Sometimes they return

What makes the militias leave the Donbass what they do in Russia and whether there are former supporters of New Russia in Syria

More and more Russians who fought in Ukraine on the side of the separatists go back, home. They are disappointed with the lack of intensive hostilities and do not want to participate in the local elite political games. Former militias talk about suspicious murders of independent commanders, corruption and complete absence of confidence in the leaders of Novorossia.

See the Euphrates and die

“I am a Russian nationalist, and the protection of my own people is a priority. Here, as they say, he called himself a load-climb into the body, ”said Maxim Trifonov, a 26-year-old militia from St. Petersburg, undermined on September 22 on the coast of Euphrates in an interview with the right-wing edition of St. Petersburg. In the charred body, only a helmet and a piece of strip with a flag of Novorossia was found.

“Max, together with a comrade, mistaken Bolshak and went to Euphrates. Literally two minutes later at the entrance to the bridge (rode along the shore without light), a landmine worked. Presumably, they blew him remotely from the other side. The car flew into the river, some slurred scraps remained from the guys. Such a tragic story. The first volunteer from Russia, the first death. Fugasa spit on, where are you from, ”wrote the special corner of the Federal News Agency Kirill Obter, which is now in Iraq, in VKontakte.

Normann is bored without war , Ukraine, Donetsk

Everything that remains after the explosion , Syria, September 2015

Famous under the call sign of Normann, this fall, he was in Ukraine and published on Twitter photos of militias against the backdrop of landscapes of the autumn Donbass. For the LPR he began to fight almost immediately after the introduction of Russian troops into the Crimea, and began to reflect on a possible trip to the Middle East since mid -August.

“Such heat, it is impossible to work. All I take a vacation, go to Syria. It will be cool there, ”he wrote in a joke, or seriously.

What exactly did Normann do so far from the Donbass are unknown for certain. Former opponents call him almost the first Russian mercenary in Syria. Companions say that the militia left not to fight the Islamic State*, but to shoot video reports. Normann's last words reached his friends on October 1. In the group "Diary" on his behalf the post was published, the timer of the postponed publication worked. In the record, he writes about his disappointment in the struggle for the independence of Donbass.

“Fighting may still continue, but there will be no war. While you screamed on the Internet about the "plum", it occurred in real life. All the victims were in vain. Forgive us. We did not understand this right away. While we were real at the front, our enemy defeated us at the political front. Many of us - nationalists, militias, patriots - left the hospitable lands of Novorossiya - we are no longer needed here, as the military we fulfilled our duty. Politically we lost and now undesirable guests in the Donbass. ”

As a soldier-liberator

In the war in the life of Evgeny Sergeyev, there was a meaning , the surroundings of Donetsk, Ukraine, summer of 2014

Similar feelings remained with the former militia of the LPR, and now the usual 39-year-old office employee Evgeny Sergeyev.

“I saw with my own eyes an evil will to enslave the population from our ruling regime. I saw all the destructiveness and decarction of propaganda. Began to appreciate such ridiculous things as freedom of speech, human rights and the right to inviolability of private property. When they are not, this is just a dark Middle Ages. In fact, they had to be lost in order to begin to value real. I also saw all the fragility of society. His conventionality and unsteadiness. Violence decides everything, unfortunately, ”he says NT about how Novorossia changed him.

In the winter of 2013–2014, the arbitration manager from Kursk Sergeyev stood closely for events on the Maidan and was imbued with hatred of protesters in Kyiv. Crimea did not become for him a sufficient indulgence for the humiliation that he experienced, observing clashes in the center of the Ukrainian capital. Therefore, he left his work and went to the east of Ukraine. Sergeev was in the Batman Batman quickly response group. The militia of the second Chechen campaign, who had passed the second Chechen campaign, had no problems, he says NT .

“Now I will participate in the construction of a new world not as an Ivanovo weaning, strongly speaking“ No! ” American aggression in Vietnam, not as a miserable and worthless sofa grenadier and office fighter of tanks, but as a full -fledged fighter, man, volunteer and Russian soldier of the liberator. I will create not miserable zeros of debit-loans and annual accounting balances with my own hands, but a great Russian history, ”Sergeyev wrote in VKontakte.

Two days after admission to Batman, the first battle. Sergeev on the front line protects Lugansk from units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and volunteer battalions. In an interview with NT, he is reluctant to talk about his combat merits and advises reading social networks. Tales of shootings alternate there with records of disappointing associates, whom he accused of shooting at the cars of civilians, illegally holding Ukrainian prisoners in the basements and smuggling of coal. “I came here to fight for Novorossia and the great Russian people, and not for control of barbecue and Cheburechny on the Lugansk segment of the Donetsk -Krasnodon highway,” the annoyed Sergeyev wrote. The first time he went to Novorossia for a month. The second is five.

