Translated material
Mariupol
Mariupol.
A report on what, how and where did the Lithuanian director Manta Kvedaravicius killed
Dmitrij Durnev (Kyjiv), Julia Balachonova, in the presence of Mikhail Maglov, 2022. October 14th
Released together with the Spectr publication
Based on the words of witnesses and participants in the events, "Project" and "Spectr" tell the unheard of the murder of the brutal Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius in Mariupolis 2022. March details. For the first time, the text of Kvedaravičius from a siege city rescued by the Mariupolian.
The road
It is hard to believe, but now and during the previous months of the war, "legal" routes across the front line were operating in the Russian and Ukrainian operation zone. For the last four months, the main safe contact line crossing point is at least 2,000 km. For the last four months, the main safe at least 2,500 km of contact line crossing point 
; This length was the front line of the Ukrainian Army Commander Valery Zaluzhn before the latest offensive in the Kharkivo direction ×
was the village of Vasylivka in Zaporių. On both sides, people from the occupied territories travel to zaporie on both sides and then often and back
For example, the correspondent watched the inhabitants of the occupied territories go to Ukraine to receive documents for children, money and so on. ×
, and from the Ukrainian army controlled areas - to Mariupol, Berdiansk, Melitopol and Kherson. Long queues
.- For example, I had to wait about a couple of weeks in September- × ×
, the lack of comfort, the risk of firing and detention does not stop people - many Ukrainians are forced to go to the occupied lands to visit relatives and abandoned homes. September 30th The PS S-300 rockets hit a row of vehicles in the Ukrainian side, 32 people were killed and more than 100 were injured. Transit was suspended for an indefinite period.
Vasylivka was not always the only place where civilians passed through the front. The war in Ukraine is fought by the Russian army contingent, which is not only sufficient to occupy the country, but also to close the front line tightly. Back in 2022 In the spring, there were enough holes, rural roads and paved roads, non -blockage of Russian army firewalls. Initially, two roads were formed in southern Ukraine through the front - between Kherson and Mykolajiv and between Mariupol and Zaporiu. Until May, the Russian army blocked the direction of Mykolajiv, and the direct road from Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdiansk through Vasylivka to Zaporiis was still in trouble.
The author of this text, like all the people of the occupied Mariupol and Volnovacha, lives all these months around that path - relatives escape, sad news of the dead and injured, surviving homes in the occupation returns to acquaintances, men travel to Crimea and continue to their families in Europe.
This story began on this road - April 25th. At the Zaporių shopping center Epicalentr, where the humanitarian convoy moved to Mariupol. It was that day that one of the authors of this text met people who told Mantas Kvedaravičius' story.
Cats
- The Russians are now operating in Don Quixote mode. Wealthy machines are inspected, detained and checked, but like this, without looking, you need to look as well as possible, and everything will be fine, ”says Oleksandras Sosnovsky, a volunteer, pointing to a nearby combed comb.
It started to carry people from the devastated Mariupol Sosnovsky in March. He does not go to the other side - he is a well -known Ukrainian activist, a former Ukrainian patrol police officer - his colleague in humanitarian operations as well as a well -known personality in Mariupol - Denys Mijin, TV presenter and former author of the city's eastern show
And it would probably have been immediately arrested.
In April, Oleksandras was with his mother Anhelina Sosnovska in Zaporiu parking lot. She was only recently evacuated from Mariupol, who was already occupied, but was still impatient to go back - to take her food to neighbors who saved her during the first month and a half of the city, and later sheltered Sosnovsky cats.
Cats play an important role in this story. Olexander is along with Denys Mijin ×
Having founded Vyvezem, the organization - it saves from Mariupolis through the siege of pets left there, mostly cats: "How to remove dogs, I haven't come up yet," says Sosnovsky, especially big. "
Olexander himself from Mariupol evacuated in the first days of the invasion, March 4th. His mother stayed in town with two of her and four son cats until the end of March. When the author met her mother and son in Zaporio in late April, Anhelina, or Lina, as everyone around her, initially refused to speak and hid her face from the camera - she still intended to reach a busy Mariupol and did not want unnecessary publicity. But then asked to turn off the recorder and began, "I know how I killed Manta."
