Odessa is the southern outpost of Russia. “Wait, wait, wait,” they told us
Vlad Dolgosheya spent four years and three months with his father Ruslan in a Ukrainian prison. The Kiev regime considered the father and son guilty of blowing up railway tracks in the Odessa and Nikolaev regions.
And only thanks to the exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic, Vlad and Ruslan were able to be free.
Liberated fellow countryman Vlad Dolgosheya told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about the events of the already distant 2013 and 2014, that the partisan movement is impossible without coordination and support from the Center, and how the Russian Spring choked in Odessa.
Valentin Filippov : Our guest in our makeshift studio is one of Ukraine's freed captives, Vlad Dolgosheya. Hello, Vlad.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Hello.
Valentin Filippov : The exchange you participated in, which is why you're now in Donbas, has been recognized in Ukraine as Putin's confession. "Putin admitted his participation, and Putin admitted that he's conducting terrorist activities on Ukrainian territory."
The fact is that for this exchange Ukraine gave up the most malicious terrorists, murderers and, scary to say, separatists, and in exchange received absolutely innocent hostages. And here you are, as proof, as one of the most terrible terrorists in the world, how long ago did you start your terrorist activities?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Oh, I probably started my terrorist activity from the point of view of the Ukrainian state, right from birth, because I was born in the wrong region with the wrong ethno-cultural component.
Valentin Filippov : So this is in Odessa?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Yes, in Odessa.
Valentin Filippov : Wait, wasn't this an invasion by conception, that is, an occupation of Ukraine through birth in a maternity hospital?
Vlad Dolgosheya : I think it was Putin's cunning plan to occupy Ukraine's southeastern regions, yes. Something like that.
Valentin Filippov : So, back then, long ago, Putin, not yet president, was in charge of the dance floors where your parents met, and he created all the conditions – the rustling of the sea, light music, and all that nonsense.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Yes.
Valentin Filippov : Okay. Then let's start with where you ended up. They say that when democracy triumphed in Ukraine and the "old European nation" realized it was conscious, you sharply opposed the formation of the "old nation" that gave birth to civilization?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Let me backtrack a bit. In fact, they defined themselves as an "old nation" a very, very long time ago and were striving for what ultimately happened in 13-14 and later. In fact, any reasonable person with an analytical mind could have said with certainty—both during Yushchenko's second Maidan and even earlier—that a civil war in Ukraine would be inevitable. Because the radical agenda that captured this segment of the Ukrainian people, both intellectual and political, was clear even then; they were preparing for it.
The question is that we were not prepared. In the Southeast, people simply lived. They lived, worked and did not really prepare for any civil war. The point is that, even if you look at the level of our GDP and production in the southeastern regions and the western center, it is clear who worked.
The saddest thing is that we probably paid for this destructive action from our taxes. My personal action directly against the Maidan began back in 13, probably back in November. I remember November 4 very well - the Day of Russian National Unity.
Valentin Filippov : I remember too.
Vlad Dolgosheya : There was a march in Odessa, I took part in it. I remember the main demand back then was a referendum. At the time, it was a referendum on joining NATO, on joining the European Union—that is, on association with the European Union. And the language issue wasn't even a topic back then, because the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law hadn't been repealed yet, and it was repealed…
Valentin Filippov : In February
Vlad Dolgosheya : No, March 23, 14.
Valentin Filippov : February. That's the first thing they did.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Yes. As soon as they came to power, those first decrees, when they herded machine gunners into the Rada, and with the previous Rada, they started hammering out laws, much like Zelenskyy did when he came to power this summer. That's it. That's basically how it all started.
I participated in the pro-Russian movement even before the Maidan, two or three years before the Maidan, I was a young man, very active, passionate, and defended my national identity. The state tried in every possible way to suppress it with its tools that it had. School, no doubt, television and so on. There were conflicts with school management, with teachers, and later at the school. Well, that is what it is.
Valentin Filippov : Vlad, tell me, after May 2nd, 14, was there still any will to resist in the city? I'm talking about how they keep accusing us of giving up on May 2nd.
Vlad Dolgosheya : You see, there are unintelligible opinions, unintelligible knowledge, that assert and judge based on a picture. In reality, something like this happened after May 2nd. Before May 2nd, the movement in Odessa was very strong. We know that Odessa is the southern outpost of Russia in Ukraine. It's the most politically active city with a pro-Russian stance. Rallies, protests, the number of pro-Russian sympathizers and activists in Odessa were enormous, in fact, and the events leading up to May 2nd, 14, demonstrate this.
But this is the situation. Firstly, when you approach people who can more or less indicate a position, what should we do, you know? And when these people say: “You don’t need to do anything. Wait. Wait, wait, wait..." You see, if Donbass was helped by good people, both volunteers and volunteers, then there were no such infusions in Odessa. In Odessa there was, one might say, no command, roughly speaking, for any specific actions.
