Six days after losing five members in an ambush sprung by a superior force of Russian-backed separatists, the Donbas Battalion, a quasi-military group consisting mostly of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast civilians is forming into a National Guard special-purpose battalion to officially join the government’s counter-terrorism operation, the Interior Ministry announced on May 29 after reaching an agreement with its leader Semyon Semenchenko.
The unit will comprise of 120-150 men, the usual size of a rota, or a troop company. They will undergo training at the National Guard training base in Novi Petrivtsi, a village 10 kilometers north of Kyiv. Their task will be to “conduct anti-subversive and anti-terrorist” activities in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the Interior Ministry stated. This will include guarding the Ukrainian-Russian border to prevent “organized groups of terrorists from breaking through from the Russian Federation,” it added.
Unlike other counter-terrorism units from the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry and the Security Service, at least 75 percent of the battalion will consist of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast residents.
The Interior Ministry to which the National Guard is subordinated praised the marriage despite the volunteer militia’s criticism of how the government has countered the Kremlin-backed separatist movement in the east that has escalated into a guerilla war.
“The creation of a special Donbas battalion at the National Guard of Ukraine is an example of effective cooperation between patriotic citizens and public authorities,” said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
In turn, Donbas Battalion leader Semyon Semenchenko said on his Facebook page that “for everybody who doesn’t know what is transpiring, a war has erupted…we especially require officers and sergeants. The main imperative is the resolve to die for one’s homeland when necessary. Everything else is secondary.”
The group formed in early May. According to a May 16 interview Semenchenko gave to the Kyiv Post, the volunteer militia formed out of the necessity to fight “separatists…because if we don’t who will?” In the same interview, Semenchenko, a former small business owner who spent six years in the military, called Ukraine’s military forces “impotent,” in reference to the lackluster counterterrorism operation that was launched in April that has left at least 56 Ukrainian servicemen dead at the hands of Moscow-backed separatists.
It enjoyed much success in the western parts of Donetsk Oblast taking over rebel-held checkpoints, police stations and polling stations leading up to the May 25 presidential election. The group also conducted surveillance of separatists in Mariupol, Donetsk city and Sloviansk, claimed Semenchenko on Facebook posts.
However, a group of 25 men from the battalion ran into trouble on May 23 when 100 separatists ambushed them near the village of Karlivka, some 35 kilometers northwest of Donetsk. Outnumbered and outgunned – the enemy had heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, three armored personnel carriers and was reinforced by an additional 200 fighters over the course of four and a half hours of fighting – Donbas Battalion lost five of their men, and had six wounded.
Semenchenko claimed that his side killed 11 separatists and wounded six in the so-called Vostok Battalion consisting mostly of Chechen fighters.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