Convoy
We talked to Sosnovska twice - after the first narrative "No Record" we met in Zaporio in September in Kyjiv. Sosnovska repeated his story not only for us, but also gave the same testimony to the Ukrainian security service, according to the witness herself ×
;
Anhelina Sosnovska was the woman who was carried from the hijacked city by Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius. He died during this convoy. Various episodes of this story are also restored on the basis of the stories of the Sosnovsky convoy passengers and its relatives.
"About March 6, Diana told me she needed my mom's address, that there was a man who takes people out of there - I passed on to her address and forgot," Olexander Sosnovsky begins to teach her mother's story. " But Mantas took his mother at the end of March. ”
Diana Berh is the wife of Sosnovsky, a well -known personality in Mariupol, a pro -rician activist who founded the art space in the city. She knew some Kvedaravicius, his film Mariupolis in 2016. was shown at the city cinema, and Diana and her husband participated in the session as viewers, as Berh × herself said
;
About March 12th. In one of the Mariupolians' Chat groups, Berh saw a message that there were people who were going to the city. This day was no longer a connection in Mariupol and there was no information about the people left there. Diana transferred two addresses through the group - her stepdaughter and her own apartment where friends could hide. "If not to be taken, at least check and find out if they are alive?" Says Berh.
The man written about in the group was Kvedaravičius. He drove to the city not yet completely surrounded and filmed the second part of Mariupol on his mobile phone.
- March 27 Mantas came to pick me up, there was no connection, I didn't wait, I got up in the morning, I made coffee on the fire. A neighbor had taken a screwdriver from me - knocking on the door, I thought it was a neighbor. I open - Mantas stands, "Hello, are you like that? Three minutes - bag and passport!" I blown my eyes at it, I saw him for the first time, and I say, "I have a cat! Here six cats! I can't!" It turned out that he was filming me at the time. Later, my son showed me those shots. I'm talking about cats, and he's again to me, "Two minutes is a bag and a passport!" That I sat down at the door, that I burst into my eyes, I lift my eyes and say, "I won't go without them!"
According to Lina, her neighbors were persuaded. "He took my bag behind my back like a backpack, I gave my neighbor money, as much as I had in my wallet, and went to the garage by the house, and there was a Manto car driver, Halia with Julia and one -month Alice with them in Kindergarten. The editorial office found Sosnovska's fellow travelers - Halyna Bujanovska and her martyr Julia - the editorial office does not specify the name of the woman for the safety of her relatives ×
; They are family members of the Ukrainian warrior, who was fighting in the next section of the front at the time and now serves in the military.
All Lina's passengers will eventually take off the Ukrainian side. All except Lithuanian director. As follows from the stories of Sosnovsky, Ukrainian military personnel who left Mariupol tried to leave their families out of town in those days. Oleksandras, the driver of a minibus that Lina evacuated, served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (ZSU) and came to the city in civilian clothes.
As he met the garages near Kronštadtska Street, the group moved Nizhnia Novoselivka, where the car was left - these three kilometers of short run overcame, Lina and Halyna say ×
;
"We reached the eternal fire on Lavicki Street, our guys from ZSU stood there, we woke them and started to go further, we went about 900 meters and everything was - they were there," says Lina.
After Mariupol, she does not pronounce "Russians", all the time briefly: they, they, sometimes "writings".
"I'm 62," Sosnovska remembers, "but I know what a phosphorus bomb is, what is a cassette bomb, what is howle, what is" Grad ", what is" Buk " - I know everything! However, there is nothing scary than the plane… And it is impossible to escape…
Near the 37th house in the Chmelnicki Boulevard, the group hit the Russian army office.
