Volodymyr Zhemchuhov is an extraordinary individual: A miner and later a businessman who worked for a long time in the Caucasus countries, who never imagined he would become one of the main saboteurs in his native Donbas.
But in 2014, after the Russians occupied his hometown in the Luhansk region, he managed to organize a network of saboteurs and demolitionists consisting of several dozen people. They carried out dozens of bombings on roads and railways, several assassination attempts on terrorist leaders – with some operations not only planned by him but also executed personally. During the last one, he lost his hands and was captured by Russian forces.
How did he manage it? Why did he end up captured by the enemy, and what is the state of the partisan movement today?
About eleven years ago, the hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation in Donbas began – after the annexation of Crimea. You remember well how it happened. Tell us, what was it like?
Since 2007, I had been living and working in Georgia.
I went to Tbilisi and opened a private company there. I was a leader in the supply of packaging, bottles, and caps for beverages across the Transcaucasus region. I came to Luhansk just for Easter to visit relatives.
It was April 2014. I met a friend at Donetsk airport, brought him home to the city of Krasny Luch, and on the way, we passed an intersection on the Kharkiv-Rostov-Luhansk-Donetsk highway.
I saw barricades made of tires. I asked my friend, “What is that?” He waved it off – said, “It’s just local pro-Russians gathering.”
We were also ethnic Russians by surname, and we even laughed. I was born and raised in Luhansk region. I don’t remember anyone ever being bullied for speaking Russian. I remember from childhood, from school, that kids who spoke Ukrainian – those were the ones laughed at.
But as for the humiliation of Russian speakers – I remember no such thing.
So, I approached those people and asked – “Who are you? What do you want? What are your demands?”
At first, they were very frightened.
Who were those people? Workers?
I had worked in Krasny Luch at several enterprises until 2007, including as a manager.
Krasny Luch has a population of one hundred thousand. I knew many people there, and I recognized some of those I saw.
Some were from a social layer of alcoholics and unskilled laborers – people who could be hired to dig a garden or haul trash, paid in cash at the end of the day. I saw those people there.
They said, “We have no demands.” The mayor of Krasny Luch, Filippova, hired us. We don’t do anything – we just sit here and act as a crowd. At the end of each day, they bring us money, food, vodka. It’s great. A cool job.”
Then I understood – this would be just like Crimea, Abkhazia, Ossetia – the same scenario… Where they couldn’t find enough people to sit at barricades, the rates went up to $50.
If you sat at a checkpoint for twenty-four hours – $50. For these people, $50 a day was fantastic money.
So, the support for pro-Russian movements in Luhansk region… it wasn’t really grassroots?
All for money. Enterprise managers forced their workers to go out to these events and form crowds.
Among the population – no more than twenty percent supported Russia. And of those, most were in it for the money. Ideological supporters? Maybe one, two, at most eight or nine percent.
Another twenty percent actively supported Ukraine. The remaining sixty percent – that was an amorphous mass, the general population. They were just observing.
An important point to clarify. Around Krasnodon and Sverdlovsk, there really was a “hole” on the border. It had existed since the 1990s.
Quiet during the day, but at night it was like Moscow’s ring road in the opposite direction. Back then, small trucks from Russia brought in flour, sea fish, etc., and from Ukraine – sugar, non-ferrous metals.
Through that same hole in spring 2014, weapons were brought in, and a general of the so-called Don Cossack Host, Kozitsyn, entered with his people and captured the city of Antratsyt.
They took power. There were no military units in Luhansk region. The nearest unit was in Donetsk region, in Kramatorsk. So cities were guarded only by police.
Half of the police switched to the Russian side for money, and half just stepped aside. Russians entered cities in small detachments – seventy to ninety armed men – and captured police stations first, where weapons and potential resistance were located.
After that, they did whatever they wanted.
How did people react?
People were scared by the weapons.
Then the terror began. Bodies were found outside cities – hands tied behind their backs with tape, gunshot wounds to the head. It frightened people.
Now I know what 1937 looked like – Stalin’s time.
No one was touched during the day, but at night they came after 2 a.m. A convoy would arrive, break down doors, torture, rob, rape wives, demand cooperation.
If someone refused to cooperate with the Russians, they were taken outside the city – often to old silage pits – and executed.
They were mostly businessmen?
Not just businessmen. Police officers, Ukrainian government employees, local deputies [council members] – people with social influence, supported by the population.
You had no combat experience. How did you decide to start a partisan struggle in that atmosphere?