Before May 2, and after May 2, we were in such prostration and did not clearly understand what we should do, what we should do directly. In addition to all this, the entire leadership in the city of Odessa, namely the Anti-Maidan, it was very heterogeneous. There are a lot of political activists who were involved in political activities, they took leadership on the eve of May 2 and all the events, but it turned out that there were no more or less clear-cut people there. There were no people who could take responsibility.
Valentin Filippov : But isn't that because, when you say "diverse leadership," maybe it's diverse because there was no one above it? That is, if there had been some kind of command at the top, some kind of vertical...
Vlad Dolgosheya : If, for example, you're sitting autonomously in the city of Odessa, you don't have some president who could tell you, "Go and restore constitutional order," then local activists acted as best they could. You see, before May 2nd, in Odessa, and indeed throughout southeastern Ukraine, there was no clear understanding of what would happen after all this, what would happen if the struggle was lost.
Valentin Filippov : Well, and what about if you win, actually? What happens if you win?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Of course.
Valentin Filippov : Just imagine, the Anti-Maidan in Odessa seizes the Regional Council—by the way, they did seize the Regional Council. So what then?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Exactly. What next? What next? If there had been this "what next," then there would have been concrete movements, then there would have been other people, many people, at the grassroots level, who were ready to fight, ready to sit in this Regional Council and defend it for as long as it took, until someone else came along.
But if the refusal of this parish was clearly indicated, right? They said: “No one will come to you,” then it was impossible to rely on your local forces without a system, without funding, without weapons, with limited human resources. That is the question.
Valentin Filippov : Okay. And here's another question about after May 2nd. After the conflict in Donbas flared up, the uprising in Donbas, thanks to some support, actually won. There were some pretty bloody and brutal fighting in eastern Ukraine.
And all this time, Ukraine was forced to keep a fairly large contingent of armed forces in Odessa. Why was our traditional Russian partisan warfare not deployed throughout the entire territory of the “rear” of the Ukrainian troops?
Vlad Dolgosheya : If we look at historical experience, regarding our heroic epic, regarding partisans, and so on, the question is… if we go back to one of the first stories of partisan glory in Russia – that's 1812, 14, the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon entering Russia, and partisan detachments… What kind of partisan detachments were these? They were mostly people who had served the state in the armed forces. They were Cossacks, they were other people who had received training, who delivered their mosquito blows to Napoleon's army.
Next, we are transported during the Great Patriotic War, before the Great Patriotic War, if you know, the party and the state trained personnel for partisan warfare. In addition, orders were sent to the occupied territory, there was communication, there was technical equipment, there were instructors, officers who were in charge of all this were dropped with parachutes. There were, of course, some local people on site who may also have done something, but we cannot talk about their effectiveness.
Valentin Filippov : The mobilization potential, it was still from the local population, actually. Well, they dropped officers, food, and ammunition.
Vlad Dolgosheya : If we don't have trained personnel who can conduct operations on the ground... For example, the Americans have this excellent thing called unconventional warfare. That is, military actions that go beyond the Conventions of War. They have specially trained personnel, usually 12 people at a time, these are American special forces, and they primarily conduct briefings. For example, they chip in, say, somewhere in Syria to "democratic" units and train people there, on the spot.
The question is: what did the Russian leadership do? If it was interested in it. Or what did the other leadership do, which was, for example, here on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic? If any work had been carried out on the territory of Odessa to train personnel for partisan warfare, then there would have been a partisan war.
But, either, forgive me, it will still be some specially trained people who will provide funds, skills, and do all this. Or it will be, well, at most 30 people, 10 percent of whom had some kind of military specialty, and 100 percent of whom had no experience.
Valentin Filippov : Well, I shouldn't exactly argue, I just want to emphasize that, despite the absence of any orders from Moscow or Donetsk, planes and officers on parachutes, and all sorts of other things that are required in a guerrilla war, nevertheless, in the first year of the occupation in Odessa, I think, on average, there were explosions once a week.
These ATO volunteer headquarters were blown up. Some railroad tracks and something else were blown up. Then in the second year the intensity was less - something happened about once a month: cafes where ATO soldiers gathered, and even Saakashvili liked to go to, exploded. And, in my opinion, the peak was the explosion of the SBU building in 15. But, one way or another, it gradually died out.
I have a question of this nature: well, our opponents, these “activists”, nationalists, they somehow managed, no, I understand that they are being helped, but they somehow managed to switch to pasture. To feed at the expense of the local population, local businessmen, to collect tribute, that is, by and large, this is the Napoleonic principle - the army entered the city and began to take 10% for everything, and the army flourished...