- If we had gone this way (from the front of the house), Mantas would have been alive and we went to the yard. And we went to the yard because there were bonfires burned there, people made food - we thought it was safe there. And we barely entered the yard, and at those people with bonfires in the house, as it turned out, their headquarters were on the ground floor. And they tell us, "Let's stop!" And the men told them to go to them. Mantas went there as it was - with my bag behind his back. ”
When Russian soldiers detained Manta and Oleksandra, shooting began nearby. Lin and other women were inserted into their apartment by the locals. "People who called us were refugees themselves from the left bank of Mariupol, they rented the apartment and fed two other grandmothers who just before the invasion of Donetsk and stuck. The man tells us," Food would have been clearly not enough for us. ”
The situation was difficult: women and children could not return because the battle was going on and could not continue because they did not know where the machine was. "I say, 'Let's go ask for men to release.' And we went with Maryna, "says Lina. - - the field from home to the house seems not so big, we started to run, and then the shooting, we came back - and we rushed again. Teard.
- We started to explain, "Men, understand, they just take us, we have a one -month -old baby and another older child, what do you do? They just take us!". We are beginning to tell us that they have passed the information to the leaders, they will find out everything and as if we are released, just wait another hour. We scream there, talked loudly, heard us, and from some room our men responded, saying, "Don't worry, girls, everything will work out ..."
Linen allowed her to take the bag and sent her back to the hiding place. There they waited for a while Olexander and Manto. Then asking men to run went to Halyna and Julia, stepfather and martyr.
Halyna Bujanovska lived in the historic district of Mariupol Romanivka before the war. As her son contacted Kvedaravich, Halyna does not know, but says she still dreams of Manta, who comes from the city.
- We asked for men who accompanied us to release, and they said quite strictly that it was not their competence, it will be decided by the leadership - their documents are not drinking, wait! - says Halyna. - We talked to the stairwell. We did not let us in the apartment where they were kept. So we went back and after a while Sasha came.
The driver told women that he and Manta had been identified, checked if there were any injuries typical of combat actions, as well as tattoos - usually sought by nationalist and military tattoos, as well as crumbling, which often remain on the shoulders from bulletproof vests.
, on the back of Lithuania, found a bruise from the Lina's bag he had carried and stayed "until it was clear".
Women and Oleksandras remained to wait for the knowledge of Manta. At that time, "cleaning" began in the yard where the group was hiding.
- Apparently, ours (ZSU) pushed further and started filtering. God, falls with machine guns, shouts, "Here's a full apartment in Ukrate !!!" (Ukrop, Ukropa - "dill", despised Ukrainian name - translator note). This is me, 62 -year -old Ukrops, and Alice, a month old, is both Ukrate. We are directed by machine guns and shouts, "Glit !!!" - I have experienced a lot in life, but then something happened to me, as if I was a stake, stiffening completely, the girls tried to lay me somehow, pull me in the coat, but then… and then opened an adjacent apartment and knocked us all inside, slammed the door - and all the windows on both sides were broken. In the yard, the battle begins again, under our broken windows, the building's anti -aircraft rifle, it starts shooting, everything flies…
As Lina recalls, a Ukrainian sniper was discovered in one of the houses in the neighborhood. The Russians killed him during the shooting.
- We waited until morning, started glowing, and finally we went out. Along the way, we were stopped twice more, trying to do something for us, we were crying, Alice was screaming, but somehow we reached the bus. At the time, I didn't know that Manto's wife Ania was waiting for us (Hanna Belobrova).
- I saw that Sasha approached some young little tall woman, talked to her, and she just went right away to where we came from. She went where Manta detained, went and searched for him until April 2. Finally, he found him on a pile of garbage, who just threw him.
