MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Over the past three-and-a-half years of war, the Donbas-Ukraine special forces battalion has fought in some of the worst clashes in Russia’s war in the Donbas, and lost hundreds of its fighters on the battlefield.
The battalion first emerged in spring 2014 as a poorly armed and barely trained guerrilla force of pro-Ukrainian civilians living in the war-torn Donetsk Oblast. Later on, the band of volunteers evolved into one of Ukraine’s most effective fighting forces within the National Guard, at a the time when few army brigades could be fielded to repel the rising Russian military intervention in the east.
However, the battalion’s long and complicated combat history has driven a wedge between some of its former comrades-in-arms. As the war raged on, more and more fighters started to criticize the battalion’s former leader Semen Semenchenko for alleged incompetence, avoiding combat, and deliberately sacrificing his soldiers’ lives in order to gain media attention.
Amid the tragic battle of Debaltseve in early 2015, the Donbas battalion split into two parts, with most of its soldiers following Vyacheslav Vlasenko, their chief of staff and actual field commander. Together they formed the separate 46th special force battalion “Donbas-Ukraine” under the command of the Ukrainian armed forces.
As soon as they were rearmed and equipped, the new Donbas-Ukraine Battalion went back to fight in the east again, while Semenchenko was elected a member of parliament and ceased commanding forces in the war zone. And since then, Semenchenko and his former subordinates have been in a bitter feud.
Today, the Donbas-Ukraine Battalion is still fighting in Ukraine’s east – it is currently deployed some 30 kilometers northeast of the government-held city of Mariupol on the coast of Azov Sea.
The soldiers now man long lines of trenches and dugouts bristling with heavy machine guns running along the steep banks of the Kalmius River, which divides the opposing forces. The soldiers say that the desolated and sparsely populated area rarely sees any significant fighting, and after serving in the hot spots of Mariinka and Sviltodarsk, their present posting is less demanding.
Even though they serve as an army unit, the Donbas-Ukraine fighters have retained their volunteer traditions. They still use the honorific “brother” or “friend” before a comrade’s code name, in the manner common among Ukrainian militia forces, and only freely willing volunteers can join. And most of the battalion’s senior officers and old campaigners are former residents of eastern Ukrainian cities such as Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Donetsk, and Mariupol, which have been badly affected by the war or occupied by Russian-led forces.
Vyacheslav Vlasenko, the battalion’s commander, who goes by the code name the “Eagle-Owl”, says he is training and developing his unit into a true special force team of motivated soldiers concentrated on defending their country to the end, and avoiding any political activities during wartime.
The Donbas-Ukraine Battalion is now also home to a band of former Right Sector irregulars.
Their independent ways and and differing command structures meant it was hard to adjust to life in the regular army – but not in Vlasenko’s force, which they say is “probably the last unit where the spirit of 2014 is still alive.”
Read more about the company of Right Sector fighters who joined the army here.
