised to clear the square by May 9th. Several hundred militants from other cities accidentally ended up in Odessa, standing at checkpoints that no one needed. Then people from Kyiv accidentally came to the peaceful march, in combat gear and with Molotovs. Then, 300 distraught suicides accidentally attacked a crowd of 2-3 thousand people (exactly as before in Kharkov). The police happened to be doing other things. Euromaidanists accidentally made complex tactical maneuvers. Under the leadership of politicians who happened to be nearby, who a little earlier accidentally promised to kill the separatists. Then they randomly lined up in a column of six and accidentally went to the Kulikovo field. And, finally, they accidentally bombarded a building with living people inside with Molotovs.
Such is the "tragic accident" in Ukrainian. However, the House of Trade Unions already went beyond any human logic. Those fleeing the fire were finished off with sticks, and then jokes about barbecue were joyfully joked. Soon, the merry pogromists got their hands on weapons, and this was no secret to anyone. Probably, many of the then wits would have preferred to rejoice less defiantly if they had imagined the results of their wit - the mobilization of Donbass and Russians on a wave of horror and rage that the Odessa murder gave rise to.
It makes no sense to explain that Odessa is a triumph of bestiality. But Odessa, among other things, showed that idiocy and bestiality are not justified as a strategy, that idiocy and bestiality ricochet on the brutalized themselves. Two years have passed, but Odessa has remained a symbol of stupid cruelty and a very eloquent demonstration of what stupid cruelty leads to. True, this lesson was not learned, and on the Ukrainian side they preferred to brush aside reality, considering that there are problems and more important than the opinion of unburned quilted jackets. The trouble is that reality, which Kyiv so easily dismissed, in a matter of weeks began to shoot from all guns. Surprisingly, no one has noticed a direct connection between the burning people in Odessa in May and the burning BMD in Shakhtersk in July. Later, the Ukrainian - and quite patriotic - journalist Sergei Dibrov said in desperation:
Read at least the news of the last week. Citizens who fought on the side of the DPR were detained in Spain - they say they went to Ukraine after the events of May 2 in Odessa. A young man from Buryatia, from Ulan-Ude, a contract soldier, did not mind sending him to the Donbass, was a tank gunner, shot at Ukrainian soldiers, was seriously injured. Lying in the hospital, he says that he was shocked by the events of May 2, and this greatly influenced his attitude towards the events in Ukraine. In Odessa, the “Vadim Papura Detachment” took responsibility for the attempt to blow up the train - this young man died in the House of Trade Unions, and the causes of his death have not yet been made public.
Artem Sushchevsky, once a resident of Makeevka, wrote bitterly about his former fellow citizens:
I can repeat as much as I like that no, that far from everyone in Ukraine is stubborn, that the majority have always been and remain normal people, and I say this with complete confidence, and I do not prevaricate at all. One "but" - these normal people live quietly with Odessa - with the same Odessa, which on May 2 will be two years old. And also with the shelling of Donetsk - they also somehow live with them. And in general, they are forced to put up with this shameful war - consoling themselves with fairy tales about the Russian invasion. But I can't live with those who live like this. Do not care how - if only not with you.
Finally, the Donbass militias spoke about this in no uncertain terms:
People began to perceive the Ukrainian soldier not as a victim, an unfortunate boy who, by the will of the oligarchs, was forced to take up arms and go to a war he did not need, but as an executioner. I was one of those Russian nationalists who felt a certain reverence for both the “revolution of dignity” and the increased sense of national self-consciousness of Ukrainians. On May 2, I watched video footage of Russian people jumping out of the burning House of Trade Unions, I watched ordinary Ukrainians in the comments joking merrily about “fried colorados” and “Odessa shish kebabs”. I looked at all this and could not believe that this could happen at all, the brain simply refused to perceive this information. After that, I packed my things, settled things, contacted Sasha Zhuchkovsky and went to the Donbass. After this tragedy, I understood an important thing - you cannot negotiate with the Mazepins, you can only speak with them in the language of bullets.
