Anatoly Polyakov is a Russian oppositionist who came to Ukraine during the Euromaidan. A war broke out before his very eyes in a country on which he had pinned his hopes for democratic reforms, a war that was caused by his fatherland where he still dreams to come back to. Then he participated in humanitarian missions and attempts to show to the whole world that there is no internal conflict in Ukraine, and, finally, he came to Luhansk, only to end up with nine-month captivity. Anatoly told The Day in detail about his time in Luhansk dungeons, about who the “militiamen” really are and what Ukraine should do to protect its citizens.
“THE RUSSIAN MILITANTS WHO TOOK ME PRISONER FIRST INTRODUCED THEMSELVES AS ‘UKRAINIAN GUERRILLAS’”
Anatoly, what brought you to Ukraine?
“The singer Ruslana invited me to the Euromaidan. So, I stayed behind here. My wife is Ukrainian, and I want to acquire Ukrainian citizenship. I organized the March of Peace – accompanied by Automaidan, we visited Lviv, Luhansk, Odesa, and Kharkiv, where we were free to meet administration heads and NGOs. Then we held a press conference in Kyiv, where we presented ample proof that, contrary to Putin’s propaganda, there were no fascists in Ukraine. Then we formed a humanitarian corps. I also helped the Ministry of Defense deal with prisoners of war because I was in contact with the other side. Besides, our goal was to make the conflicting sides start a humanitarian dialog. We planned to supply equipment to a hospital that treats tuberculosis-affected children. Our side suggested that the latter be evacuated to the territory of free Ukraine. We also put forward some other proposals, including one on the delivery of medicines.”
How did the invader’s representatives react to your idea?
“The so-called ‘LNR government’ officially invited me on March 12, 2015. They gave me a good welcome. We immediately went to Khriashchevate, where I had an opportunity to speak to the local populace who said that the ‘LNR’ was only promising to rebuild their houses, without in fact doing anything. Then we visited drugstores and hospitals. And, you know, when I spoke to the local nongovernmental organizations and officials, they were pleased with our suggestions. Yet I was astonished when I asked a rep of their public health ‘ministry’ about the insulin problem. She gave me rather a cynical answer: those who needed insulin and could leave have already left, and those who could not are no longer living. Therefore, there is no such a problem in Luhansk.”
This reminds me the phrase of a Russian militant who, when asked in August 2014 when power supply will be restored in Luhansk, said quietly: “Corpses need no light.”
“Yes, this is their terrible logic. I was to meet Plotnitsky on March 14 by his consent. We were to discuss the possibility of restoring Khriashchevate without the local ‘government’s’ involvement because it was common knowledge that money was being misused. So, our task was to make sure that the needy receive target-oriented aid. This provoked a certain conflict between us, for the ‘LNR’ insisted in every possible way that money be distributed through their own foundations only.
“Before the meeting, I drove to Western Union, phoned to my wife, and, as I was walking out of the office, I received a blow on the head and lost consciousness. I came to my senses in a car, with a sack on my head. Then I spent a day and a night on the floor of a basement without any contact with the kidnappers. Only a day later their commander spoke to me. He first asked: ‘Do you know where you are?’ I answered: ‘MGB [‘ministry of state security.’ – Ed.] or counterintelligence.’ He kicked me and shouted: ‘We are Ukrainian guerrillas!’ By the way, they all spoke in Ukrainian. They called me a Russian military instructor who had come to Luhansk to teach separatists to kill Ukrainian children and women. They threatened to cut me into pieces and send videos of this to my relatives. It was moral and physical violence. I was kept in an unlit cellar, handcuffed to a pipe. I spent a month there like this. That was the first circle of my hell. But I knew perfectly well that they were no Ukrainian guerrillas at all.
“One night they pushed me in a car and drove around the city, with a sack on my head, to simulate leaving the city. Then they threw me into the attic of some shed and told me to count to 300 and only then to call for help. I shouted, only to hear them laughing. Half an hour later a car arrived, and I heard the click of a rifle lock and typical Russian voices. It was absolutely clear to me, an ethnic Russian, that they were no other than Russians. This even gave me some relief because it was my mother tongue indeed. I knew that my hell would continue, but I didn’t want to believe in this. They brought me to some room. I explained to them that guerrillas had kidnapped me and demanded a ransom. There were two Russians in front of me. One of them was at his wits’ end, while the other was asking specific questions. I finally understood that this man, obviously a special services operative, was behind my abduction. Believe me, I’ve been in the Russian opposition long enough to know their manner of work, including the way they conduct interrogations, only too well.”
