"I want Russia to break up"

The story of a Russian officer who is fighting on the side of Ukraine for the independence of Yakutia

45-year-old Vladislav Ammosov was born in Yakutia and from childhood dreamed of becoming an officer. He spent 15 years in the Russian army. He served under a contract in Chechnya, created plans to destroy the enemy infrastructure and prepared young officers, and now he wants the collapse of Russia and fights on the side of Ukraine so that his native Yakutia became “independent and free”. "Cold" spoke with Ammosov and tells the story of his life in his words.

In order not to miss the main materials of the "cold", subscribe to our Instagram and telegram .

The "cold" got acquainted with the documents and the military ID of Ammosov and confirmed most of the facts of his biography, which he talks about. In those cases where we failed, we put a separate note. For the convenience of reading, we literally processed the hero’s speech.

Previously, the integrity of the country was something indestructible to me. My family from the small village of Myndagay is 250 kilometers from Yakutsk. I am the first of a kind to go to study in Moscow, having entered one of the best technical universities in the country. Parents were very proud.

Of course, I saw problems in our republic, but I thought that “upstairs” in Moscow would solve everything, because “they” are smarter, they know what to do. Having served in the Russian army for 15 years and having traveled from the ordinary to the captain, I changed the opinion: now I want all the national republics to become independent. Then no one will take away the wealth of indigenous peoples, will not establish how to hunt and how to live. The sooner we begin the struggle for independence, the faster we will come to it. For this I am at war on the side of Ukraine. I want Russia to break up.

"The school from young boys was prepared dumb and brave military"

I grew up in Soviet films and books and from childhood I thought that being an officer is the best profession in the world. Even having entered the Bauman University at the age of 16, I decided that when I turned 18, I would go to the army. Parents did not support my idea: they wanted me to get a good education and have been entrenched in Moscow, "went into people." But having felt freedom and independence, I decided that I could not listen to them.

It was 1995, the first Chechen war was in full swing - no one voluntarily sought to the army. There is a military department in Baumanke, that is, I could not serve at all. But my childhood dream was to become a military man, to get not civilian education. Therefore, after six months of service, I passed the exams and entered the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.

There I did not linger: the school was, as I call it, “a factory of wooden toys”: from young boys they prepared stupid and brave military. I wanted more, especially after a year and a half to study in Bauman. I decided that I needed a better education, and after the first year I transferred to the Military Academy of the missile forces of strategic purpose.

True, I didn’t finish her either: I liked studying, but a year before the release I was expelled for violation of discipline. On March 8, I went to Samovolka to congratulate my girlfriend on the holiday.

In those days, it was believed that if you were expelled from senior courses in order to recover in study, you can “wash away the shame of blood”: for this it was necessary to serve in the army. A month later, I already signed a contract for a voluntary service in Chechnya. 2001, the second Chechen.

"The commanders drank, fired drunk at a soldier"

I served two contracts. The first six months - in the Vedensky Gorge, where fighting went.

Vedena gorge is a mountain valley in the southeast of Chechnya, which begins near the administrative border of Chechnya and Dagestan. During the Second Chechen War, fierce military operations were waged in the Vedensky Gorge. After occupying the key settlements of the Vedensky district federal troops in the gorge for a long time, partisan actions of the independence of Chechnya were fed up. In December 2000, the Channel One reported that in the Vedensky Gorge “the remnants of the Khattab and Basayev gangs are still hiding, attacks on federal troops continued there for several more years.

After studying at the Military Academy, I thought that the Russian army was able to fight. But in fact, it turned out that young guys were sent to the front as cannon fodder, without proper preparation, without a well -thought -out strategy. Then I thought that going at risk was cool. Now I understand that the officers simply did not value the lives of soldiers.

After participating in the hostilities, I was sent to a headquarters. I thought I would take a breath, but I saw even more the horror of our army. The commanders drank, fired drunk at the soldier, had to disarm them. Once, the company, together with the platoon commander, lost a large amount of the foreman - and killed him so as not to pay off. For two weeks we searched for his body, and when we found and found out the circumstances, we had to detain both the company commander and the platoon commander (the “cold” failed to verify this story) .

