"The machine was given instead of pies - go fight"

A report from the hotel near Moscow, where the wounded fighters from Donbass are waiting for prostheses and compensations for injuries

Briefly

In one of the hotels of Reutov, the military who lost their foot from the Donbass, waiting for the prosthesis, watch TV, drink and recall the experienced. Someone thinks about returning to the front, someone dreams of opening their own business, and someone is just going crazy, but they are all unhappy with the conditions of the service that were held in 2022 in the DPR and LPR troops. Although, according to the presidential decree , they are supposed to be 3 million rubles for the injury, none of those with whom we spoke received money. The Correspondent of the "features" visited the hotel and talked about the life and war with several of its guests.

"This is not torture even - this is a mockery"

A cloudy evening in Reutov. The rain drumming along the deserted streets. The only lantern illuminates the entrance to the hotel, next to which a pile of construction waste is crowded. A brick-bore-nested bell rises above the five-story buildings. This is the “hotel complex of the military -industrial complex of the NPO of Mechanical Engineering”, where fighters from the DPR (self -proclaimed Donetsk Republic) now live. From here they go to the Moscow GCB for prosthetics (the costs compensate for the social insurance fund), then they return back, learn to go - and home, to Donetsk.

Fifth floor. Empty corridors, smelling of cigarette smoke, come from the half -open doors, laughter and mooing. I go to one of the numbers - the TV works silently inside. They twist either the film or the concert-because of the quality of the picture, do not make out.

The room is dark and quiet, dull light of the lampshade over a single bed, draws the contours of the barely distinguishable figure of 28-year-old Sergei Panin, who fought last year for the national police of the DPR. Nearby is another shadow - Valentine, a neighbor of Sergey. Both have no leg. Sergei, turned his face away from the TV, as if he did not notice me, his empty gaze rests on the sash of a dark cabinet.

“Healthy, brother,” he said unexpectedly, continuing to look at the wings.

Sergey is a stunted thin man, deep wrinkles of crooked lines strive for his always frowned eyebrows. While we are talking, his brown eyes run from side to side, only occasionally stopping on me.

Sergey was born in Donetsk. When he was six years old, his parents died, and Sergey ended up in a boarding school in Uglegorsk Donetsk region. After graduating from nine grades, he entered the vocational school in Gorlovka, worked as a guard. But the peaceful life ended in 2014: not having time to get out of the college, Sergey went to Kyiv, got a job at Golden Eagle and began to disperse rallies on the Maidan. He claims that - “For the idea”, that he was against Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.

After the change of power in Kyiv, Sergei returned home and joined the ranks of the Donetsk militia (in Ukraine, its participants are considered separatists). He participated in the battle for the Donetsk International Airport and in the famous Debaltsevo boiler , when the DPR forces repelled a key railway interchange between Donetsk and Lugansk from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He calls all this “full ass” - all his friends and comrades died there. Sergei is still surprised that he was alive then.

In 2016, he lost the machine. Although Sergei claimed that the colleague stolen the weapon, he was given four years in court. Part of the deadline was served in Elena on July 29, 2022 in Elenovka, controlled by the Russian authorities, more than 50 people died, more than 70 people were injured among them prisoners of war from Azovstali. Russia assigned responsibility in the deaths of prisoners at the Armed Forces of Ukraine, accusing them of a colony hit from the Himars reactive system. Ukraine believes that the Russian military deliberately blew up the prisoners to hide the fact of torture. The UN has refuted the version of the colony by the Himars missiles, but the cause of the explosion has not been established. ( Enakievskaya correctional colony No. 52), and then he was transferred to IK-28 in Torez.