Where did you get weapons? Where did you find people to work with you?
It started in the spring. I knew it would be like Abkhazia, then Karabakh, Moldova, Crimea.
I took my family to Georgia and returned alone.
At that time, we weren’t thinking about a partisan movement – just self-defense. We united for that. Some had hunting rifles, others different weapons.
In 2004, I supported the Orange Revolution. There were already local groups, people I knew in Krasnodon, Rovenky, Lutuhyne, Luhansk. The same people who supported Ukraine in 2004 began uniting now.
Still, the question of weapons is relevant. What was happening in the city at that time?
When the Russians came, they started looting. The “Russian Myr” [a word meaning world and, ironically, peace – Ed.] began with looting. ATMs, banks, cars, businesses. They looted all of May and June. By July, there was nothing left.
Then the Russians, pro-Russian locals, and local “Cossacks” started selling weapons because they ran out of money.
Cossacks – Russian or local?
Local alcoholics. They were given weapons and ammunition without any control. In the summer, they started selling them.
A Kalashnikov rifle cost $200, a Kalashnikov machine gun $300, a grenade $50, a Makarov pistol $700 – because everyone wanted one. Ammo was $1 per round. I bought weapons with my own money to arm my comrades.
How did they not figure out who was buying weapons?
We didn’t buy in large quantities. There weren’t many of us.
We had already divided into partisans and the underground.
Partisans were those who decided to start armed resistance. In Krasnodon – two people, in Rovenky – three people, Sverdlovsk – four, Antratsyt – five, Krasny Luch – four, Lutuhyne – two, Luhansk – three, Snizhne – four.
That’s already a few dozen people.
For a region – not many. But the underground included thousands – people tracking Russian movements, making patriotic graffiti, collecting data on collaborators and Russian positions.
How did you coordinate – mobile communication? It was being cut off, and you could be monitored…
It still worked then. Mobile networks disappeared in summer. Internet still worked. Russians weren’t prepared for local partisan resistance. We used open lines and Viber.
No counter-sabotage operations until 2016 – that’s when the first of our partisans, after me, was caught.
What was your first partisan operation?
It happened at the end of August. On August 24, 2014, the full-scale invasion began. Putin sent in regular troops to support Cossack battalions. The Russian army entered Luhansk and Donetsk regions. They defeated our army near Ilovaisk and Luhansk airport. Our army retreated, and only the Minsk agreements stopped the Russians.
On August 23–24, the Zhytomyr brigade was retreating from Savur-Mohyla through Snizhne and Krasny Luch. As Ukrainian tanks moved, Cossacks and locals fled their checkpoints. There was no authority in the city for a whole day.
Then on August 24, a Russian tank column entered Antratsyt – the Ryazan Airborne Division, Chechen and Dagestani battalions. Contract soldiers. They fought the Zhytomyr brigade, which resisted, but the Russians were too many.
After the battle, I went to the outskirts of Krasny Luch, near Miusynsk. I saw burned Ukrainian APCs, dead soldiers, and the Ryazan division torturing the wounded. That pushed me to resist. These Kadyrovites [members of Chechen squad named after Kadyrov – the head of occupied Chechen republic in Russia] – they liked filming everything on smartphones, they already had them. One posed with his foot on a dead Ukrainian soldier, raising his rifle for a photo. I couldn’t stand it. I told him, “What are you doing? He’s already dead. Where are you from so wild? Do you have a mother? You’re monsters!”. Civilians were around, so he seemed to be ashamed and walked away.
Then I told my comrades, this is no longer banditry. It’s an occupation. I said, I’ve bought weapons, let’s do something. Most of us had served in the Soviet or Ukrainian army, but we had no combat experience. No one had killed before.
Did they agree?
It was very difficult. My comrades said – this was illegal under the Criminal Code. Only in 2022 did they amend it to allow for the killing of occupiers in self-defense. They said – what if the Ukrainian government returns? You’re proposing to blow up bridges used by Russians. That’s state property. We’ll be arrested. I replied – but what should we do? They’re killing civilians, raping women. Should we just wait to be next?
And so we dared to carry out our first action.
Putin said, “We’re not there.” But the Russian army hid behind local proxies, concealed tanks and APCs in towns. Near our city, in a ravine, they had a whole camp.
This is our land. Since childhood, we knew every river, every pond. We took rifles and went to their camp at night. We crept in close – we knew the terrain. We just started shooting at the camp. Some emptied one magazine, others two. Then we pulled back.
That’s how our partisan movement began.