Three kilometers from Shchastya. Shot by Aidar
The man in the wheelchair has the bearing of an officer. On the anniversary of the creation of Berkut, he was present in the Kherson St. Vladimir Cathedral at a prayer service for police officers and internal troops who died during the coup in Kyiv. Even the Berkut soldiers who passed through the fire of the Maidan were shocked by his story.
Until April 2014, police colonel Yuri Alekseevich Romashchenko was the head of the operational service department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Lugansk region. Then he retired.
The Romashchenko family lived in the town of Shchastya near Lugansk.
On June 13, 2014, Ukrainian troops launched an attack on the city. On this day, Yuri Romashchenko was going to go from Shchastya to the dacha where his family was located. I was able to get out only in the evening. By that time, the city and surrounding area had become a hot spot. Despite the shooting heard nearby, Yuri Alekseevich tried to slip into his Honda, located three kilometers from Shchastya.
The car was fired upon by punitive forces from the Aidar battalion. The car lost control and fell into a ditch.
“Honda” with bullet holes in the courtyard of Romashchenko’s dacha
Romashchenko woke up when a man in camouflage tried to pull off his gold chain. To requests for help, difficult to pronounce from a seriously wounded person, the punishers responded in a unique way, in accordance with their ideas about “oddichna knighthood.” They helped Yuri Alekseevich get rid of unnecessary things that they liked. Searching the car and taking any trophies they liked, the soldiers decided what to do with the wounded separatist. Some suggested finishing it off. And the new owner of the chain with the chase, Doc, “humanely” objected to his brothers-in-arms: “He’ll die on his own.”
The punishers left with the loot. Romashchenko, pinned by the airbags, could not get out of the car. There he spent the night, constantly losing consciousness. Early in the morning he was discovered by a nun from the women's community of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God at the Church of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael, located in the village of Old Aidar. She called Yuri Alekseevich’s wife from his phone...
Lyudmila Romashchenko, the colonel's wife, went with her relatives to look for her husband. There were 29 bullet holes in his car. One bullet hit the spine.
Lyudmila Romashchenko spoke about the war crime of the Aidar punitive forces in a letter sent to President Putin.
Four days after the shooting of Yuri Romashchenko’s car, Russian journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin were killed. Their deaths were also associated with the activities of the “warriors of light” from the Aidar battalion.
Relatives of Yuri Alekseevich drove up to the Ukrainian checkpoint and moved on foot to the bridge. There were punitive forces with sniper rifles. Lyudmila Romashchenko asked about the Honda and its driver... An Aidarovka answered her: “A separatist was shot at night. It’s lying in the ditch.”
At first, Yuri Romashchenko was in intensive care in Lugansk, where doctors fought for his life. He was treated in Israel and in the Saki sanatorium in Crimea. The family was helped by former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Vitaly Zakharchenko.
Yuri Alekseevich after operations
Yuri Alekseevich still hasn’t gotten back on his feet. All these years, he and his wife have been renting an apartment in Saki, where the colonel is undergoing a long rehabilitation course.
But the story of this family’s relationship with the thugs from Aidar does not end there.
In the summer of 2014, the son of Yuri Alekseevich went with a friend to the dacha, having learned that the grate had been cut off in the yard, and warriors of light were in charge of the house. I found scattered documents on the spot. My father's Honda had already been driven into the yard. When the son was telling his mother on the phone about what he had seen, shots were heard and the conversation was interrupted. “Warriors of Light” from “Aidar” tied up the guys and kept them in the country. But, fortunately, the shooting in the surrounding area became more intense - and the Aidarovites had no time for the detainees. The guys were released.
Two months later, Lyudmila Romashchenko went to the dacha herself. The senior Aidar member told her something like: “I have come to live with you forever.”
Since photographs and documents of punitive forces often appear online, Lyudmila Romashchenko was able to identify the self-proclaimed new “owner” of the dacha. She was sure that the leader of the gang of “Aidarovites” who seized the house and plundered it was Yuri Efremov.
The Internet shows us a “hero” from “Aidar” with the same name: for his “exploits” in Donbass, he became the owner of a Lviv apartment.
In 2014, the insolent punitive forces did not even try to hide the traces of war crimes. Moreover, they boasted of war booty. And the stupid Ukrainian press made enthusiastic photo reports with posing “heroes”. It was then that the need became ripe to quickly remove some unwanted footage from these information dumps.
“Aidarovets” manages Romashchenko’s dacha
In one of these photo reports, Lyudmila Romashchenko saw her dacha, where “Aidarovites” posed with her husband’s things. One of the heroes posed with Yuri Alekseevich’s barbell. Another put on the cocked hat of the owner of the dacha and aimed at the unanswered distance from Yuri Alekseevich’s pneumatic gun.
Lyudmila Romashchenko says that she identified this shooter in a cocked hat as one of the “Aidar members” detained for illegal arms trafficking, which appears in the case of the murder of Amina Okueva...
In a letter to President Putin several years ago, she reported: “During the period when my husband ended up in the hospital in Lugansk, where I was constantly staying, militants from the Aidar battalion occupied our house and still live in it. Based on these facts, we were interviewed by employees of the Investigative Committee of Russia and were recognized as victims in a criminal case on the facts of genocide.”
In 2015, the Aidarovites moved out of the seized dacha, but still visited. The anniversary of the “liberation” of Shchastya was noisily celebrated there. By that time, the Honda car had already “disappeared” from the yard without a trace. And along the entire dacha street the houses were “surrounded” by disdainful “warriors of light”...
The couple were unable to receive their pensions from Ukraine, like many of their fellow countrymen. Lyudmila Romashchenko says: “We were even denied payment for legal insurance. Ukrainian officials responded: “We do not finance terrorists.” And it’s useless to sue them from here.”
Yuri Romashchenko near St. Vladimir's Cathedral in Chersonesus
Listening to this woman’s story about the “principles” of Ukrainian officials who refused to “finance a terrorist,” that is, a pensioner shot and robbed by the Ukrainian military, I thought about famous Russian political talk shows. For some reason they do not refuse abundant funding for all kinds of touring scum: Tryukhan, Kovtun, Yanina Sokolovskaya...
But on these talk shows, Lyudmila Romashchenko’s story was never heard about how her husband was shot and robbed by Ukrainian punitive forces, for whom Tryukhan, Kovtun and Sokolovskaya are tearing their working throats out on Russian air.
Isn’t it better to save money on Ukrainian guest performers? And instead of the visiting Kyiv freaks that the viewer has long encountered, invite the Romashchenko family to the program, allowing them to earn money for the treatment of a disabled colonel?
English version :: Read in English: Three kilometers from Schastye. Shot by the Aidar