“THEY BEGAN TO TAKE ME OUT FOR A FAKE EXECUTION AGAIN, AS THEY DID IN THE FIRST MONTH”
What distinguishes them from civilians and representatives of other bodies?
“First, the feeling of permissiveness. He can pardon and punish. The person he deals with is nobody for him.”
Oprichniki [members of Ivan the Terrible’s secret police – Ed.].
“Oprichniki indeed… First he asked me in detail about my captivity and then abruptly cut short the conversation, and we began to talk about painting and books. In other words, he was sounding me out for the things I like and attach importance to, i.e., my weak and strong points. Then the interrogation was repeated, and I had in fact to answer the same questions. He was thus checking whether or not I was lying. And I told him about the drunk ‘guerrillas’ who once came to shoot me. He blew up and said I was lying because they couldn’t have been drunk. I saw he was sure that his subordinates were so well-disciplined that they could not be drunk in the line of duty. I can say he thus gave himself out. I learned later that they were really his subordinates, not ‘Ukrainian guerrillas.’”
This means that the methods Cheka and NKVD employed in the years of war in Western Ukraine not only remain unchanged but have also been improved.
“After the subject of ‘Ukrainian guerrillas’ was exhausted, they began to accuse me that my wife was an ukrop [a patriotic Ukrainian in the bandits’ jargon. – Ed.] and I was a Russian oppositionist and, hence, represented a danger. They said I was a saboteur who had come to Luhansk on the orders of Ukraine’s Security Service and Ministry of Defense. They began again to take me out for a fake execution, as they did in the first month. As a result, I wrote a will again, exactly the same as the first one, when, following the humiliations, I myself asked them to shoot me. They continued to hold me under lock and key and kept on saying: see how good we, militiamen, are because we feed you and how bad the ukrops are, for they didn’t feed you.”
Did the militants give you periodically a hope for being freed?
“I had languished another month in this cage, when Boris Petrenko, deputy chief of the ‘LNR’ MGB’s investigation department, appeared before me. I use inverted commas because it is a terrorist organization, not a republic. And he told me that if I behaved well, everything will be ‘in white,’ not ‘in black.’ He thus made it clear that all my story, from ‘Ukrainian guerrillas’ to ‘militiamen,’ had been organized by them. But Petrenko was accompanied by a Russian who immediately took him down a peg. This second FSB man was constantly interrupting Petrenko. For example, said to me in his presence: ‘You see, even Petrenko is Russian, not Ukrainian.’ And Petrenko, with a Ukrainian surname, could say nothing in protest. Can you imagine what a uniformed Ukrainian is supposed to feel, when an occupier humiliates him? And his mother and father may have spoken in Ukrainian. People like this are often treated as second-rate. And it was quite noticeable. Their function is to be butchers – the butchers of their fellow citizens to boot. It is the Kremlin that supplied these butchers.
Photo from the website TWITTER FREEDONBASHOSTAGES
“So, I was transferred to the ‘MGB.’ They brought accusations against me without any interrogations. Firstly, I was a Euromaidan militant. Secondly, I am a Russian oppositionist. Incidentally, I failed to understand how these things could be items of accusation. Thirdly, I allegedly arrived in the ‘LNR’ for the purpose of forming commando units to commit terrorist acts and overthrow the government. Fourthly, I was to organize the kidnapping and smuggling of children into the territory of, literally, ‘occupied Ukraine.’ I told them it was a load of bull. Then they placed me in a detention center. I was always alone. Later, I was taken to a pretrial jail. It was also Petrenko who drove me there. I said to him: ‘Mr. Boris, you know only too well that I have nothing to blame for. Why are you keeping me in?’ He answered: ‘You know, Anatoly, perhaps you are not guilty, but as long as there is no direct dialog between ‘LNR’ and Ukraine, all volunteers will be considered traitors and treated as prisoners of war. And participation in the Euromaidan only aggravates your fault.’”
“PUTIN’S RUSSIA IS A SOURCE OF TERRORISM. THE KREMLIN HAS HAMMERED IT HOME TO THE RUSSIANS THAT IT IS NORMAL TO KILL”
Do they want to be recognized as a subject?