Once in the militia, I was surprised to learn that it was not for me alone that May 2 became the starting point. Separately, it is worth talking about the Odessans who came to the militia after the tragedy. For these people, lofty ideas like “reunification of the Russian people within its historical borders” played a very small role, grandiloquent words such as “Russian irredenta” also did not affect their worldview in any way. They came to take revenge on the Ukrainians for their compatriots. And this is one of the most terrible markers of a civil war, when a person begins to fight not for the victory of his idea, but for the extermination of the enemy. Odessans came to fight in the Donbass not for the ideas of the Russian Spring, but to see the death of Ukrainians, for whom they became personal enemies. If a former Maidanovite or a militant of volunteer battalions was captured by an Odessa citizen, he had a hard time ...
Before the tragedy, even the most ardent "separas" did not have a personal dislike for the Ukrainians. Yes, they hated this state and everything connected with it, but after May 2, the attitude towards the Ukrainian nation changed dramatically. Now everyone loyal to the yellow-blakyth flag was considered an accomplice of the killers.
There is nothing more to say.
P.S. While the public is hovering around Nadezhda Savchenko, Igor Astakhov, one of the participants in the fighting from the Russian side, died in the Odessa pre-trial detention center. He did not go on hunger strikes, the press did not shed tears over him. He simply died at forty-eight in a prison hospital from heart failure. There are still people in the pre-trial detention center - of course, those who fought for the Russians two years ago. Meanwhile, parts of the Azov regiment with armored vehicles entered Odessa - according to official data, to ensure security.
In the 20th century, relations between the USSR and China looked cloudless for some time. The two largest socialist countries were in close alliance, the USSR provided China with a variety of assistance - economic, technical, military. However, in 1969 an armed conflict unfolded between the states.
№8 (8) 2017
Defense of Stalingrad. How the Greatest Battle of World War II Began
Starting the war against the USSR, the German command planned to complete the hostilities during one short campaign. However, during the winter battle of 1941-1942. the Wehrmacht was defeated and was forced to surrender part of the occupied territory. By the spring of 1942, in turn, the counter-offensive of the Red Army had stopped, and the headquarters of both sides began to develop plans for summer battles.
№1 (11) 2018
Ring "Uranus". The defeat of the German army at Stalingrad
The first German attempts to take Stalingrad failed, but the commander of the 6th Army, F. Paulus, did not give up hope of capturing the city. Within two months, the German troops successively carried out a whole series of assaults, gradually drawing almost all of their reserves into the fighting on the streets.
№4 (14) 2018
Assault on the citadels
On May 6, 1945, the German garrison of Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) laid down their arms in Silesia. 40 thousand soldiers of the Wehrmacht, SS and Volkssturm surrendered to the Soviet troops. Breslau was not just a besieged city: in Silesia, the epic of the Festungs ended - the fortresses of the Third Reich, the creation of which became one of the most controversial strategic ideas of the Nazi command in the entire war.
Since the situation began to rapidly change for the worse by the beginning of July, the militias began to prepare in detail for a breakthrough. For obvious reasons, there was no need to wait for a deblocking blow from the outside. Accordingly, it was necessary to independently pull yourself out of the boiler by the hair. The looseness of the encirclement played into the hands of the rebels: Ukrainian troops intercepted the main exits from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, but there was still the possibility, at least in the dark, to break out of the cities by country roads.
The decision needed to be made quickly: the sealing of the ring would be a matter of time, and literally in a couple of days any breakthrough would lead to a mass beating of the outgoing columns by artillery fire and even by Ukrainian infantry.
It was decided to organize the withdrawal in two stages. First, the militias "collapsed" the defense center in Slavyansk itself and its suburbs, making their way to Kramatorsk, and then they gathered the detachments defending in Kramatorsk and went further south: to Gorlovka and Donetsk.
