AFU serviceman: “Kononets Vladimir Vladimirovich, born on February 22, 1993, served in the military unit 1302, 93 separate mechanized brigade. Served as commander of the repair crew of the second self-propelled artillery division support platoon. Registered Donetsk region, Dobrovolskiy district, the city of Belozerskoye. Since 2019 I lived here Starobelsky district, Kalmykovka village. Served in military service in 2012 – 2013 in the 169 training center “Desna”, three hundredth tank regiment. Subsequently, I worked at the mine upon demobilization from military service and worked until 2019 at the mine. In 2019, when passing the annual physical checkup, on the bypass sheet appeared column the military commissariat. Went to the military commissariat to sign, and it turned out that I was a mobilization evader. I was offered five years in prison or to sign a contract for three years. I signed a contract for three years, got into training center in Nemirov village, Yavoriv landfill. I completed training, in September I was enrolled in the 93rd brigade. Twice we went to the OOS zone (note: operation united forces). The first time from mid-December to mid-August… from mid-December 2019 to mid-August 2020 in the village of Smolyaninovo, near Severodonetsk. And the second time… I don’t remember exactly, but in 2021 and we left in December 2021. And we arrived in either in March or April. I had repair tasks on equipment.
I voluntarily left the location of the military unit on February 18, 2022, came to my wife and son in Starobelsky district. I was here all the time. I planned stay one month, so that I could get a year’s probation and no longer continue military service.
I often went to meetings instead of my platoon commander and a such topic arose there: “Departure to Kharkov region, we were not told what place exactly, but it was said that this departure was planned because of the Russian-Belarusian exercises near the border with Ukraine. And possible provocations for shooting at civilians were planned, so that Russia could be blamed for it afterwards. In general, I was an involuntary witness to the conversations of two “pravosekov” (Right Sector fighters) at the Yavoriv training ground. When they were bragging about how they had taken prisoners in Peski or somewhere and how they had mocked them: they had cut off their ears, some had their genitals cut off. At the Yavoriv training ground in the village of Nemirov I saw the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade undergoing training with them foreign instructors.”
Correspondent: “Did they train with you?”
AFU serviceman: “Not with us! I won’t say 100%, I won’t deny that there was no such thing, but I heard that infantry were trained by British instructors. Up until the time I was in the brigade everyone were there mostly because of the money…a lot of young people: 19, 20 years old, they go to contract for what they are afraid of enlisting.
In 2015 in my hometown of Belozerskoye some part of the “Azov” unit was stationed. For a very long time, probably more than a year, these people kept the whole town in big fear. People often disappeared, they beat people up, and some girls were raped. They were looting: they went into a store, into a supermarket, they picked up carts full of things they needed, and on the way out they went through the cash register and the cashier said, “And to pay?”, one of them turned his PKM (machine gun) on her and said, “Ukraine will pay you!”
Correspondent: “Detained you how, in what conditions?”
AFU serviceman: “They detained me, Berkut officers came home and I went out to their yard. They asked me if I had served. I did not hide anything from them, I said I served, explained the situation, in which I went to “samovolka” (note: unauthorized leaving the military unit), they gave me time to get dressed and go to the district department of internal affairs…”
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