Tom Parfitt
Russian tanks and soldiers have been “decisive” in winning key battles against government troops in eastern Ukraine, the commander of a separatist “special forces” detachment has admitted.
The Kremlin denies sending men and military vehicles to fight in Ukraine, but Dmitry Sapozhnikov told the BBC that regular army units sent from Russia and commanded by Russian officers were key in seizing the strategic town of Debaltseve in February.
Mr Sapozhnikov, a Russian from St Petersburg who is now on leave in his home town, went to fight in Ukraine in October and led a detachment of volunteer “special forces” fighters under rebel control.
A woman pushes a bicycle past a destroyed house in the town of Debaltseve (MARKO DJURICA/Reuters)
But “all operations, especially large-scale ones, are led by Russian officers, by Russian generals,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “They develop plans together with our commanders … and then we fulfil the orders.”
More than 6,000 people have died in Ukraine conflict in the last year.
Mr Sapozhnikov, who earlier took part in the battle for control of Donetsk airport, said that he and comrades had been surrounded by Ukrainian troops in February near Lohvynove, on the road to Debaltseve, a fiercely fought-over railway hub.
In the end the volunteer fighters broke through, “because over three to five days, our tanks came to help us”, he said. “It was the Russian Army, Buryats [a Siberian people]. Thanks to them, thanks to that heavy weaponry, we took Debaltseve.”
The tanks had entered Ukraine via the separatist Luhansk “People’s Republic”, which borders with Russia, he added.
“Thanks to those Russian units it’s possible to take positions quickly. Near Debaltseve we [volunteer fighters] thought, ‘Well, looks like we’ll be stuck here a month surrounding them’. And in the end we took it in three days.”
Asked if the presence of Russian soldiers had been decisive, Mr Sapozhnikov replied: “Of course. Russian generals, Russian colonels. They decided everything.” The Russian soldiers from Buryatiya had gone willingly to fight in Ukraine, he said. “They said that they knew exactly where they were being sent, but officially it was, ‘We are going on exercises.’”
The account tallies with those given by Russian soldiers and their families, who have described how regular army units are dispatched “on exercises” to southern Russia, and then sent across the border into Ukraine.
A pro-Russian rebel carries an unexploded shell away from houses in Debaltseve, Eastern Ukraine (Mstyslav Chernov/AP)
Earlier this month an ethnic Buryat soldier from a Russian tank brigade told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper from his hospital bed in Donetsk, the rebel capital, how he was injured in Lohvynove on February 9.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said once again on Tuesday that no Russian servicemen had been in Ukraine. “We emphatically deny that,” he said. Mr Putin said in December that only volunteer Russian fighters answering “a call of the heart” had gone to Ukraine to support the rebels.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is overseeing a ceasefire in Ukraine conflict, said there are large sections of the border between Luhansk region and Russia which it is unable to monitor.
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