Why south? In principle, not so far to the east were very combat-ready detachments under the command of Mozgovoy, who fought in the Lisichansk region. But just to the east of Slavyansk, the main battles were going on last days and there was the strongest grouping of Ukrainian troops. It was not part of the plans of the militia commanders to meet with a dense barrier, so the encirclement nevertheless advanced through Kramatorsk, the ring around which was not so dense. It was not necessary to get to it through the main road, since the Ukrainians had already managed to establish a stronghold on the main road.
The plan provided for a separate distraction strike by the forces of an impromptu armored group. Two tanks and light armored vehicles were to destroy the checkpoint of the Ukrainian troops on the main road to Kramatorsk, and then leave the fields to join the main forces.
The operation was prepared in deep secrecy. Even on the evening of the fourth day, the bulk of the fighters were still in the dark about the immediate plans of the commanders. Some militiamen from Kramatorsk, for example, believed that the movement of militia groups was intended to draw forces to Kramatorsk for the impending attack on the airport. Secrecy was not an idle affair: had the Ukrainian military been confident that a breakthrough would happen any day now, they would no doubt have increased pressure on the defensive redoubts of the militias and made efforts to strengthen the perimeter. Even the simplest measures, such as an extra minefield on a country road, could lead the breaking through units to disaster. In preparation for the breakthrough, rebel detachments from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk advanced towards each other to establish control over the country roads. Not everything went smoothly. Cellular communication did not work, and there were not enough walkie-talkies, so several short "friendly" firefights spontaneously took place at the meeting point.
The order for a general withdrawal followed on the night of the fifth and caused shock among many fighters. Do not forget that most of the militias were local residents and for them the surrender of the city meant literally leaving their homes and fatherly graves. Local fighters left most often with their families, transport was taken care of for them. Sympathizers of the DPR were also leaving: they rightly did not expect anything good from the Ukrainian troops, and even more so from the security services. For such a caravan with a mass of civilians, a significant amount of fuel and vehicles were required. Due to lack of fuel and mechanical breakdowns, some of the armored vehicles and some of the supplies had to be abandoned. Among other things, a stack of defective anti-tank missiles was left, which were later proudly displayed as trophies.
The exit from the city by country roads began around midnight. They walked along country roads with their headlights turned off: the illumination would inevitably attract the attention of the enemy. The bulk of the cars in the convoy were civilian cars, and some of them broke down on the road: in the dark it was easy to run into a stone. We spent the night in Kramatorsk, and in the morning the column with the bulk of people and equipment went south, to Donetsk, and special search groups went on the route to look for the stragglers. At dawn, the garrison of Semyonovka set out on foot to Kramatorsk. These people covered the retreat and pretended to be active so that the enemy would not notice the strange emptiness in his trap. A few days later, a detachment of Motorola came from Nikolaevka to the rest. All these units were also loaded onto the existing transport and left for Donetsk. The exception was some small groups, including the detachment of the notorious "Babai". This commander arbitrarily took his people to the Lugansk region, and later simply left the theater of operations, going on business to the Crimea. We have to admit that a photogenic militant is not always a good officer. To the honor of the militias, very few people followed his example: the backbone of the Babai detachment continued to fight near Lugansk.