Despite these horrors, I remained an idealist and even after the contract service I believed that I could make the army better from the inside. At that time, I read a lot about the experience of other countries in military affairs. He bought magazines “Soldier of Good luck” and “Foreign Military Thought”, took rare translated books about Afghan, Vietnamese wars in libraries. He believed that he himself would become a completely different officer: in my unit there will be discipline and fed soldiers. And they will not send anyone to slaughter.

I was hoping that in Chechnya, under the contract, it would be enough for me to be restored to study at the academy, but they refused me. Then I entered the Military Engineering University in St. Petersburg, I was credited immediately to the third year, and in 2004 I finally received a diploma. The girl that I went to congratulate on March 8 waited for me from Chechnya, and we moved to Petersburg with her. Then she became my wife, now we have three children.

After the release, I got a job at my university as a course officer-this is something like a platoon commander. I wanted to adequately educate young cadets, but here I met corruption and consumption. When I came to the authorities and said that some cadet had to be expelled, I could not achieve this, because, as a rule, someone’s “thieves” cadets were violated discipline. And if I put the ultimatums, I was removed from the course. So I was tormented for four years, but in 2008 I was tired and transferred to another position.

Our university has a scientific department, I was taken there by a junior researcher.

"I felt powerless"

In 2010, an employee from the Main Intelligence Department of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense (GRU) came to us at the university and said that volunteers are needed to carry out some responsible work in Moscow. Almost no one wanted to tear himself away, throwing everything in St. Petersburg, and I consulted with my wife and decided that I wanted to try. I went to Moscow, went through test tasks, and I was accepted. Later it turned out that researchers from all over Russia were selected for this work.

Our scientific department was engaged in mathematical modeling of complex technical systems. We took one of the sectors of the economy of another country, such as shipping, electric power, air traffic, and searched in it in vulnerability. After that, we mathematically calculated what needs to be done in order to disable this industry.

It was believed that what we are developing is a strategic weapon. In terms of effect, damage from the use of such systems could be the same as from nuclear weapons. We worked in the UK and the USA. 11 years later, attacking the missiles and drones of the Ukrainian power station, Russia could use our achievements.

I moved to Moscow alone - the family was left in St. Petersburg, my wife was pregnant, and there we had housing in a hostel for the military. I planned to send her to birth to Yakutsk, but did not have time, the fights began ahead of schedule. She called an ambulance. The ambulance officers on her person decided that she was non-Russian, and, despite the Russian passport and status of the officer’s wife, they sent her not to the Military Medical Academy, but to a bad maternity hospital for migrants.

At that moment I felt absolutely powerless. I, an officer of the GRU General Staff, developing strategic weapons, could not do anything to help his wife. I had no money to transport her to a private maternity hospital, nor ties in order to arrange so that she was treated with dignity as an officer's wife. Then I realized that this is not the country for which I am ready to die.

I have always been a patriot of my small homeland: every year I went to my Yakutia and saw how hard it was in the region. A criminal stabbed my childhood friend in the hostel, my classmate jumped out of the window when the police began to break into his room, his brother was shot, in his native village, hazardous drunkenness, unemployment and stably once a year on violent death. Why did it happen? You start digging what the reason is - and go out to Moscow. Gradually, I realized that in many of our troubles it was not eternal permafrost, but the colonial policy of Russia.

Moscow put its officials to manage Yakutia, our wealth was plundered, the Yakut enterprises squeezed the oligarchs. How to bring the people so that he is so afraid of his own police and so drunk?!

In the GRU, I worked for 13 months. We almost completed our project, but the department began rearrangements of personnel, redistribution of the budget, and our department was reduced. I was offered a different position, persuaded to stay: if I had worked in military structures for another five years, I could go out for a military pension and get an apartment in Moscow. But I slammed the door and quit, because I no longer wanted to be part of a system that does not fulfill its social obligations. If a social elevator does not go, it is better to just get off it.

"Come to raise the village"

In 2015, a vacancy of the deputy head of the administration appeared in my village in Yakutia. Parents called and said: "Come to raise the village." Since I always dreamed of developing my native region, I immediately rushed to my village. I transported my wife and children there.