“Of course, it is the Kremlin’s goal. At the pretrial jail, I was placed again in solitary confinement. I began to ask them to put me into a common cell, for I was going mad – I’d had no contact at all. They put me into a 4-bunk cell, where there were three Russians convicted in the ‘LNR.’ One of them was driving drunk and hit a 12-year-old girl. He carried her on the bumper for about 100 meters and thrust her body into a lamppost. It was a high-profile case by force of circumstances. There was an abortive attempt to help his escape punishment. Yet they promised to free him a couple of months later. And he was really freed. There were very many cases like this. Even some people who had committed the grisliest murders, which could no longer be hushed-up, were released. There were more than 200 people like this in the pretrial jail. Murderers are in fact sick people…”
As for the people who were inside with you, the impression is that most of them came from Russia just to kill. What attracted them was not just an idea or a thirst for gain. It is normal for them to kill…
“Of course, it is. They came to kill. What for? I tried to grasp their motivation. They claimed they had come to kill ukrops for the sake of the ‘Russian World.’ But it soon became clear to me that the basic motivation of this scum was money, apartments, and girls. To kill, rape, and loot is all they can do. These people, who had nothing and failed to realize themselves in Russia, began to realize themselves in a different land in a totally new role – the role of murderers.”
In principle, Putin has thus turned the Donbas into gangrene.
“The overwhelming majority of them are criminals and the scum of society. There were 8 bunks and 15 people in the new cell. My bunk had the word ‘UKROP’ written in big letters. And, accordingly, I never shared this bunk with anybody. It is at that very moment that I realized that Ukraine had become my second homeland, where it is good and comfortable, where I feel a man with rights and a full-fledged citizen. I am saying now, after 9 months in captivity: our fighters are Ukrainians, our citizens are Ukrainians, our Donbas is Ukrainian, our land is Ukrainian, and our Crimea is Ukrainian. Despite this, I do love Russia, my fatherland. But I only want to live in a free country, and I will spare no effort to make a free country out of my Russia. For, in essence, Putin’s Russia is now a source of terrorism. The Kremlin has hammered it home to the Russians that it is normal and fair to kill.”
“MILITANTS DO NOT HAVE MANY PRISONERS OF WAR, SO THEY SUBSTITUTE CIVILIANS FOR THEM”
But still, how did you manage to escape from captivity?
“I spent the last five months in the ‘MGB’ basement. The temperature in the cell reached 40 C. The lack of fresh air, daylight, and personal hygiene items, as well as disgusting food, the ration being 150 grams a day at best, had a negative effect on my health – I have a whole bunch of chronic diseases now. We were given oatmeal with chaff to eat. We had to sort out each grain – otherwise we could have the gullet badly damaged. They were deliberately turning me into a dog. Moreover, they always beat me on the head, and the right side of it was continuously bleeding. Pus was coming out of the ear. The neck inflamed. I asked them to send for a doctor. The doctor came, saw me bleeding all the way, and said that it was quite normal. Only when I fainted, they began to provide me with medical care.
“I was administered God knows what injections for 22 days. I was burning out like a candle. I couldn’t walk and was almost motionless. Once they would show me, unshaven and wearing the holed pants I’d been given as far back as in the spring, to some pretty young women in uniform. ‘And here’s a sight to see, the legendary fifth column, the Euromaidan militant Poliakov who dreams of a revolution. See what he looks like!’ I heard them laughing. This is the way each of my next mornings in the basement began, when they would bring another group of gapers who were bursting to look at what had been left of me. They found it funny. They laughed at me, seeing my helplessness. As for my release itself, I will tell this some other time. I will only say that very many decent and totally innocent people are still there.”
The exchange has in fact been stopped today, and the Donetsk “authorities” say they will be trying and executing the POWs.
“Terrorists have made a lot of statements lately. I think these threats are an attempt to force Kyiv to make concessions. While militants have not more than 30 documented prisoners of war today, this figure is much higher in the case of Ukraine. Therefore, to make up for or to top up on the ‘exchange fund,’ they resort to mass-scale arrests of the civilians who sympathize with Ukraine. As of today, more than 200 people in Luhansk have been accused of espionage and high treason, and this figure will only grow. As far as I know, militants are planning to bring this figure up to 1,000.”
And what is the current situation in the militants’ milieu?
“A struggle is going on in Luhansk today between the first and the second waves of terrorists. The Russians are in fact mopping up the old guard who were the first to come to Donbas. They are up to their neck in blood, so Russia wants to get rid of them in any possible way. It is especially cynical that those who are not being killed are being imprisoned on the same charges that are leveled to Ukrainian citizens – high treason and terrorism. I think and hope that this monster will eventually devour itself.”