While a column of militias and civilians went out along the country roads to Kramatorsk, the battle was in full swing on the main highway between Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. An armored group of rebels was sent to deliver a diversionary strike against the stronghold of the Ukrainians near the stele on the outskirts of Slovyansk. The fate of this group was sad. It is quite difficult to accurately reconstruct the course of the last battle of an armored group. According to media reports and descriptions of the fight from the Ukrainian side, the following picture comes out. The checkpoint was defended by more than 70 people: police special forces and paratroopers. On the night of the breakthrough, they intercepted a passenger car, capturing four people alive, including two militia women. The detail is unusual, besides, the captured girls were later shown on TV, so, apparently, this episode is reliable. The prisoners showed that in the near future a blow could be struck at the checkpoint. Soon, a detachment of rebels in armored vehicles actually showed up against the checkpoint. The first move was for the militias: the tank knocked out the Ukrainian BMD. During the battle that began, a militia tank and BMD were destroyed in close combat from a grenade launcher, several more pieces of equipment went out of order under artillery fire, which was supported by a checkpoint from Karachun, and another BMD was seriously damaged on the Ukrainian side. At least one BMP of the militia was blown up by an anti-tank mine, another tank fell into a deep ditch in the dark and was abandoned. The total losses of the militias in armored vehicles amounted to two tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles and a BMD. Apparently, the armored vehicles were trying to make their way straight down the road instead of going through the fields, and it was probably this mistake that cost the lives of people from the diverting group.
With the naked eye, you can see the contrast between the battles of just a week ago and the clash at the stele on the night of the breakthrough. Indeed, such a dissimilarity requires an explanation: until recently, in the same sector, the Ukrainian checkpoint gave in to just engineering vehicles, and the Rybkhoz stronghold was simply trampled by a tank attack, but now the Ukrainians acted decisively and very professionally.
It should not be forgotten that both sides learn from war. With all the shortcomings of the Ukrainian officer corps and the weakness of the mass of soldiers, people tend to learn from mistakes.
Having received several painful slaps in the face, the “viiskys” nevertheless established interaction between forward posts and artillery, the post was reinforced with anti-tank weapons, and the officers for such an important position, apparently, were deliberately chosen: the commander of the stronghold, who successfully fired at the tank from a grenade launcher, was a veteran of hot points in the composition of the Soviet troops. All these circumstances predetermined the defeat of the militia armored detachment.
Later, information spread on the network, according to which the armored vehicles, knocked out in the night battle, belonged to the Ukrainian troops. Apparently, this version owes its appearance to the nature of the battle: in the dark they fought shortly and the skeletons of dead fighting vehicles of the rebels and Ukrainians were found in the morning by journalists standing interspersed, at least at a short distance from each other.
Be that as it may, the militia armored group died, but did exactly what was required of it: it distracted the artillery group of Ukrainian troops, showed activity not at all where the main events took place and, thus, allowed the rest to leave.
In the meantime, along the highway in the direction of Donetsk, those to whom the soldiers of the distracting group had bought life were driving. This march bore little resemblance to the flight of a defeated army. The cars moved in an orderly manner. The armor protected trucks with foot soldiers. Self-made anti-aircraft installations from automatic cannons on trucks covered the convoy from the air. These people and their commanders had reason to be proud. In April, a detachment of several dozen people arrived in Slavyansk with a meager amount of small arms. Now a full-fledged regiment was marching along the sun-drenched highway to Donetsk. Went on captured equipment. These people could not win where it was impossible to win, but they retained their combat capability and fighting spirit. Victory, as we now know, was not far off for them. Now it is impossible to say whether they will enter Slavyansk again. Already entered into history.
Human losses in the course of the breakthrough turned out to be moderate and they were mainly people from the dead armored group. Speculation about the allegedly huge losses during the exit from Slavyansk, which spread after the breakthrough, can be safely dismissed. In our century, it is possible to manipulate specific numbers of losses, but the death of a significant number of rebels, of course, would have been noticed, and dozens and hundreds of photographs with corpses lying in the fields and burnt equipment would have been surfed on the Internet, especially since the battlefield went to the Ukrainians. For comparison: the defeat of the Ukrainian troops in August-September was captured, without exaggeration, in thousands of photographs and videos. In this case, exactly what was recognized by the militias immediately after the breakthrough hit the lenses: the death of an armored group of five vehicles and small losses on the march (in particular, in the video filmed on the highway, a damaged truck flashes in the frame). The trophies of the Ukrainian troops are also not very impressive. In total, when leaving Slavyansk, the militias lost, according to some estimates, about a dozen units various equipment, both captured and delivered from the "mainland", including the Nona, finally exploited at the end of the siege with a damaged undercarriage, two or three engineering vehicles, two or three tanks and several armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles.