“This is the red zone of the colony, where the tough regime of the local administration is established . It was very cruel there. Do you know how to beat? - Sergey asks, tapping his index finger on the camouflage pants. -If some fight begins in the colony, then the “masks-shows” of the raids of the fighters of law enforcement agencies come and simply “kill” everyone indiscriminately. ”

He shows a trembling finger to his yellowed brush, where four points are applied with a square - the walls of the insulator, and one in the middle - a prisoner. He made this tattoo in Kartsere:

“I sent a fucking garbage, and they put me alone. Bro, I spent a month there for a month, almost lost my mind. Water - knee -deep, and huge rats crawl. This is not torture even - this is a mockery. Some guys could not stand it - the veins opened, hung. "

Occasionally, Sergey breaks through a loud hissing laughter, his face is shrinking, and his shoulders rise. He says with breaks, sometimes suddenly falls silent and looks somewhere into the distance. He repeats that he has about ten contusion, and laughs.

In 2020, Sergey left prison and immediately returned to the ranks of the militia. Then, according to him, “it was calm”, but in February 2022 he had to plunge into the war again. He did not sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, remained in the ranks of the DPR militia as a tanker. In March 2022, he was sent to Mariupol, where, according to Sergey, there was a complete confusion - "it is not clear where his own and where are strangers."

“The sniper shoots from all sides. I run with this machine gun, which is all in the mud. We found one sniper, sat in the apartment, wrapping a weapon with a blanket, - Sergey's face blushes, and he knocks his hand more and more. - This sniper put all my friends. It turned out that this is a chick! She is 30 years old. She had to be launched in a circle, a bitch. I shot it myself. ”

I ask Panin how he relates to the fact that on TV they say only about the military successes of the Russian army. Sergei glance at me and begins to speak louder:

“What is shown on TV is all pussy! We walked in dill form, removed from her corpses. The Russian military laughed at us-they said that we were dressed as homeless people ... Then they transferred me to the 11th regiment-this is the most moronic regiment of the 114th separate guards motorized rifle brigade, earlier the 11th separate guards motorized rifle of the Enakievsky-Dunai regiment, the predecessor-the Vostok brigade in general. I was not given a salary over the past month. "

In April, Sergey was transferred to Avdeevka, where, according to him, the whole detachment died, and he himself was blown up by a mine and lost his feet.

“I lay and thought it was better to die. The charged machine gun brought over himself and wanted to shoot, but it did not work out - a misfire. So I am still destined to live, ”he says, rubbing his stump. - I still have not received three million for a wound, they don’t even give me a disability group. They say that I need to return their weapons and weapons. Everything burned out, how can I return it to them? Brother, and how to not drink after that, tell me? "

Sergey repeats the last phrase several times, each time directing his reddened eyes as if through me. Because of this, it seems that he asks his questions not to me, but to his commander.

Suddenly a call is heard - Sergey is calling Elena, his colleague's mother. She lives in Gorlovka and helps Sergey than he can. I ask Panin whether he had relatives, and he, taking a deep breath, quickly says:

- Grandma died eight months ago. And the wife and children died a year ago. BRAN, they just called me and said: "Come to pick up." The wife was 30 years old, and the girl was nine. Their dill was killed, the shell hit the house. This year so many people died. I was in Moscow with Ivanovich a volunteer who helps Sergey was driving, I saw how burnt corpses on the street in Donetsk. [The morgue on the street] Kalinin is completely scored by the corpses of the military and civilian.

- Why do they treat the Donetsk military? - I am changing the topic.

Sergei before answering, he begins to laugh at hissing throat laughter unexpectedly and looks down at the stump.

- Previously, Donetsk what was it? Ukraine, ”he says, without raising his eyes. - They still consider us Ukrainians. The Russians have everything, but we have nothing. If your Putin in 2014 threw a bomb on the Maidan, there would have been nothing, you know? And now Donetsk is on fire, every day arrivals. And what about Russians? How did they help us? BRAN, you know what humanitarian they were brought to us since 2014? The bread that you will bite dick, stew and a bucket of cartridges for eight people. Only we fought according to various sources (such as the CIA, the OSCE mission and BelingCat), the Russian Federation has supported the militia of Donbass with weapons, combat beds and equipment since 2014, and also sent military units for combat missions. The Russian authorities deny their fate in the war in the Donbass until February 2022. , I have not seen neither your Russians nor Chechens. All this war was because of money, you know? And we are.

