WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000
Codename Mosquit. Joined the Donbass Battalion in May 2014. Went voluntarily. I’m a resident of Kherson.

2
00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:19.000
I saw the battle of Karlivka on television. I saw a man, about 60, in an old soviet helmet.

3
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:34.000
I saw this and was bothered that I was in good health, did my stint in the army, and was sitting watching all this from my couch, as people died.

4
00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:44.000
If you’ve got a head on your shoulders, you should understand that in your city there is no war because someone is fighting at this very moment. Tearing apart their life, so that this shit doesn’t make its way to your city.

5
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.000
We understood that we needed help to finish off Ilovaisk, or they’d destroy us.

6
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:59.000
Rumors abounded that a corridor was to be set up, that something was being set up. But these were only rumors.

7
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:09.000
Then they said we’d break through. Sappers were moving in a vehicle and were blown up. We ended up going into a ditch. The vehicle couldn’t move, we ditched it.

8
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:15.000
And headed for the fields. Everything was on fire. Bullets constantly whizzing by. You don’t understand who? What? Where?

9
00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:25.000
Already, in Krasnosel’ske people were collecting the bodies of our boys. There were very many casualties. About 80.
Such was the “green” bloody corridor.

10
00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:38.000
The Russians immediately came out with white flags, so we had the impression that they were surrendering.
Later as it turned out, these were their identifiers. 
Again, this hybrid war and their cowardice. 

11
00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:51.000
There was a man, nicknamed Lisa, commander of the Russian sub-subunit, which controlled one flank. There was an agreement that they’d let us out.

12
00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:00.000
Half hour before that there was an hour long battle there, but now you’re standing talking to him. And you can’t understand the situation.

13
00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:10.000
It was as if they had orders to let people out, but not let anyone into Ilovaisk. And they were waiting for the mythical Pravyy Sektor, which was rumored to be advancing into Ilovaisk.

14
00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:21.000
And along comes our column. They again wait in ambush. Our column passes and they fire straight at us, and we render such resistance. They were in shock.

15
00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:41.000
They believed we were mega-super-special ops. I understood that the word “volunteer” was terrifying to them. To try to explain to them that volunteers are simply people, who three-four months ago were living normal civilian lives, never once thinking about war, who suddenly took up arms. This idea, for them, was unbelievable.

16
00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:53.000
They were constantly told that some Banderite would come and kill them for speaking Russian. The fact that I was Russian-speaking, for them, was earth shattering. 

17
00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:02.000
Because they couldn’t reconcile the ‘truth” that had been planted in their heads with that which they was seeing with their own eyes.  For them, it was an incomprehensible situation.