Initially, this equipment belonged to the armed forces of Ukraine itself and was captured in battles or in the warehouses of Ukrainian troops. Apparently, there was simply not enough fuel to evacuate all the cars. Very few other weapons were left. The Ukrainian press showed the same pile of defective missiles for lack of a better one, and at the luxurious exhibition of captured equipment arranged in Kyiv, the Nona and the tank pulled out of the ditch remained white crows next to the empty tubes from the "bumblebees", visibly broken by the former MANPADS and a cannon from the Second World War with the inscription "Property of the Museum".
As a military operation, the breakthrough from Slavyansk is worthy of the most excellent epithets. The defeat of the armored group should not obscure the fact that the vast majority of the fighters, 90% of the garrison, left the fortress under their own power with weapons in their hands, withdrawing a significant part of the military equipment and almost all transport.
Such a breakthrough requires an accurate calculation of the place and time of the strike and the excellent organization of different militia groups. In modern military history there are not too many examples of such successful breakthroughs from the environment.
For example, an attempt by Chechen fighters to break out of Grozny in the winter of 1999/2000, as you know, ended in painful losses for the retreating, the death of a number of field commanders, and a severe wound to the commander. Even more obvious is the contrast with the encirclement Ukrainian troops found themselves in in July and August. Attempts by the Ukrainian army to break out of the boilers at the end of summer and autumn inevitably led to a monstrous defeat of the encircled during the breakthrough. Thus, a successful independent exit from the environment without a deblocking blow from the outside looks like a brilliant success on the verge of a miracle. The talent of the commander and the qualities of the soldiers are most fully highlighted not by victory, but precisely by a critical situation, actions in an acute situation. It is impossible to deny that the militias passed this "exam" successfully.
It should be noted the exceptionally accurate choice of the moment for the breakthrough. Slavyansk did not give up as long as there was a real opportunity to hold it, but was abandoned immediately after the interception of the last serious roads along which it was possible to receive supplies. The city was surrendered exactly at the moment when its further retention began to threaten the complete death of the garrison in the coming days. Yes, it was possible to resist and hold Slavyansk for about a week, and after that Kramatorsk would have held out for several days. Undoubtedly, even in conditions of dense encirclement, Ukrainian troops going to attack would have to pay a real price for success. But I don’t even want to think about the fate of the population in the implementation of such a scenario, and besides, the final assault would inevitably result in the complete destruction of the garrison. Unlike the Ukrainian armed forces, which, as it turned out in practice, can lose several thousand soldiers killed and captured in a chain of boilers and then continue to fight calmly, for the militia, the loss of one and a half thousand best soldiers would be a complete disaster, casting doubt on the possibility of a successful continuation war.
The main prize of the siege for the "Zbroynye forces" was not to be the ruins, but the heads of the militias and personally Strelkov, Petrovsky, "Motorola".
However, this time Crassus was not worthy of his Spartacus. Yes, the death of those surrounded would be a plot worthy of Shakespeare's tragedy. However, from the point of view of the interests of the war and victory, the Slavic garrison did everything absolutely right. The occupation of Slavyansk became the starting point for the insurrectionary movement in April, in July it had to be abandoned in order to give this movement a chance to survive.
On the Ukrainian side, of course, what happened was perceived as a magnificent victory. However, people who saw the tank not only on YouTube were skeptical about the result of the siege. For example, one of the soldiers of the National Guard emotionally expressed an opinion from the front line: “The brave generals once again ignored intelligence and analysts and missed the opportunity to cover the bulk of the Slavic militants, their armored vehicles and leader. But out of stupidity or intentionally, this is a question.