Kvedaravičius' body with gunshot wounds will be found near the detention site. Hanna took her body to Donetsk's morgue, and from there throughout Russia to Lithuania, where April 9th. The director was buried in his native Biržai.
- You know, I asked myself 150 times - if he hadn't come to me, would I have stayed alive? If I hadn't been to the cats for ten minutes? Maybe they would have turned the other way and he would still be alive? He was 45, and me 62, why did God arrange it ...?
The journey of women with children from Mariupol continued. By the minibus, they joined the three column of "Busiukai" marked with red crosses and the words "Children". The column was again stopped by Russian military personnel near the city shopping center. In the firewall, Olexander ordered the passengers to be taken to the filtration station, and to go to the Commandance with other drivers himself.
- Sasha realized that no filtration would pass - he was a functioning ZSU officer. We stand, and he says, "Okay, girls, we're not in a hurry, smile and load on the bus!" We didn't understand anything, we boarded, and he will press the pedal! I sat in the front and he says to me, "Lina, Lina, see if we are chasing us?" Would have been caught up, would have shot! I say to him then, "Sania, after all, there are checks at the front!" Oh, he, "Don't worry! They don't have a radio!" Later, they had become smarter, and provided the connection…
On the highway, Oleksandras threw his phone aside - recalled that he was sent messages of the ZSU officer's salary. And Manto's phone was hidden behind the car's finish and transported it through the front line. Later, the video of the videos found there will be equipped with Mariupoli-2, which will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival in the summer.
Women and children from Mariupol are now safe. Olexander and his family left Ukraine - "Project" interlocutors said ×
, his comments could not be obtained by this text.
Posture
None of the participants in the editorials saw Kvedaravičius killed. However, according to a man who knew the Kvedaravičius family, the director was killed either in the yard where he was detained or near the place. The director's body found his informal spouse at the 99th house on Taikos Avenue (Prospektis Myru), which is on the opposite side of the street from the detention site, not further than 500 meters from where Kvedaravicius was last seen alive, so the director's family friend said,
;
In order to find out the details of the events in the yard and to test the stories of Sosnovsky and her escape friends, the editorial staff also contacted people who lived in the same area of the city at the end of March, where Kvedaravicius was killed, and talked to war analysts to collect information about Mariupol Clover.
The occupation of Mariupol was mainly carried out by the Southern Military District Forces (19th and 150th Motorized Rifle and 7th Air Paratroopers), Black Sea Navy Marines (810th Brigade), General Staff Special Forces (3rd Brigade), DLR Militia (Battalion "Sparta"
, according to the analysis of the Institute of Military Studies and media reports ×
; Based on a map of military operations in Mariupol (* handled by the Telegram channel "хроника боевых действий"/ hostilities chronicle* ), the area from Taikos Avenue to Italian/ Italian/ Italijska Street, which is connected by Chmelnicki Boulevard, It is difficult to determine exactly what Russian units were moving in the Chmelnicki Boulevard, as did any other closed area of the city
explains Conflict Intelligence Team analyst Cyril Mikhailov ×
, but the residents of the surrounding houses gave a clues important to us.
According to the four people living in the Boulevard, the 35th house, which, according to Bujanovska, was the headquarters of the Russian soldiers, next to Kvedaravičius, the last time he was alive, the surroundings from 28 March. By April 1 Controlled by DLR fighters, including newcomers from Russia - the usual situation, volunteers and Russian mercenaries, as well as expatriates from Donetsk × DEVIUS, serve DLR units
; Two locals identify specific "units": DLR MoI Special Forces and DLR 6 tanks. "Most of them were LDLR 'Consulting Losts.' We know for sure that one was from Hallivka and the other from Chelyabinsk, ”says Cyril for security reasons, we do not give the name ×
, living near a place where Kvedaravicius was killed in late March.
