VELYKA NOVOSILKA, Ukraine – On any other day, the Friendship summer camp might be a serene setting for vacationing schooldchildren.
Signs adorned with colorful paintings of rainbows and flowers mark its entrance. Not far is a jungle gym inside the kaleidoscopic gates where they would laugh and play.
Nowadays, it is home to dozens of fidgety middle-aged men in masks, decked out in black combat gear and carrying assault rifles.
They are members of the Donbas Battalion, a volunteer militia devoted to ensuring a united Ukraine.
They operate with the tacit support of the central government in Kyiv. Their task is fighting separatist rebels who – with Moscow’s backing – have besieged the country’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Comprised of ex-military men with combat experience and civilian volunteers, the brigade operates covertly, destroying rebel roadblocks and freeing buildings that the separatists occupy. On occasion, they capture and interrogate the rebels before turning them and their weapons over to the authorities in Dnipropetrovsk, where the governor, billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, has offered cash rewards for their capture and for weapons.
The group was first seen in action on May 2, when a video posted on YouTube showed the battalion wielding Kalashnikov rifles, destroying a separatist checkpoint near Krasnoarmiisk, 67 kilometers from the separatist stronghold Donetsk. During the raid, the patriotic militiamen claimed to have captured 15 rebels and seized three automatic rifles.
The guns were later exchanged for cash, explains Sergey Yeremin, the militia unit’s deputy commander. A retired serviceman, he’s the only man here not wearing a mask or carrying a Kalashnikov. But he’s fiddling with a small pistol inside his jacket pocket as he explains how the battalion operates.
The group solicits donations on the internet, lists their bank accounts on Facebook and uses their own money, he says.
Since the unit’s first call to arms about three weeks ago, more than 100 men have joined its ranks. Another 600 are on a waiting list, says Semyon Semenchenko, the Donbas Battalion’s 38-year-old commander and a former army reserve captain.
On this day, a nurse from Kyiv who helped the EuroMaidan Revolution that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, is firing her first Kalashnikov at a target deep in the woods.
Admittedly nervous but also excited, the woman, who asked that her name not be published for fear of reprisals from Russian-backed rebels, takes aim at a target and then fires. She missed by a longshot. But she fires again and again. One shot hits a few inches below the target. “Good job,” the commander says.
Back at the bunks, a pensioner who does not give his name explains that he joined the battalion to support his son, an army soldier based in Sloviansk. “He’s already received a medal of valor for his work there,” he says. The father spent nearly 10 years in the military, he says.
Nearby, a burly man with a striped sailor shirt poking out from his all-black uniform who goes by the name “Sviatoslav” says he is here because he doesn’t like “the occupation by that toilet, Russia, here on my motherland.”
Kyiv and the West say Moscow is playing a major hand in fomenting the unrest in order to destabilize the country ahead of presidential elections on May 25.
Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security services and a New York University professor, says that using shadowy agents here in place of troops “is the cheapest and easiest way to stir up Kyiv.”
In the meantime, Galeotti adds, “Moscow is trying to work out how not to take the Donbas while not completely alienating its local agents.”
Flanked by two armed men, Semenchenko, in black combat gear and a balaclava, says that he recently captured three pro-Russian spies who attempted to infiltrate his unit. They asked “too many questions” and “about mission logistics,” he said. “We spotted them immediately.” He did not say what became of the spies, other than they were “taken away.”
Semenchenko, a former small business owner who spent six years in the military, says that his unit is “fighting bandits and criminals and traitors to the country.”
All in the separatist camp, Semenchenko adds, are guilty of treason. “They are spreading lies and propaganda. They are telling false information that gives a warped sense of the reality here,” he says.
He and his men – as well as several other militias that have popped up across eastern Ukraine – have taken up arms to fight separatism here, because “if we don’t, who will?”
The group’s leader says Ukraine’s military forces are “impotent,” in reference to the lackluster counterterrorism operation that was launched in April that has left at least 24 Ukrainian soldiers killed and many more wounded.
“Ukrainian forces sitting near Sloviansk are cowards,” says Yeremin, referring to the flashpoint city of 100,000 people where several gun battles between Ukrainian security forces and heavily-armed separatists have taken place in the past three weeks.
As for police forces, many officers have defected to the pro-Russian separatists, while others have fled or simply don’t show up for work. That has left a security vacuum.
So what does it take to become a member of this squad?
The criteria for joining its ranks, Yeremin says, is straightforward: men and women must be at least 18 years old, they must be healthy and harbor a great love for their motherland. “Everything else can be learned here,” he adds, gesturing to the training grounds as men stack sandbags around a lookout post.
This camp is new. The battalion’s last one, a field located near Krasnoarmiisk dotted with trees and discarded agricultural equipment, was discovered by the separatists. The battalion was forced to find a new location after that, hence the summer camp, which Yeremin says was provided by Kolomoisky’s regional government.
“We communicate with someone close to Kolomoisky,” he explains. “They provide some support.”
The Kyiv Post’s requests for comments from Kolomoisky regarding his cooperation with the Ukrainian militia were not answered.
These fighters are not affiliated with the army, Yeremin says, nor with Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of the nationalist militant organization Right Sector.
They do, however, communicate with “someone close to (Arsen) Avakov,” Yeremin says, referring to the acting interior minister. Avakov could not be reached for comment. Most decisions are made between him and Semenchenko, insists Yeremin.
On May 15, the unit launched an operation in bucolic Velyka Novosilka, in western Donetsk Oblast, a city of some 40,000 people. Days earlier, pro-Russian separatists had forced a Kyiv-appointed mayor from his office in the city council building, removed the Ukrainian flag from the pole outside and raised that of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Local police even supported the separatists’ actions.
The operation went as follows: Storm the police headquarters, disarm them and lecture them on patriotism and duty to country. After that, replace the Donetsk People’s Republic flag with the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, and reinstall the pro-Kyiv mayor.
In the heat of the afternoon, some two dozen Donbass Battalion members meet several pro-Ukraine locals at a grain station. There they check their weapons, unpack boxes of grenades and pass them around. Semenchenko explains the logistics as men huddle around him. Then they cram into a handful of rickety vehicles and the column moves on the police headquarters.
There, passersby scatter as the masked group leaps from the car and shouts orders at police who run inside. With the butts of their Kalashnikovs, several members crash through the windows and break through the front door as others stand guard.
Inside, the militia forces 10 police officers to the ground at gunpoint and empties their pockets. One jittery man with a double-barreled rifle sticks a squirming officer in the back with the muzzle of his gun and shouts: “Don’t fucking move, scum!”
The raid is over in less than 10 minutes. After a scolding, the trembling officers are allowed to leave and the battalion moves to the city council building, raises the Ukrainian flag and claims victory.
With the yellow and blue flapping overhead, Semenchenko deems the mission a success. Despite the hostile operation, “we want to support the police,” he says. “They don’t have the motivation. But we are ready to help them fight the separatists.”
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected].
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media