He says that he “goes crazy” from how many certificates he needs to make to receive a wound payment. In the Gorlovsky military registration and enlistment office, Sergey was told that he was still not written off from the service, which means that he should receive a salary every month. Then he was sent from Gorlovka to Donetsk, and from Donetsk to Gorlovka. As a result, they did not write off the service, and the salary says, Sergei, since someone else has been blown up by mine, someone else has been receiving.

This year, Panina had to make a military ID to leave the service, but when he brought certificates on the Donetsk model, it turned out that he would have to start all over again - the documents were needed already Russian.

When Sergey tries to remember what street he made a certificate, he turns for help to his neighbor Valentin, a large man with bald spots and a stump covered in a blanket. Until now, he lay motionlessly on the bed and looked into the screen of the relaxed phone. To the question of Sergey, he does not react in any way, after a minute he sighs heavily and turns onto the other side - away from us and this conversation.

“I am not lost in spirit, brother. But I don’t need it all. Who to go to serve? Now everyone is ticking, they do not want to fight. Because it's all fucked up. I have seen this! I go into the hut in Mariupol - there is a hanged child, a girl of about ten years old. The belly is twisted with her, the guts stick out, ”Sergey frowns.

He repeats several times that he “does not fall” and will hold on, waving his hands on which fresh deep cuts are visible. My question about where they came from, Sergey ignores. He complains that at night he is tormented by phantom pains, and he cannot sleep. He drinks every evening, because "how can you not swell here."

"You would not have been washed down, brother?" He asks again.

Soon Sergey returns to Donetsk: the prosthetics of the legs went successfully. Although he complains of severe pain, doctors claim that after a while Panin will be able to walk again. He plans to return to the house that he was given after the end of the boarding school, and get a guard in Donetsk.

Sergey’s neighbors at the hotel say that when he gets drunk, he often threatens to return to war . But he assures me that it makes no sense to fight with such a foot.

"Everywhere - the same, everywhere - ass"

We are going to smoke with Sergey - he hardly relies on the crutches and grimaces in pain. Two more soldiers from the DPR and LPR - Dmitry and Ivan ( names are changed at the request of the heroes ) are smoke on the balcony. In the darkness and cigarette smoke, I barely distinguish between the faces of the fighters.

“You have to smoke, without it,” says Sergey.

- And then you will not grow up, right? - Dmitry laughs at him, pointing his hand to the low growth of Sergei and straightening his dark hair. He laughs in response, scratching the back of his head.

I say goodbye to Sergey, and he wraps around my hands, clinging to my forehead. He asks me to come to him again.

I return to the corridor and see a man on crutches. He leaned on the wall, carefully looks at the phone, from which a pop song is loudly yelling. He refuses the interview, and I go to the room to Dmitry and Ivan. There are two single beds, a military backpack on the floor, a bottle of phantas under the bed.

Ivan - 24 years old, he was born and lived in Lugansk. Since 2019, he has been fighting - at first he served in the intelligence of the People’s Police of the LPR, and in February 2022 he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He says that he wanted in the war: “It was just interesting, I liked the situation, fighting comrades.”

He sits on a crumpled bed, wide apart, shod in worn sneakers. A striped shirt is thrown over a yellowish T -shirt. Silver rings shine on his big fingers.

“A year ago I lost my leg, August 17,” says Ivan. - We got under fire, I had to run. Fast. Here on the petal is an anti -personnel mine of pressure. And came. They did not arrange disability - instead of it they put general diseases, three million were not paid. ”

According to him, he is demanding that "four kilograms are required to do something."

“Someone is generally frankly deceiving. It is necessary to gnaw everything from them to a penny, ”Ivan argues.

His neighbor, Dmitry, is a tall 24-year-old young man in a black baseball cap and in fleece camouflage pants, into which a dark sweatshirt was tucked to him. While Ivan says, he fidgets on the bed, straightens the jacket and furtively glances at the phone, constantly scratching his leg chopped off to his knee.

In Donetsk, he studied at the Academy of Management, but in December last year Dmitry was expelled for poor performance, and two months later they mobilized.

