[LINK] "'I took no prisoners' "

[rfmcdonald]

Open Democracy's Anton Shirokikh shares his interview with an anonymous Russian volunteer for the separatist militias in eastern Ukraine. The volunteer reports on a bitter and hard-fought war, with few prisoners taken, little direct Russian intervention, and--as in the excerpt below--growing tensions between Russians and Ukrainians, civilians and military people.

There are some things I don't want to say… On the one hand, yes, I’ll tell you the truth, but on the other, officially the army of the Donetsk People’s Republic doesn’t want to hear it. Right now the militia is becoming increasingly disgruntled with the DNR leadership. And this conflict will be decided, in the end, in favour of the militia. At the moment, there’s a carve-up going on in the Donbas between the haves and the have-nots. That’s what why we really left, because those squabbles were increasingly coming to blows. Some are here to fight, and others are here to make money. As soldiers, we don’t particularly like it when people use us. For example, the recent ceasefire – nobody from the army understood it at all. The situation became very tense at that point: the slightest spark could have set off a change of leadership.

At the moment, there’s a carve-up going on in the Donbas between the haves and the have-nots.

Then people began vying for the plum jobs inside the administration. Even among the militia. Maybe I’m a chauvinist, but at a certain moment I started noticing that Russian commanders were leaving or were being replaced by Ukrainians from Donetsk. I didn’t like this. Many people didn’t. The reasons for these changes came down to the fact that we had started winning. The time when this land would be completely free was on the horizon, and when it happens, the question of its government will naturally arise. Initially, it will be military. So if Russians are in control locally, then the politicians will also be Russian. That’s why we have all these slogans about the 'brotherly nation' and so on… I don’t differentiate. I support anyone I’ve fought with. I’ll give my life for him, whether he’s Ukrainian or not. But when you see what’s going on, then you start to think it over: perhaps they’re dividing us up into those who are local like them and those from elsewhere.

When the next phase of the war starts, we don’t know how far the militia will want to go – opinions differ. Some think that it’ll only affect the DNR and LNR [Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics], but then someone else says, 'But what about our guys in Kharkov?' Most likely it won’t get that far. For them, everything begins and ends with the place they grew up: I’m ready to die here, sure, but there – God, they just freeze up – there, no way. This is exactly why the LNR and DNR have yet to combine forces.'It’s sad to say, but tensions between Russians and Ukrainians have crept in even down there. The men in the Ukrainian militia feel that 'This is my land.' No one will say so openly, but it's taken as read. Those kinds of conversations are cut short immediately. They can also lead to people getting shot. And anyway, they don’t even know themselves whether they’ll need our help in the future or not. If they’re confident they don’t need us any more, then those feelings are likely to take over. To be honest, though, they couldn’t fight at all. They were taught by the specialists I’ve already mentioned – people like me. We taught them military tactics – how to win. Before that, though, it was a bit like an amateur hunting trip: a big group of them get together, drive down, get dead drunk and go off shooting. It was only the mass heroism of the militia and Strelkov’s leadership that saved the day back then.