Money for militias

Professional Russian military, according to official figures, did not take part in the hostilities in Ukraine, so there is no information about the amounts of business traffic. The report “War”, prepared by the associates of Boris Nemtsov, citing the head of the Veterans of the Special Forces of the Special Forces of the Sverdlovsk Region Vladimir Efimov, the numbers are mentioned: 60–90 thousand rubles. per month - the salary of the rank and file, 120–240 thousand rubles. per month - senior salary. In total, as stated in the report, about 350 thousand rubles were spent on the maintenance of one military man per month during the conflict in Ukraine. per month. The militias gathering from the Donbass to Syria until no one promises to pay. Although not everyone received money in the east of Ukraine (in some detachments they did not pay militias, some refused the money themselves for ideological reasons). 7-8 thousand rubles. per month - militias earn during a truce, 10-15 thousand rubles. per month - paid in the DPR by ordinary at the front line, up to 50 thousand rubles. per month - during active combat clashes. In addition, the media claim that there was a system of bonuses for “combat merits”. So, for example, for a hit tank, according to militias, they paid about $ 10,000.

Source: Report "War", sob. Inf.

Already in Kursk, Sergeyev learned about the death of another commander - Alexei Mozgovoy. The carrier car, which shortly before his death, accused the leadership of the LPR of "conspiracy with the Kyiv junta", looting and murders, on March 23, unknown people spoke out of machine guns near the village of Mikhailovka. “I am about their death as the destruction of any attempts by the democracy and independence of the republics themselves. This is a long -playing business. We still do not realize all its deadly consequences for the very meaning of the entire “Russian spring,” says NT the militia. A series of disappointments in the leaders of the people's republics was completed by the Minsk agreements, which Sergeev perceives as a refusal of Russia from all his promises to the rebels. He calls them only as a betrayal, and puts on a par with the Brest world and the Khasavyurt agreements. In Russia, he did not meet either understanding or acceptance from his acquaintances and says that he treats him "as a suicide who has returned from the other world more than tea." Sergeyev is again engaged in boring office work, although he admits that “the soul does not lie to it” and that he is pulling back to the trenches and terricons. Many of his comrades in arms remain in Novorossiya. He himself is not going to return to the east of Ukraine. In his free time, Sergeyev updates his VKontakte page, which he turned into an impromptu media. He explains to readers his position on “New Russia” and admits that “he more and more likes to be the ruler of thoughts.”

Apathy and fatigue

Dmitry Talents in the Donbass, Ukraine, December 2014

The 29-year-old supporter of the idea of ​​Novorossia Dmitry Talents is not going to return to the front. Last year, he says, the creation of an independent state in the territory of the Lugansk, Donetsk, as well as six more regions of Ukraine seemed more real to him. However, now the ambulance of this prospect is hindered by the Minsk agreements. Talents have always adhered to views close to the National Bolsheviks, and describes them as "socialism in domestic politics and nationalism in the external." By the beginning of the input of Russian troops into the Crimea behind him, he had unfinished study at the Histress of the University of Kostroma, political campaigns of close in spirit “Other Russia” and “Kosovo Front” and work in warehouses, loading and mail. In May, he realized - it was necessary to go to the Donbass covered by popular unrest and went towards the Ukrainian border after the supporters of Eduard Limonov.

“The party (Limonova. - NT ) was guided by the slogan“ Russia is all - the rest is nothing! ” Since the 1990s, she defended and defended the interests of the Russian-speaking population from the moment of founding, many of our comrades have suffered for this. Therefore, there was no fear or doubt. The burning of people in Odessa and the critical situation of the “shooters” in Slavyansk prompted the burning of people even more. Having settled some questions with work, I went, ”says Talentov. Familiar volunteers participating in sending people to the conflict zone helped him get into the territory of Ukraine. He wanted to get to Slavyansk, but a couple of days before his arrival, the militia left the city. As a result, talents went to Donetsk. There he received weapons and call sign "Kostroma" (talents from the Kostroma region). He considers himself a successor to the case of Russian volunteers who traveled to the Serbian Krai to help the “Serbian brothers”, who opposed the Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Ustesh. In a talent unit of 25 people, only five were from Russia, the rest were local. “There were“ Afghans ”with experience and boys who did not hold the machine in their hands before the war,” he recalls. Then his unit was thrown into the neighboring Miner Zugras - to cover the city in case of a breakthrough of the ATO forces. Ukrainian artillery worked around the city, but the infantry with technology never reached, and under Shakhtersky, Ukrainian troops were defeated. After the unit in which the talents served, occupied the villages and villages, moving towards Debaltseve. He traveled to the Donbass repeatedly, worked as part in Russia in breaks, went to the Supreme Court for consideration by a complaint of Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozhaev and argued with friends about the war in Ukraine. Talent's movements did not have problems in Russia. Only once in his hometown of Manturovo, Kostroma Region, the police met at the station. “We checked whether I take something with me or not. But we are adults, we know the law, so there is nothing. Yes, the operatives once came home for a conversation, ”he says NT .

“As such, there was no misunderstanding, yet most of my friends understand the situation and knows what is happening there. Of course, those who are ordinary inhabitants or lobots, they just ask how so? What is there? Why went? But there is no point in explaining to them, since people are not interested in politics, history, ”says Talentov.

The last time the talents returned from the territory, controlled by the self -proclaimed republics, a month ago, settled to work for excavations and was going to return only in the case of intense military operations, for example, the onset of one of the parties. He says that there is an outflow of volunteers in other units. The reason for this is a truce and the inability to advance. “Apathy, so to speak,” the militia summarizes, but immediately stipulates, “apathy is only about the truce. Not even apathy, but fatigue from this state of things. And so a piece of Donbass with me. Civil wife from those areas. "

* ISIS, or IG ("Islamic State") - is prohibited in the Russian Federation as a terrorist group.