“My mother called me, said that the agenda came to me. I lived with the girl then - I decided to go home that to collect at least things. But he did not reach, they took it right from the bus. The military stopped him and said that men would come out from 18 to 55 years old. Well, I went out, ”says Dmitry. - I was put in the car and immediately at the military registration and enlistment office. Equipped and sent to Mariupol. Although the girl told me that I would get into a pussy, I hoped that it would do without it. At first scared that it was not clear where we were going, but then it became a drum. Everywhere - the same, everywhere - an ass. "

At first, Dmitry was paid for participation in the war 76 thousand rubles a month, and then increased the salary to 176 thousand. He is still spending accumulated money on food, transport and clothes in Moscow. He hopes that he will also receive payments for injuries that this year in Avdeevka received in the summer. On them, he wants to buy an apartment in Moscow or St. Petersburg, open some business and start a peaceful life.

- And if not for the wound, would you continue to fight? I ask.

“Yes, I went there purposefully,” says Ivan.

- Many are fighting on the prosthesis. But you will not return there now? - Dmitry laughs, pointing to his leg.

- No, I will not return. I will sit somewhere in the rear, ”Ivan answers quietly.

- Personally from me - enough. I want to end this, goodbye, ”Dmitry says loudly, scratching his body under the sweatshirt.

“You are these two payments that you want to receive for a wound - you will never receive,” Ivan suddenly addresses him. - You were in the "Dnrov" troops, and we have insurance for Russian. So fucking is all.

“This is possible to do,” Dima does not agree.

“Perhaps, but fucked up,” Ivan continues.

-And I, in your opinion, what will I do? Dima shouts. - I'm already all - I'm in no hurry.

- You fought for the idea? - I'm trying to change the subject.

- There is no idea there. They said - go there, you will puss. That's all, ”says Ivan.

“Patriots there are units,” Dmitry agrees. - We had a team of hodgepodge. Mobilized people do not know anything about the war. These are those who were baking pies or in the “Pyaterochka” stood, and they were given the machine instead of pies - go fight. I arrived at the training ground, shot fifteen rounds - "Well done - Sturmovik!" Only when he got into artillery, then they really taught. And then I was blown up on a mine, began to scream into the walkie -talkie. When they ran to me, I was already lying and smoked a cigarette. This commander, who poured my leg with peroxide, leave a part to the oak into the oak out of the oak. He leaned, the psyche could not stand it!

When I ask the former military, whether they feel support from Russia, silence hangs in the room. Drops of rain flow down foggy windows. The hoarse electric sound of the refrigerator fills the room. Dmitry is the first to begin: he says that they are not particularly loved in Russia, they believe that the “Dnrovites” began the war - it means they themselves are to blame.

“Did we want this war? - quietly says Dmitry. - We wanted to live calmly and peacefully. Some do not understand this. Politicians untied the war - not us. They build eyes to us, they say everything is fine, but behind us they talk about us completely different. ”

And again there is silence. Ivan holds his hand on the prosthesis and looks at the ceiling. His neighbor no longer fidgets, looks somewhere down with an empty gaze.

- Do you generally think that they will give you this to publish? - Suddenly Ivan asks me. -I was interviewed by "Channel One". He told them that everything is fine, I will pass prosthetics. They answered: “Do not despair, guys! Everything will be fucked up. ” But you want to know how actually? We Mosin's rifle Sniper rifle of the 1891 sample. issued. The feeling was that the second world was hit. She, of course, is good, but not when they flee to you with an automaton. Now the reservists are loaded with an open top for some dump truck: they go with the “mosinki”, in the form from the Second World War, the cookie on the whole company was devoured and bark from the trees was brewed in boiling water.

“At first it was,” Dmitry agrees. - I already got everything there [in the war]. Both the helmet and body armor - he removed everything from the killed dill. After the first wound, I bought a helmet from my salary at Voentorg. You can say he equipped himself.

"War pulls you"

Попрощавшись с Иваном и Дмитрием, иду в самую глубину коридора. В одном из номеров громко работает телевизор — крутят новости. Приоткрываю дверь: в синем мерцании экрана вижу две одноместные кровати и тумбочку, на которой стоят пустые бутылки пива. На постели расположился одноногий военный с вмятиной на затылке. Щетина с проседью подчеркивает его грубоватое овальное лицо. Круглые глаза сразу впиваются в меня.

