Russians Revealed Among Ukraine Fighters
Photo
Unloading the bodies of
pro-Russian fighters in Donetsk, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Russia has denied its
regular soldiers are part of the conflict in east Ukraine. Credit Fabio
Bucciarelli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
DONETSK, Ukraine — For weeks,
rumors have flown about the foreign fighters involved in the deepening conflict
in Ukraine’s troubled east, each one stranger than the last: mercenaries from
an American company, Blackwater; Russian special forces; and even Chechen
soldiers of fortune.
Yet there they were on Tuesday
afternoon, resting outside a hospital here: Chechen men with automatic rifles,
some bearing bloodstained bandages, protecting their wounded comrades in a city
hospital after a firefight with the Ukrainian Army.
“We received an invitation to
help our brothers,” said one of the fighters in heavily accented Russian. He
said he was from Grozny and had fought in the Chechen War that began in 1999.
He said he arrived here last week with several dozen men to join a pro-Russian
militia group.
The scene at the hospital was
new evidence that fighters from Russia are an increasingly visible part of the
conflict here, a development that raises new questions about that country’s
role in the unrest. Moscow has denied that its regular soldiers are part of the
conflict, and there is no evidence that they are. But motley assortments of
fighters from other war zones that are intimately associated with Russia would
be unlikely to surface against the powerful will of the Russian president,
Vladimir V. Putin, experts said.
Photo
Tears and debris after fierce
fighting on Tuesday on a road leading to the Donetsk airport. Credit Maxim
Shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency
The disclosure of Russian
nationals among the fighters here muddies an already murky picture of the
complex connections and allegiances that are beginning to form. While their
presence does not draw a straight line to the Kremlin, it raises the
possibility of a more subtle Russian game that could keep Ukraine unbalanced
for years.
The revelation about foreign
fighters received an unexpected official confirmation on Tuesday, when the
mayor of Donetsk, Aleksandr A. Lukyanchenko, said at least eight people with Russian
passports were among the wounded rebels who had been taken to the city’s
hospitals.
He said the Russians were from
Moscow and from the cities of Grozny and Gudermes in Chechnya, a republic that
is part of Russia and whose leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, was installed by the
Kremlin to bring the region under control after bitter wars starting in the
1990s. On Tuesday, Mr. Kadyrov denied any connection to the fighters.
Mr. Lukyanchenko added that
residents of Crimea, the peninsula in the Black Sea that Russia seized in
March, were also among the wounded.
The Kremlin has said it would
work with the government of Petro O. Poroshenko, the Ukrainian billionaire
elected in a landslide on Sunday, who accepted congratulations from President
Obama on Tuesday.
Mr. Poroshenko has pledged to
crush the separatists who seized public buildings in two regions in eastern
Ukraine in March. But Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, suggested
Tuesday that ending the violence would be a criterion for improved relations, a
line that could leave Ukraine’s new government in a tight spot.
Many here say the fighters
speak to the shadowy nature of a conflict that sometimes seems manufactured.
“It’s irritating but not very surprising,” said Stanislav Kucherenko, 32, a
massage therapist who lives near the airport and woke to the sound of shelling
Tuesday. “It shows that this war is not clean. It is artificially created. If
this is an uprising by the Donetsk People’s Republic, what are foreigners doing
here?”
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The men are Donetsk’s worst
kept secret. Several appeared on a CNN report at a military parade this
weekend, and others were caught on a Vice News video, saying, “We are
volunteers, Chechens, Afghans and Muslims who have come to protect Russia, to
protect Russians, to protect the interests of this country.”
Play Video|1:13
Andrew Roth reports from the
eastern region of Ukraine as attacks continue between pro-Russian separatists
and the Ukrainian military.
Credit Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
It is unclear what portion of
the rebel fighters the men represent, whom they work for or whether they were
paid. The soldier at the hospital Tuesday said all the men were volunteers, a
commonly given explanation but one locals say is not convincing.
“They say they are patriots,”
Mr. Kucherenko said of the foreign fighters. “I don’t think there are that many
patriots.”
The Chechen fighter at the
hospital, who declined to give his name, seemed to be losing his resolve. The
unit had a commander who had given an order to stay and fight for the city.
Otherwise, he said, he would be happy to go home. “I haven’t slept for four
nights,” he said, resting his head on a wooden bench outside the hospital with
a Kalashnikov across his knees.
Donetsk was mostly quiet on
Tuesday. Schools were closed, and residents were warned not to leave their
homes. But signs of Monday’s battle remained. A truck that had been carrying
rebel fighters and was hit by Ukrainians lay on its side.
Many pro-Russian residents
praised the foreign fighters, saying they were all that stood between them and
what they saw as a hostile Ukrainian force from Kiev. Yevgeny Matvichyuk, 26,
who is from the embattled city of Slovyansk, said he had spoken with two
foreign fighters, one from North Ossetia, a republic in Russia, and another
from Tajikistan in Central Asia.
“They said we came from Russia
to help you,” he said standing at the bus depot in Donetsk. “What’s wrong with
that?”
Mauricio Lima contributed
reporting from Donetsk, and Steven Lee Myers from Moscow.
http://www.nytimes.com/
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