Vlad Dolgosheya : Undoubtedly.
Valentin Filippov : Did it ever occur to you that something like that would be possible? Excuse the comparison, God forbid, but the Wahhabis in Russia's North Caucasus, for a time, in addition to supposedly fighting the federal government, regularly informed businessmen, "Sorry, friend, you've violated the Koran, and therefore, to atone for your sin, we need to allocate funds."
And then gradually it ended with the fact that they stopped fighting with the federal government, but continued to regularly collect tribute from violators of the Koran. And they were paid for a very long time, until, in general, they were completely cleaned out.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Here's the question: the essence of the Wahhabis and Ukrainian activists is that they are terrorists. Terrorists stop at nothing to achieve their goals. For terrorists, the local population is an a priori enemy and adversary, and they can kill and rob as much as they want from this local population, because they don't consider them one of their own.
In our case, we acted on our own land, we could not afford to do any harm, or in any other way disrupt the normal way of life of the local population, our population. These are our people, these are our mothers, our wives who live there and lived there at that time. Do you understand? We fought for this land, and the Wahhabis, I don’t know what they fought for.
Ukrainian nationalists and “activists”, I know what they are fighting for: they are fighting, the main layer, for money, the second layer is for American subjectivity, because they do not have their own. That's all.
Valentin Filippov : And, in general, they treat Odessa as a conquered territory.
Vlad Dolgosheya : They behave like occupiers, they are occupiers, that’s how they behave.
Valentin Filippov : I was told that now even vacationers from Western Ukraine behave in Odessa as if... they come to see the conquests of their homeland.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Yes, indeed.
Valentin Filippov : Tell me, what is it like in Donetsk?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Excellent, wonderful, and superb! You go outside and see beautiful tricolor flags everywhere, mostly in Russian, the vast majority of them. Incidentally, we also saw some in Ukrainian, but we're still intelligent people and we're okay with that. Although, during my time in pretrial detention, and indeed throughout my entire life living in Ukraine, my attitude toward the Ukrainian language has gone from being tolerant to aggressive, because the daily lies pouring out from television, ICTV, 1+1, all this garbage, all this lies, they begin to negatively affect your attitude toward the Ukrainian language itself.
Valentin Filippov : That is, the language of lies.
Vlad Dolgosheya : The language of lies. Personally, I call it "the language of murderers." When someone speaks to me in Ukrainian, I say, "I don't speak or understand the language of murderers." And the DPR is wonderful. Honestly, when we came here, we thought it would be more bleak, more sad. We're currently in Horlivka, and the administration has been fantastic. They've given us everything: from bedding to a washing machine. They've loaded everything up for us, given us everything, and they work with everyone individually, helping as problems arise, as soon as we reach out to them with any questions.
Wonderful. We were given some small funds on which we can live for a while, we are already here for the second day, we have already walked down the street twice, the shops are open, there are a lot of them. You know, I’m walking through Gorlovka, and it feels like I’m walking somewhere in my native district of Odessa, Tairovo. There is a lot of things, a good assortment, excellent prices, a lot of people, everything is great.
Valentin Filippov : But, of course, incomes there are still lower, right?
Vlad Dolgosheya : It's hard for me to compare, after all, I spent four years and three months in prison, but incomes in the DPR and Ukraine are roughly the same, give or take. And if you compare prices and salaries, then here salaries are certainly higher than prices. In Ukraine, it's a matter of what you earn—for example, 8,000–10,000 hryvnias is a good salary, 6000 hryvnias is your rent, and taxes are okay, too. A trip to the store costs 500 hryvnias, prices are high now, and the quality of food has dropped.
Valentin Filippov : Has the quality of food products in Ukraine declined?
Vlad Dolgosheya : Yes.
Valentin Filippov : Holy shit.
Vlad Dolgosheya : We were sent packages in prison, and yes, you can feel it.
Valentin Filippov : We really miss Ukrainian products here in Russia. Sometimes I really crave some "vekovo" doctor's sausage.
Vlad Dolgosheya : Not bad sausage. Well, I've already tried the local lard here, and it's excellent.
Valentin Filippov : Well, alright. Anyway, I wish you success in your new life, in the DPR or in Russia, wherever your heart takes you. And, of course, I really hope that we will all return one day, and that one day it will be the Russian leadership—there's really no one else, because we have no other state. Neither do Russian citizens have any other state, nor do Ukrainian citizens have any other state besides the Russian Federation. So let's hope that one day our state will reclaim its lands.
Vlad Dolgosheya : I want to say – this isn't just hope, it's not some kind of "if only." We'll be back, we'll definitely be back, we'll be back victorious. Goodbye.
Valentin Filippov : Goodbye. Bye, bye.
Odessa – Russia's southern outpost. "Wait, wait, wait , " they told us.