«История у всех одна — война. Не мы же ее затеяли, правильно? Вопросы надо задавать тем, кто ее затеял», — говорит Александр, делая глоток пива.

Он родился в Донецке, а сейчас живет в поселке Старомихайловка в Марьинском районе. До фронта всего 600 метров, поэтому в дом Александра не раз прилетали снаряды. Отца убили из-за денег еще в 90-х в Москве, где он торговал мебелью. После этого Александра «повернуло в другую сторону»: нужно было выживать и взрослеть — обеспечивать мать. В 18 лет он пошел работать шахтером, потом служил в милиции, а в 2014 году поехал на «Антимайдан» Серия митингов в Киеве против Евромайдана. . С тех пор Александр — на войне, и не только в Украине.

— Я ноги лишился из-за старой раны, которую еще в Сирии получил. Внутри тела остались осколки, которые не убрали, и пошла гангрена. Тогда ногу и отрезали мне, — тихо говорит Александр, нахмурив брови и опустив глаза в пол. — Я еще какое-то время пытался ее спасти, в барокамеру в Донецке ездил. Не хотел отрезать.

— Что людям нужно понять о войне? I ask.

— Братан, — начинает отвечать Александр, истерически смеется и прячет свою ногу под одеяло. — А не нужно им ничего понимать.

Тут улыбка с его лица исчезает. Я всматриваюсь в его пористое лицо, отмеченное ожогами и шрамами. Морщины сливаются с неглубокими порезами. Короткие волосы обнажают затянутые раны на затылке и лбу. Глаза его широко раскрыты и устремлены в одну точку.

«Если бы человек поехал на войну, пожил бы там, то он бы понял. И не на три месяца, а на десять лет, как я. Десять лет я уже в этом варюсь. It is cruel. Тогда этот человек уже не останется дома — его заберет война. Война его съест, понимаешь? Со временем ты к этому привыкаешь, война тебя тянет. Есть такое чувство, что без тебя там дела не будет. — объясняет мне Александр. — Как я могу их оставить? Как могу оставаться дома? У меня там друзья. А если не я, то кто пойдет? Эти алкаши и наркоманы?»

Он рассказывает про своего друга-шахтера, которого мобилизовали с началом войны.

«Первый раз он вытянул двоих раненых на себе и остался в живых. Второй заход — он потянул укропа, чтобы вытащить и его, но сам же там остался. Мать до сих пор не верит, что он умер. Это был героический поступок. И таких людей очень мало — о них надо писать, а не обо мне».

Выплату за ранение Александр не получил, но он на нее и не претендует. Говорит, что ему как наемнику не положено, а объяснить подробнее отказывается. Пока Александр получает военную пенсию в размере 10 000 рублей и думает, как прокормить семью.

С бывшей женой он расстался из-за того, что та устала ждать его с передовой, но недавно Александр снова женился. Вместе с молодой женой и матерью живет в Старомихайловке, но после протезирования собирается устроиться на работу в Донецке.

«Приезжай ко мне в поселок, — улыбается он. — Увидишь, что в нашем районе уже 10 лет нет света. По документам мы вообще эвакуированы! Поговоришь с администрацией, спросишь у них, почему людям помощь не оказывают, которые в полуразрушенных домах живут. Мы даже во “ВКонтакте” писали в разные группы: “[Бывший глава ДНР], Пушилин, ты ахуел? Ты чего с Донецком сделал?” Для инвалидов никаких пособий. Мне социальные службы Донецка инвалидную коляску только спустя год выдали. Хорошо, что мне друзья помогли и подарили коляску. А чтобы я сделал, если бы они не помогли бы мне? Кто бы меня носил?»

Александр с трудом встает с кровати и на костылях добирается до окна. Всматривается в черное небо, усыпанное звездами. Он открывает форточку, берет с карниза бутылку пива и возвращается на кровать.

*The text was prepared in conjunction with the project "Mentoring"