Bujanovska is also convinced that the soldiers met at the headquarters were from the DLR: "They connected white ribbons on their feet and hands - they were pure DLR, they were hiding. White ribbons on uniforms - as a sequence of reports, according to this color, Russian troops in Mariupol set a "friend or enemy" × ×
Another interlocutor Maria's name was also remembered by ×
, which, along with his neighbors, hosted the basement of the Chmelnicki Boulevard in the basement. She also says that among the soldiers who participated in the cleaning area, there were "Delininkai" and Russian. The woman also remembers the brutal searches of men: "She was terribly mocking them, despised. Then we sent our boys to collect the" 200s "and" 300s "killed and the wounded ×
;
According to Cyril, there were several high -ranking officers at the occupying headquarters - one of them was a "Uzbek" and another "Maloj/little" - it was shot by the Ukrainian sniper. "They were very angry about it," says Cyril. This part of the story shows that we are talking about the same place. Both Lina Sosnovska and Halyna Bujanovska recall that the Ukrainian sniper fire caused confusion in the yard, which is believed to have been killed by a Lithuanian. "You're hiding a sniper, we'll finish you all right away!" - Yes, according to Bujanovska, one of the occupiers' commander's sniper shouted one of his fellow -men.
The man who threatened Bujanovski had a "Pattle" call and was one of Chmelnicki's headquarters, Halyna says. For the first time, she and her martyr met him when she tried to intercede the Manta: "There were about six people at the headquarters, about 30 to 65 years of age. Wore ugly masking uniforms and made a terrible impression as if anyone had pulled them out of prison. "That's what you call the commander!"
Pastas, Uzbek and Littles are not unique to Donetsk separatist calls. 2019 The Ukrainian publication Narodna Pravda has published a possible list of DLR fighters - the third company of the DLR Special Forces mentioned by the Calculators' Consciousness, Uzbek and Pastetas. Their real names are Alexander Jamkovenko, Viktoras Radionov and Pavel Budenkov, respectively.
However, there is another "paste" - its data can be found in Ukrainian databases and media reports. The name of this "paste" is Pavel Musiyenka. He is believed to have been born in the Donetsk area in 1993.
, according to the available Ukrainian databases ×
; Pavel's father Valery Musiena is also a DLR separatist, he was a dense battalion commander
, as follows from his interview on YouTube ×
, since 2014 He is subject to sanctions by Canada and Australia. 2018 Musiyenka junior allegedly shot with another DLR fighter - the men struck and began to shoot from machine guns while under the influence of alcohol
, said Ukrainian media based on information received from security officials ×
;
The editorial staff was submitted by Halynu Bujanovskai and her margins to recognize the photos of Musiyenka (2nd Pattle), Budenkov (1st Pattle) and Jamkovenko ("Small"). Both women were not fully confident, but recognized the one who threatened them on Chmelnicki Street. "Similar, the eyes are similar. The gaze is similar," they showed a photo of Musijenka. Other fighters said women saw the first time.
In response to the editorial request sent to him by VKontakte's report, Musiyenka replied that his summons were actually "paste", but he did not participate in the battles in Mariupol. According to him, he was in Tula at the time. Musiyenka did not respond to the application for alibi evidence and blocked the journalist account. The editorial staff also sent questions to Jamkovenko and Budenkov's accounts, but × was not answered
;
The editorial staff cannot strongly argue that it was the Musiyenka-the "Pattle" may have been associated with the murder of the Lithuanian director. However, he, like the fighters of the aforementioned DLR armed units, at the very least, a witness can be an important witness to what happened in the Chmelnicki Boulevard.
* * *
After almost completing the reportage, the editorial office was able to contact the representative of the Lithuanian investigation authorities responsible for the murder of Kvedaravičius. With an anonymity, the interlocutor reported that Pavel Musiyenka, also known as "Pattle", is "in the field of investigation, his involvement in the arrest of Kvedaravičius is determined." The interlocutor refused to submit more comments.
EDITING - Roman Badanin
FACT-CHECKING-Katya Arenina