“We cannot be defeated. We will win with high morale and truth”

Several soldiers and commander of the 1st Battalion of the National Guard undergo treatment at Kharkiv Hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We are talking to four National Guard servicemen in the courtyard of the hospital; they insist that we mention that the battalion was named after General Kulchytsky, who is an indisputable authority and hero to them. The helicopter with the battle general was shot down in front of them on May 29 above the Karachun Hill [a hill near Sloviansk. – Ed.]. Since that day the servicemen dedicate every military operation to him and consider their everyday heroic deed a duty of every Ukrainian man. They simply love their land and are ready to defend it to the end.

“ONE DAY IS ENOUGH TO HOLD THE LUSTRATION!”

Battalion Commander Viktor stated that on April 14, when the battalion arrived in the ATO area, the servicemen haven’t retreated even once, neither have they left their weapons to the enemy. Instead they seized numerous trophies: they recall Hammers, BTRs, ammunition. They say the greatest test for them was the defense of Karachun, when 150 servicemen of the National Guard and 95th Brigade were standing against several thousands of terrorists. They went for water for seven kilometers under shooting. The servicemen stood the first blow. It is unknown how far would the Russian army proceed be it not for their resistance.

Machine gunner Volodymyr Hordiienko, 53, shows on his phone the video where the darkness is cut by fire flashes with great speed and whine. His is a recording of one of the shelling: this is death flying, the routine in the east of Ukraine. They speak about the Russian military men without hatred; they say that often Russians really don’t know that they go to Ukraine. The servicemen say that the so-called rebels are not homogenous; these are different gangs, which are not always organized, Cossacks and various contractors. Although they have modern equipment, Ukrainian servicemen often survive due to bad coordination of these formations. “We lost time when the enemy had little forces. Now they have thrown large forces,” Volodymyr contemplates, “On our side mainly volunteers are fighting. Why cannot they select at least 100 reserve servicemen who know what to do with weapons and drive a tank? I don’t understand.” At the same time, the servicemen assure, “Don’t count separatists. Count our spirit. It’s invincible. And no conqueror can stand a guerilla war. We will kill them wherever we see them, with forks or sticks, because this is our land.”

The servicemen are unanimous in their opinion that the most terrible enemy is the internal one, the betrayers and saboteurs in the headquarters, the police who can take bribes with government-issued weapon, but they are unable to defend their homeland or detain criminals. “For a day we were standing with the police at a block post. We asked what they were going to do if separatists or Russians attack. They said they will surrender their weapons, because they have families and children. This is disgrace. Are they warriors? Our men catch Russian saboteurs and separatists on their own every day,” Viktor says. One of the wounded, Serhii recalls how one day they caught Russian saboteurs and called the policemen to photo the enemy’s weapons, file the confiscation act, describe the place. In the meantime shooting began at the block post. The policemen ran away and hid in a bunker, the soldiers had to force them to go back on their place only to file the documents. Bribes on the posts of road inspection, organized of paid thugs are the deeds of current police, they say.

“I wish we could fire all the policemen and take new ones. These ones cannot be reeducated. If Georgia could do this, we will manage, too,” the National Guard servicemen are sure. Volodymyr considers that a day would be enough to hold a complete lustration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Ukraine. “We should gather all the policemen and say: those who are going to the east make a step forward. The rest should write a resignation note,” the machine gunner contemplates, “They vowed to Ukraine, there are 350,000 of them, and they have government-issued weapons they can fire from. This is an army.”

TO WIN WE NEED INFORMATION POLICY

Most of the servicemen in the 1st Battalion of the National Guard, like most of the volunteer battalions, are participants of Maidan. All regions of Ukraine are represented here, in particular, the occupied Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk which were taken by terrorists. “The servicemen include scientists, lawyers, doctors – the elite of the Ukrainian society. And they are standing in the front line, under the threat of death. We even have a 37-year-old millionaire,” Viktor smiles, “He could not look calmly at Russian aggression, joined the army as a volunteer, proved himself to be a courageous warrior during the battles.” Volodymyr Hordiienko is the oldest of the servicemen, the youngest has recently turned 17. After the military actions the boy is going to enter the Kharkiv Academy of the National Guard.

The servicemen don’t believe that Putin can be stopped by a ceasefire or sanctions. Neither do they hope to get help from NATO, they believe only in military resistance. “So, we should all be like one fist and stand,” the servicemen say, noting that the enemies of Ukraine have united the nation.

What surprises them the most is that the people in the Donbas who have never left their villages believe the most fantastic stories of Russian mass media. They are stupefied when they see the servicemen make a cross sign at a lop-sided village church. “They were brainwashed for 23 years, they were told that there are Banderites in western Ukraine. How can we convince them?” Volodymyr asks and offers a solution, “People from the east should go to the resorts to western Ukraine, so that they could see how people live there. So that they could see the whitewashed fences and trees. So that they could drink some milk. Many of those who moved from the Donbas to western Ukraine, lived and worked there, compared and said that they don’t want to go back.”

But the servicemen consider that the most important thing for victory is information policy and patriotic upbringing.

“The television relay tower we were consolidating was not just a hill, though Kramatorsk and Sloviansk were clearly visible from there. However, it broadcasted only Russian channels. As soon as we took it and switched on Ukrainian channels, it was immediately destroyed from mortars. Propaganda is a number-one priority for Russians. And in Ukraine it is not. Our Ukrainian propaganda is inferior to the Russian one. Currently on national channels there should be explanations of the essence of what is going on, create analytical and historical TV shows. Social ads are the only ideology there.”

The servicemen of the 1st Battalion of the National Guard are sure that the information blockade in the east of Ukraine should be broken with information truth and morale building. Unless the state “makes ideology machine work,” unless children are taught to love their homeland from the early ages, there will be war in Ukraine, say the servicemen who every day are fighting the consequences of information and ideology catastrophe.