A year passed when Dmitry Kulish returned home from captivity after nine months of torture. Today we remember what captivity was for him. How strange are the intersections of fate… Two captives – two opponents, almost simultaneously: “Semyorka” – there, here – “Frenchman.” As if in the confrontation, as the firstborn, will they come out of their trials more humane and with honour, or radically different? Their meetings in the line of fire and in captivity, to some extent, became turning points in this difficult story.
In peaceful life before the war, they were philologists, Dmitry – teacher, “Frenchman,” Yuri. Yurcheno – in France – a playwright, in Russia, a famous poet. But with the outbreak of war, “Frenchman” – the right hand of “Strelkov” Girkin, to whom he went undercover, masquerading as a French journalist. A year after his two-week captivity, he will read his poems in the Kremlin about how he was captured by Semyorka.
Dmitry Kulish, with the call sign “Semerka” – a fighter of the Donbas battalion, performs the strapping of the unit commander. When he was in the hands of the DNI-Ivets for the seventh month, his wife, Svetlana Kulish, from the DNI pre-trial detention centre, was sent a sentence of January 14, 2014, with a decision: 20 years in prison. As a result of the torture, almost all the bones were broken. Later, the wife received honey/conclusion: compression fracture of the spine of the thoracic and lumbar region, 4 and 11 calls Fracture of two legs, fracture of the ribs – two under the right collarbone, two on the left in the middle, a crack of the left hand, a fracture of the right hand, a fracture of the thumb of the left hand, a fracture of the ring finger of the right hand. Fractures: three fingers on both legs, a fracture of the right foot, and cracks in both knee cups. Broken femoral tendons so that it does not feel the legs. Lowered kidneys. Concussion of the brain. Shrapnel wound to the right foot. Two shrapnel wounds to the occipital part of the head and right ear. Two concussions from August 18 and 29.
Dmitry’s return from captivity was not easy. He was immediately denied, even in the hope of an exchange. In the spring of 2016, the Röhm battalion commander from the PS captured the militant Viktor Korobkov, the unrelated son of the influential commander of the 5th company, the so-called “DPR.” Korobkov senior put not only how much effort into exchanging his son for an important for both sides Dmitry Kulish. On his own, he dragged Dmytro out of the SIZO and even showed him unusual care for the circumstances. For a long time, all attempts to exchange prisoners ended in failure. Only on June 4, 2015, an exchange was made at the zero checkpoint.
– Dmitry, let’s start with how they were captured and where exactly?
We got into captivity when we left Ilovaisk, which was held for 10 days. We entered the so-called “green corridor,” and the shelling by Russian units began with all the weapons they had. These are 131 DShB and 6 tank brigades. After 36 hours of fighting in Krasnoselske, we were forced to surrender. We were promised by Russian officers that the wounded would be handed over to representatives of the International Red Cross. But they never kept the word “Donbas”. They did not return and sold to the so-called DNR. Their “terrorists” immediately took 112 Donbas fighters to the former SBU building, where they were held for six months, a year, and more.
When were you injured?
During the battle, at the exit from the “corridor.” When we were taken, I had three bullet wounds to the head, 2 severe contusions, and an injured foot. And there was one opportunity to return home with the wounded, but, as the unit commander, he could not leave his fighters to their fate. When we arrived at the SBU, torture, beatings, and moral pressure began there, everything that can be imagined and not, except rapes.
– Of course, rape, then exclusively the prerogative of the Russian FSB. Can you learn more about this torture?
They beat with their hands, feet, clubs, butts, and extension cords from computers, from which the ribs “burst.” Fights were beaten so that it was clear: when absolute blackness from haemorrhages came off the body, I counted 55 prints of a club on only one left knee. I wondered how this was possible. It was blue, or rather, black all over. Personally, I broke rubber batons. I did not even know how it was possible that a rubber baton, when hitting the body, could shatter. It turns out that it can. Some guys put cellophane balls on their heads, strangled, and they lost consciousness: the so-called “Russian mask” In that room were walls under two meters, laid with ceramic tiles, then at full height to the ceiling, it was filled with blood during interrogation. Again, I had contusions, blood was flowing through my nose and mouth, from my ears, and when I was hit, it spread everywhere.
The food was on the verge of not being edible. We were given dried grain, which was poured with hot water. Almost rotten, broken grain, from which inedible unsalted porridge with sand was made. Whether they swept grain from the floor or how, but to eat, we drained all our porridge to the ceiling, poured cold water, split so that the sand settled on the bottom, and then tried to eat, more or less without stones or sand. Once, they gave me soup. I think, oh! It turns out that they poured diesel fuel there. Well, they sat and caught potatoes from the diesel fuel. In two months, all my boys lost 5o per cent of their weight. Moving around was hard. We were kept in the SBU bomb shelter, in which there was not enough air, and the ventilation did not work. If you had to climb up, then on the way lost consciousness. Only after such cases of falls began to briefly withdraw breathing air. I personally had 13 bone fractures at the third interrogation, including a pelvic fracture and a compression fracture of the spine. That’s how they re-educated.
