Batomkunuev in hospital and talk about him on the 5th Tank Brigade’s VKontakte page
Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent news outlets in Russia, posted an article of a long interview in a Donetsk hospital with 20-year-old Russian ARMY soldier Dorzhi Batomkunuev, who was severely burnt on 19 February while fighting near Debaltseve Ukraine. He was from the 5th Independent Tank Brigade (V/Ch 46108) from Ulan-Ude in the Far East, and like most in his unit, a local Buddhist Buryat.
This will be news to the trolls, clueless, and delusional who do not believe Russian military forces have been fighting a war in Ukraine, but not to those who have seen any of the mountains of evidence available to date.
Originally a conscript, he signed a three-year contract in 2014 and ended up in the 2nd Tank Battalion, which added extra contract troops and was notified in late 2014 that it was going for the now infamous maneuvers near Rostov, though he claims all knew it meant going to Ukraine. The full story is in the linked articles (the original in Russian and the second a generally good English translation). The interview also sheds some light on the mindset of the Russian troops fighting there and how totally brainwashed they are from Russian state media.
In addition to his very technically accurate descriptions of his unit moving into Ukraine, the specifics of his T-72B tank (a missile-firing variant the Ukrainian military has never possessed), and the conduct of the tank battles, there are some interesting points he made:
His unit in Ukraine was a standard 31-tank battalion, but made into a battalion task force with the addition of infantry and a larger logistics tail.
He also mentions how they trained for a full three months near Rostov, along with a number of other regular Russian military units.
The unit political officer (a throwback to Soviet times, which after a short disappearance in the 90s, has made a comeback) helped prepare them for their mission psychologically, though does not seem to have had to resort to hardcore political indoctrination–the troops seem to have already been brainwashed.
He mentions how back in Ulan-Ude they regularly watched TV and saw how horrible the Ukrainians were–according to the official Russian state version. They seem to have unquestioningly eaten it all up.
While in eastern Ukraine, one of the battalion brass told them to be careful since 70% of the people there did not support Russia. This figure is perhaps a bit low, but is close to the percentage of people in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions who are ethnically Ukrainian (though polling a year ago also showed most ethnic Russians there did not support separatism or joining Russia). Yet amazingly, he ignores those numbers and tells the interviewer that they have to beat the Ukrainians (using various pejorative terms for them in his conversation), because the locals had voted to be independent. An unbelievable case of brainwashing having worked.
As part of his brainwashing, he claims there were foreigners fighting there. Chechens (yes there are some fighting for the Ukrainians but more Kadyrovites fighting for the Russian side), and Poles, though when question he said he did not see any. On the subject of Ukrainian troops, he seems to have filled in some blanks from his state brainwashing, by saying he had heard some Ukrainian prisoners saying they had indeed killed civilians, and that they had to go to the army or else the Ukrainian government would kill their parents and family (major lies). This is most likely more of the Kremlin line (it is word for word) coming through.
On the other hand, when recounting various battles, it was always the Ukrainians targeting Russian military forces–either by mortars or other tanks–not civilians, though he does mention how they sometimes fired on cars.
A lot of Russian tanks were destroyed there, including the commander’s.
The local separatist militia appears to have been (as we have long said on these pages) in a minor supporting role, and his assessment was that they were a bunch of guys with guns who fired recklessly and then left, as though it were a job.
After his severe burning and movement to the hospital in Donetsk, the ward was visited by Russian singer Josef Kobzon (a Putin favourite and all-round Mafia boss), who spoke with him for some time, and was later broadcast on Russian TV (video link in the English-language interview article).
His greatest brainwashing nuggets were at the end, when he, apparently a bit confused, said “If Ukraine joins the EU, the UN, then the UN may deploy their rockets here, their weapons, they could do it. And then this will be pointed at us. They will be a lot closer to us, not beyond the oceans. Right at out land border….But if they take Donbas and deploy the rockets, then they can reach Russia if it comes to that.” Horrible United Nations and its missiles.
Original Russian Novaya Gazeta Article
English Translation of Novaya Gazeta Article