Of course, with the surrender of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, Novorossia received a heavy blow. The meaning of the "Slavic shield" manifested itself immediately. The departure from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk caused the rapid abandonment of Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka along the chain. Then, due to the loss of this area, the ledge in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk came under flank attack - these cities were also abandoned after intense fighting by the Mozgovoy detachment. Subsequently, the Ukrainian offensive even reached the transport hub of Debaltseve, the most important crossroads connecting Donetsk and Lugansk. However, Strelkov had a simple and cruel choice: surrender Slavyansk or surrender Slavyansk with a garrison, and he chose the surrender of bare walls, minimizing the consequences of defeat. However, the defeat itself was still serious. From an operational point of view, for the Ukrainian troops, the entry into Slavyansk was a serious success, significantly bringing the final defeat of the rebel republics closer. As everyone knows very well, even now, after a series of painful defeats of the Ukrainian troops, Slavyansk and the cities left as a result of its surrender are held by the Zbroynye forces.
After the retreat to Donetsk, Strelkov led the combined forces of the DPR and began to vigorously lead the defense of the capital of the republic. However, the leader of the militia was struck by an unexpected blow. Being a recognized authority as a field commander, Strelkov could not resist the intrigue, the background of which is not known exactly at the moment. The facts are that, for a start, an attempt was organized to defame Strelkov by the well-known political scientist S.E. Kurginyan. Strelkov was accused of vain surrender of Slavyansk and almost betrayal. An attempt to discredit the head of the militia completely failed: Strelkov enjoyed (and still enjoys) great authority among the rebels, and in the eyes of Russian society he became a war hero, so loud statements led to the collapse of the reputation of only Kurginyan himself: the ink dirty trick tried to try on the uniform of the political instructor Mekhlis without much success, and the speeches of the fierce old man against the backdrop of military paraphernalia looked simply comical. However, further intrigues on the part of politicians in Novorossiya and the Russian Federation (most often they were associated with the name of Vladislav Surkov, the odious assistant to the President of Russia) led to the fact that Strelkov himself left the post of commander of the militia, preparing the upcoming DNR counteroffensive, but never reaped its fruits. A flagrant injustice, but not the first time that a servant to the king and a father to soldiers turns out to be not a clever enough courtesan. A historian by education, Strelkov, presumably, would have found much in common with the unenviable fate of characters like Scipio or Belisarius, whose careers were interrupted by court intrigues. The undercover struggle in the Third Rome is no higher from a moral point of view than in the first two. However, to write off Igor Ivanovich as a figure of the Donbass and Russian politics obviously premature and there is no doubt that we will hear about it many times.
Nevertheless, the stubborn defense of Slavyansk won the main thing for Novorossia - time. As it soon became clear, precious weeks were not wasted. Novorossia managed to form quite numerous detachments, which soon managed to inflict a number of severe defeats on the Ukrainian troops.
During the siege, the Russian-Ukrainian border was opened, through which weapons and equipment began to leak. Managed to grab enough a large number of military units of the armed forces of Ukraine, including large warehouses. Undoubtedly, if the garrison of Slavyansk had somehow been defeated, for example, in May, further operations of the Ukrainian troops would have developed much easier. As the experience of Mariupol showed, a small and undertrained militia group could fall victim even to some frankly wretched battalion "Ukraine", whose soldiers looked more like gangsters, but who were simply too many. Now, the Zbroyny forces had to slowly make their way through the cities, stubbornly defended by well-armed people. In addition, the “Slavs” became a kind of guard of the forces of Novorossia. Subsequently, the detachments, hardened in the fire of the siege, played a serious role in the counteroffensive of the militia. Veterans of Slavyansk most actively participated in the battles that ended in the largest victories of the rebels: they also participated in locking Ukrainian troops in a bag east of the Saur-Mogila height, and in heavy battles for Shakhtyorsk, and surrounded by a large group of unlucky "anti-terrorists" near Ilovaisk.