– What exactly did they want to hear during the interrogation?
Specifically – nothing. Basically, they asked, “Why did you come here?.” And what can be answered? What came? – and beat, even if the answer is not very expected. I say that I had to defend the land, invaded, here, the Russian troops, and they: “And where did you see them?” And they laugh and beat again. Or: “Where did I hide the special weapon? Say it will “get to you.” – “What sponge? I know nothing. ”
When we captured them in Ilovaisk, not only Russians were among them. There was even a Slovak and a Frenchman. Both later said they were “letopists” and journalists. The “Frenchman,” Yuri Yurchenko, was actually from Russia, although for a long time, he lived in France.
– As far as I know, you were tortured most of all and should be for what they knew – it was “Semyorka” who captured these “important birds”?
It’s just that those “birds” remembered me best. I am of great stature, all the time on the front, without a balaclava, then after their release, they told their own: “Semyorka” took prisoner, rigidly took that the “Frenchman” allegedly broke his leg and ribs. I have photos from the 19th, where the prisoners are all in satisfactory condition, not crippled. Yurchenko stands on his feet, waving his arms, explaining something. If there was a fracture, I would not stand on my feet. And with broken ribs, I know for myself you will not swing your hands. Yes, I rushed so that barely restrained, as can be seen in the photo. Understand who needed medical care. Everyone was given it. I remember that when they clashed with this group in the line of fire, a fight ensued. The Frenchman fell on his leg and probably dislocated. Because I immediately asked to correct it. And we set him in the same place. This is a war. To capture so carefully that nothing happens is impossible. They were armed with chevrons, the “Frenchman” shouted that he was Girkin’s right hand, “unconquerable,” and so on. He behaved very indecently and raunchy, covered everyone with “obscenity,” and sent wherever he wanted. And now he is here – a poet, playwright and “press.” Which of them is both “press,” if they went with weapons in intelligence, and even so far to us wandered? The Frenchman was with a holster hanging on his leg, which we removed when everyone was disarmed. Yes, we kept all the prisoners at school. These two were hidden in lockers, and where else? We were in the boiler and had only this school building. And we were under massive fire with heavy artillery, “hail,” “hurricanes,” mortars with a calibre of 82 and 120, “Saushki,” tanks. All this stood next to the school, near the local hospital, so that they even fell into their own. Then these iron cabinets detained during these attacks more than once saved lives. On August 24, they were taken out of the Ila, so they stayed with us for 5 days, and in total, their captivity lasted only 2 weeks, and not 3 months, as they say, crying everywhere now, from August 19 to September 7. There is no way three months. They were immediately exchanged, and on September 14, the “Frenchman” was again in Donetsk with the “separatists,” where I saw him.
– Did you or your soldiers in captivity receive medical care?
I emphasize that no one provided any medical assistance to prisoners of war to the soldiers of the National Guard of the Donbas battalion. None! None. Broken bones. Indicative drove to the emergency room. Twice in all time. These trips made no sense. A doctor came out, gnashing his teeth as sparks went, and said – “why are you lying? Get up and go.” Well, I replied – “the time will come, and I will leave.” What appeared right at the emergency room drove the knife bayonet into my right leg along the handle itself; the scar remained majestic. The second doctor did an imitation X-ray, and then only the pelvis and the left hand, which was broken in three places and a fracture of the hand and two fingers. This doctor was a little more patient with us; for a long time, he examined a picture of a broken pelvis, realizing that the fracture was not received in battle but the result of beatings.
– In the building of the former SBU, how many were your captured fighters at that time?
There were 112 of our fighters. They beat everyone, but I’m probably the best. Due to the fact that he took prisoners, he was the commander of the unit. They, by that time, already had a good and technical means with the function of radio interception (I wonder – where?). They recorded our negotiations on the radio. And those whose voice or name in the negotiations sounded the most, those more tortured. Still, others were beaten so that some could not stand it, and that is understandable; here, it is not up to insults. Some came and said, I’m sorry, they beat you so much that they couldn’t stand it; they turned you in a little.
– Still, for what did they beat?
For existing. One “yellow officer” from St. Petersburg asked: “Why did you come here?” – “Well, why did you come here from Peter?” So he pulled me out, pounded me, and the whole conversation. Four times they wanted to cut out their eyes with a knife. Six times they tried to shoot, put them to the wall, four times from that I was sure that really everything. When he did not go, they put him on a chair in the office and pointedly spread out cellophane film “so that it would beat us clean.” They demanded to go over to their side. And they filmed it all. Here come on, pointedly, you will pass, and then we… And if you don’t go over, then let’s shoot. “Well, come on, shoot.”