But there I could not linger for a long time, I got into history. Once, the head of the administration, with whom I worked as a deputy, in the company of friends went to shoot ducks. They got drunk vodka, some kind of mess began. At three in the morning, the head of the administration called me and asked to come with the district police officer. It was necessary to pacify one of the drunken hunters, who waved a gun. When we took the weapon from the rowdy, he rushed at me. I had to fight back, and it so happened that I broke his hand. For this, I was sentenced to one year in prison: they say, I deliberately caused harm to the health of moderate severity.

I decided that with such an attitude towards me in the village I could no longer work there, and quit.

At that time, I was increasingly thinking that Russia was rolling into the abyss, no prospects except the collapse of the country, I did not see and believed that we should try to save myself and the family. In 2019, I first went to work in Poland. I was struck by the difference between life and how they live in my Yakutia. No one is drunk, no one cuts each other, everyone just lives for their pleasure, there are no inner malice in people. Everything was fine until February 2022, until the war began.

"We must pick up weapons"

On the first day of February 24, 2022, I did not find a place for myself, darted like a tiger - I thought I could do. I wanted to go as a volunteer, but the family, work, children stopped. On Facebook, I found a Ukrainian family on the border with Poland, who needed help, got into the car, brought them to Warsaw, our company helped them with housing. They still live with us.

Every day I was convinced that the war would not end until the country falls apart. Even if the Ukrainian army reaches its borders of 1991, Russia will still not stop. It was then that I realized that I want to fight against Russia.

I was looking for how to do this, and went to the second “Forum of Free Peoples”, which took place in Prague. On the forum, I told everyone that we need to pick up weapons and first protect Ukraine, and then go to conquer the independence of our own republic. But everyone around was ready to discuss only actions after the end of the war, but no one suggested that this war ended.

At the end of 2022, I learned about the creation of the Civil Council and met Denis Sokolov.

“Civil Council” is a political association that helps Russian volunteers join armed resistance on the side of Ukraine. "Civil Council" released the manifesto in November 2022; Since the organizers say, they have sent two waves of volunteers to Ukraine. The association collaborates with the “ Russian Volunteer Corps ” , which took responsibility for sabotage in the Bryansk region. The Civil Council plans to form individual regional and national civil resistance organizations.
"Cold" interviewed one of the founders of the organization.

The Civil Council made almost impossible: during active hostilities, he agreed with Ukraine so that they accept Russians in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I was invited to a conversation in Warsaw, there they communicate with each candidate personally. In January, I was already in Ukraine, in the first party sent through the Civil Council.

January and February 2023 went to checks by Ukrainians and training. First, we had theoretical study, without weapons. After we were checked, training began with shooting from different types of weapons. And in April 2023 I was already sent to the front line.

"I want people to absorb the smell of freedom"

I spent a month directly in the war zone. He was in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya directions. Our unit is not part of the regular army of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we are volunteers. We are attracted to some separate tasks: intelligence, assault, seizing positions in the "gray zone". Ordinary routine military work.

After 15 years in the Russian army, I am now struggling with Russia, but I do not feel that I am shooting at my own. For me in this war, everything is clear: I am struggling with the enemies of Russia. I shoot the invaders who came to the territory of Ukraine.

When you are in war, there is no time to think about any moral issues. In battle, you only think about staying alive and win, you shoot at everything that moves. You will suffer from remorse - you will be just shot.

Recently, many have heard about the “Russian Volunteer Corps” - a division of Russians who are fighting on the side of Ukraine. But where to go to Russians not Russian nationality? Even among the Russians who are now volunteers, I go to Ukraine, I notice the “Russian world”: disrespect for people, servility to senior in rank. I want this “Russian world” to be squeezed out of them drop by drop so that they can see that it could be different.

The like -minded people and I decided to create the Siberian Legion, I actively urge Yakutov to follow my example and pick up weapons. I want people to absorb the smell of freedom, the democratic values ​​that are in the West.

I am sure that the task of ruining Russia is fulfilled. Of course, immediately after this, the standard of living will fall and there will be an economic crisis, as it was after the collapse of the USSR. But there will be prospects.

I think when the Republic of Yakutia will become free, the Yakuts from all over the world will come to live back to the region: from America, France, Germany. Because they will see the opportunity to do something useful for their people in their homeland.