From outside, the defense of Slavyansk looks amazing. The detachment, which never reached even two thousand bayonets and was armed at the start only with what an infantryman could carry, held a small agglomeration for two and a half months, having against itself an army that possessed the entire spectrum of military equipment and was an order of magnitude superior in number, and as a result left with moderate own losses. The reasons remain to be sought in the qualitative composition of the opposing sides. The basis of the Ukrainian contingent were conscripts with low level training and fighting spirit. Volunteer units were more ready to fight than others, but in terms of tactical skills they did not differ for the better from ordinary motorized rifle or airborne units.
The officers of the Ukrainian troops were people who served for a quarter of a century in conditions where war does not look really likely. Considering that they successfully traded weapons with the militias, but failed to establish either interaction between units or intelligence, we have to admit: a caricatured Soviet ensign has become a role model and a role model for a significant part of the Ukrainian officer corps.
The fact that some warrant officers had generals' stars on shoulder straps did not change the essence of the matter: a significant number of Ukrainian officers in combat conditions demonstrated a mixture of irresponsibility and incompetence. These people made a lot of mistakes, regularly being powerless in the face of the most elementary means of struggle. In the Ukrainian war, we saw helicopters that did not bother to use heat traps, officers setting up strongholds in the image and likeness of a gypsy camp without trenches and sentries, generals delivering soldiers by plane to the airport, around which militias sat down with MANPADS in their hands, etc. . etc. On the opposite side, in Slavyansk, there were people led by officers with real rich combat experience, and both commanders and soldiers did not consist of conscripts forcibly rounded up on the agenda and conscription, but of volunteers, that is, by default, better motivated soldiers. Twenty-three years of ignoring the needs of their own army and turning it into a breeding ground for corrupt officials, who sell the defense capability of their homeland like Chinese pants, cost the Ukrainian side dearly. Here, of course, it should be noted that it would be the greatest mistake to despise the Ukrainian soldiers. Slavyansk became a place where not only the militias, but also their opponents, got bumps and gained invaluable fighting experience. One way or another, Ukrainian soldiers and junior commanders were trained by the best teacher - real combat experience. And the sad fate of the militia armored group that died during the breakthrough clearly demonstrates the presence of good soldiers on the Ukrainian side of the front. On the other hand, it is now difficult to say whether any conclusions were drawn from the incident by the Ukrainian military of the highest rank. These people showed a low level of qualification not only during the siege of Slavyansk, but also after its completion.
If at the end of May and June the command of the besieging troops nevertheless picked up the correct solution to the Slavic problem by brute force, then the offensives of July and August looked like a stunning outrage on operational art. Narva can be turned into Poltava, but this still requires awareness of one's own mistakes and careful work to eliminate them. The operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after Slavyansk did not give the slightest reason to suspect the Ukrainian generals of being ready to learn from mistakes and even forced part of the Ukrainian society to assume “malice”, betrayal in the headquarters.
It is impossible to predict how the siege of Slavyansk will be interpreted in the future. To date, even many of the actual details of the siege are not known exactly. But, of course, a vivid plot national history Slavyansk has already become. In conditions when the Ukrainian state acted exclusively with fire and sword, and the Russian state was not at all eager to actively support the rebels, the society of Donbass and Russia itself turned out to be the main driving force of resistance. Despite the fact that for the Ukrainian side the intrigues of the Russian special services and armed forces serve as a universal explanation for all phenomena in the world, Slavyansk is obviously not the case. Russian assistance was almost entirely provided by people of good will who privately raised funds to help the insurgency, and even personally took up a machine gun. Whether we want to admit it or not, it was not the Russian state that fought and is fighting in the Donbass, but the Russian society. Even later, when arms and ammunition poured into the Donbass, the key element of any weapon - the people using it - consisted almost entirely of non-professional military Russian army, but of those who were ready to risk themselves for the sake of their ideals or retribution for the dead loved ones. These people have already shown themselves capable of successfully waging war, and one would like to hope that when the hostilities are over, they will be at least as successful in organizing a peaceful life.