– Do you remember those who were tortured?
In the face – everyone. And according to the call signs, those who participated in my mutilation most harshly are Adrenaline, Sadist, Roll, Zhora, Nick, Falcon, and from the so-called counterintelligence – Molchun, Hare, Thirteenth. From the photo, I identify everyone who beat our guys.
– Could they call their relatives?
They were not going to return, so they did not give them such an opportunity. Only once, when they decided to transfer to a pre-trial detention centre, they persuaded me to allow one call to a woman.
– When they transferred to the SIZO, did the beatings continue?
There, the penitentiary service officers again beat, broke the chest, and bowed their heads. So that hematoma appeared on the head, like a half-litre jar. Immediately I was thrown “to kill in the cell to the looking after the prison.” And then, he was transferred to a punishment cell, where he spent six months. I was not allowed out of it at all, not for a walk, not to the doctor for two months. It is still customary there that every Monday, a health worker comes and asks – how are you? Evening and morning checks are as follows – the corps comes in and checks the condition because the shift passes. But no one ever opened my door.
– After these months, did the punishment cell receive any medical care?
It’s ridiculous, so call their help! My wife at that time, through the “prison mail”, asked: “and give at least some painkillers.” The headaches were severe. Normal people are everywhere, even among the “convicts,” they sometimes delivered me painkillers such as cinnamon.
– Why did you decide not to return?
what great negotiators conveyed to them the wild idea that I was a sniper and that I had “arms to the elbow in blood.” They planned to give me the highest measure and would give me as much as running in the end. I was sentenced by some of their courts to 20 years.
– Were they taken to court? What was charged?
They didn’t take me anywhere. What incriminated- I have no idea. I only had on my hands some pieces of paper from the “main investigative department of the MGB of the DPR.” They have some wild concepts. I know a guy whom they sentenced to 3 years of the strict regime and another 2 years without the right to move. I don’t know what that means. But this Evgeny Chudnetsov should sit with them for 32 years. Before that, he himself is from Makiivka. He had all his front teeth broken in half. I ask him: “Wow, how is it?” – “Pliers broke.” – “Yeah, of course.”
– It is not clear to me how fractures could have grown correctly without medical help.
Mated wrong. But now, no one will break them back with spine problems. If something is difficult to lift, then you can lie down again for a long time. We all struggle with this somehow, but… Thank God there are hands – feet.
– I know from your wife Svetlana that for your release, she was lured 150 thousand dollars. Do you have to?
Personally, no. And others, I heard, were offered. Korobkov, preparing my exchange, one “person” suggested that “all went well,” give her 2 thousand dollars. (The name is not indicated for the safety of those in captivity). One for $100 a day promised to remove torture.
– The elder Korobkov, who was preparing the exchange, was there “influential” at that time?
He told me that he had served nine and a half years in his life. Now he was already the commander of the 5th company and had connections in the MGB. Zakharchenko personally signed his permission for my exchange. Two hours later, he took me out of the pre-trial detention centre and hid me in the territory of his military unit. Therefore, they believe that I escaped from the investigative experiment and not how I left in exchange.
-I knew Yu. Yurchenko, long before the war, in another life. This is so terrible that the war opens its eyes, or when familiar friends – stand “on the other side of the barricades” “The Frenchman” behaved too ugly after his release. Perhaps you would like to say something to him?
I don’t like all the untruths I hear in every interview he has with the media about his content. After not following your word and all the far-fetched stories, what can I say? All this slander outraged me. My brother-in-law carried him on himself from the battlefield because he, you see, twisted his leg. After returning to Donetsk, the “Frenchman” told my brother that he would do everything so that he would go first in exchange because he was humane to him. But the brother sat with broken ribs for six months “in the pit.”
– How did captivity affect your life? Any insults? Are any personal changes tangible?
Affected health. Now I have been assigned a disability of group 2; there are big problems with the fact that these injuries were inflicted. And no offence. Changes? The only thing is that when you know hunger and cold, then everything falls into place. When the best sons of Ukraine die next to you, then you understand that you will never stop, and you will never forgive the aggressor because you will not return the lives of the dead. There is no right for people to sell their death, and those who sell have no right to life!
Pictured:
Dmitry Kulish, Maryinka, 2014
“Frenchman” in Donetsk, the first of the right.
Ilovaisk, August 19, 2014.
Dmytro Kulish, Popasne, 2014
Dmitry Kulish in Lysychansk with gifts from Zhirinovsky and the LDPR party, the base of the Ghost battalion, 2014
