Pomatrosil and tossed.How to live in Russia veterans of the Donbass

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Поматросили и бросили.Как живут в России ветераны Донбасса

The Russian volunteer Andrey Kamaev arrived in war-torn Eastern Ukraine in late September 2014. He was overwhelmed with patriotism: Andrew was convinced that fighting against “fascists and Nazis”, he follows in the footsteps of his grandfather the spy.
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About the Ukrainian army confronting Pro-Russian separatists, 49-year-old Kamaev speaks solely in terms of the Kremlin TV propaganda. He admits that he had other motives: I wanted to help restore the “Russian world” and to prevent the anticipated expansion of NATO.

However, all his dreams of military glory quickly came to an end. 1 Feb 2015 Kamaev moved behind a column of tanks advancing on the strategically important city debaltseve – debaltseve was still then under the control of Ukraine. Next to him, a mine exploded, his left leg was fractured. He was taken to a nearby hospital, but the right medication was not there, and Kamaeva gangrene. Doctors were forced to amputate his leg to hip.

Kamaunu was lucky – he, unlike many other Russian volunteers who came to fight in Ukraine – was still alive. At home in St. Petersburg, Kamaev moves on crutches in the hope that someday this will adapt.

He, like thousands of such also nobody recognized “veterans” are instigated by Kremlin conflict, there is no much glory has not got. The war dragged on for a fourth year with no end in sight.

At home Russian “veterans” has not been greeted as heroes. Almost all came back wounded – if not physically, then psychologically. No benefits they don’t provide, to find a job very difficult. Many barely make ends meet. Even worse, returned from Donbas shared by acute ideological differences, they have different trading strategy and different opinions of what happened. It does not allow them to unite in order to assert their needs.

Part fought in the East of Ukraine are included in the volunteer Union of Donbass, which is headed by the former head of the so-called “Donetsk national Republic” Alexander Borodai. This group is closely connected with the Kremlin through the adviser to the Russian President Vladislav Surkov: Surkov is considered to be the curator of this conflict, and the former “volunteers” dislike him for being too elitist. The correspondent of Radio Liberty talked with the members of this Union in the village near Kaluga, where they arrived on 30 July to participate in “war games”.

Another organization – “the Movement of new Russia.” It is headed by the Russian Colonel Igor Girkin (Strelkov), who commanded the gangs of Pro-Russian separatists in the first months of the war. Many of those who fought in Donbass consider him a traitor because of the fact that he retreated from Slavyansk under the pressure of Ukrainian army. Girkin was eventually recalled to Moscow. At the request of Radio Liberty about the interview he did not answer.

Andrey Kamaev, for its part, organized in St. Petersburg non-governmental organization “veterans of the new Russia.” (The new Russia – since the term is so popular in the “volunteer” and separatist circles in tsarist Russia called land annexed to the Empire after the Russian-Turkish wars of the XVIII century. Now they are in the South-East of Ukraine). Deputy Kamaeva, 41-year-old Denis Shinkarenko, participated in the battle for Ilovaysk – it is often called the bloodiest battle of the war.

“Veterans of new Russia” to help Russian volunteers returning from the Donbass or are still involved in the fighting in Eastern Ukraine. Many of them are angry and very unhappy with the uncertainty of his future, said Kamaev.

The conversations that the correspondent of radio Liberty, spent more than a dozen other fighters in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaluga, confirm this assessment. Thousands of Russian citizens who fought in the Ukraine, was almost excluded from society. It is difficult to return to normal life.

Former volunteers receive no formal state support. Kamaev lives on a paltry state pension, which he has appointed for military service, “because I am disabled, the very same one I’d get if I in the street was hit by a trolley.” There is some bitter irony: it was not enough to survive at the front in the Ukraine – now we have to survive at home.

Andrei Malgin

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