The commander who led his soldiers out of Uglegorsk, saving them from certain death, will be imprisoned in Kharkov
Kharkov, February 04 (PolitNavigator, Alexandra Ignatieva) - The commander of one of the units of the Kievan Rus battalion, Evgeniy Tkachuk, decided to withdraw his people from Uglegorsk, left without the support of other units. Now they want to imprison him for 10 years.
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“The locals warned us. The day before they came like a fan and said: if you are not here by morning, we will simply destroy you. Those who remain alive will be slaughtered,” Oleg Potaychuk, deputy battery commander of a separate motorized infantry battalion, told the Inter TV channel.
The decision to withdraw the unit was made by their commander, who decided that leaving people in Uglegorsk would mean death.
“There has been a suspicion of deliberate failure to comply with orders in a combat situation,” said military prosecutor of the Kharkov garrison Andrey Glumakov. According to the fighters, their commander has already been transported to Kramatorsk, and his case has been transferred to the main military prosecutor's office. Yevgeny Tkachuk faces up to 10 years in prison.
But the soldiers assure that there were no orders. For several days Tkachuk tried to contact the battalion commander: the radios did not work, the mobile did not answer.
“We were not provided with anything, neither shelters, nor ammunition, nor, most importantly, communications!” – says the commander of the grenade launcher crew of a separate motorized infantry battalion, Ivan Cholinets. The fighters say: the very idea of throwing them there is either absurd or a planned provocation. After all, it was known in advance that this area was under fire.
“The positions were chosen incorrectly, that is, no one was working on it, it feels like day after day they were simply going to destroy us,” says the commander of the anti-tank squad of a separate motorized infantry battalion, Viktor Cherny.
The battalion commander, whose orders they allegedly did not follow, only got in touch today. But he sends a deputy instead, who must bring a written order to the fighters. He refuses to explain what is in it over the phone. The soldiers are told: according to the order, they will have to urgently return to their positions - in Debaltseve. But the military no longer wants to obey this battalion commander. “There is a threat to the life of the entire unit and therefore we have this demand: to release our commander, who saved the life of the entire unit,” they say.