Translation of interview/interrogation with POW Cyborgs.

Translation of Interview/interrogation with POW Cyborgs.



I'm filming video. If I get permission from the command after approving the video, it will be published, that is, I shall be permitted to publish it. You have an opportunity to make it known to your family that you're alive. Because you [the Ukrainian commanders] never admit casualties, you [soldiers] just disappear, as the phrase goes, if there is no body - there is no case. Where you went, tell me?

- I went for the guys at the airport to pick up the dead and bring them to Konstantinovka, and I did not know where to go next.

Which terminal at the airport?

- The new one, where our guys were.

So, how many stiffs there?

- I was told there were about 80 people there.

Eighty dead?

- No, I was told there were 80 people there.

How many dead?

- More than 60%, I was told.

Sixty percent?

- Yes.

That is, more than a half?

- Yes.

More than 50, then? Of 80 people?

- I did not even know who there actually fought. I was told that there were our guys from the 90th battalion, that they were being shelled, that the airport floors were already occupied, that moskals began to occupy the floors, and that at night they [the guys from the 90th battalion] were going to yield up the airport.

At night we were going to occupy the airport?

- Rather, in the morning, as it was night when we were told this. Then, in the morning, we were lined up and were told to go to pick up the guys, the dead, because there <...> had been killed...

Speak, speak.

- We seated <...> [...into three MT-LB armoured tracked vehicles?], there were nine of us. Everyone just had to come down, bring [the dead] to the car, load them into the ML-LB's, there were also special <...> [devices?] for the dead, the wounded, to pick up them all. We drove, that's what I remember, then the shelling begun, closer, closer, then bullets started to strike at the car armor, then the driver abruptly stopped the car, screamed "Knocked out, all get off!" We jumped down, it was fog, there were some broken frames at the left side. We all rushed into some room, no one knew where were they, where was the terminal, where were those floors, whom to pick up, whom to load.

Now the question to you solely for this recording. Can I call myself a good cop? Well, you see, you're quite shabby, I did not... or it was I who?..

- I've said what I knew <...>

No, I mean did I beat you?

- No.

How am I talking to you?

- Humanly.

Humanly. You see, my goal is not to make fun of a captured ukrop (I've always differentiated you [the Ukrainians] into Bandera's followers, ukrops and Ukrainians), I'm not an invited guest, my mother was from Shakhtersk, my father was of the Dnieper region, and then they went to the Crimea, their parents. I'm here, I know what I'm doing. And you hear my accent, don't you?

- Yes, of course.

Well, I see.

- <...> me too <...> the first time we were brought <...> I do not know where <...> I've never seen the first emplacement, the guys said "Here is your Ukrainian passport". Then they started talking...

I do not conceal anything. I yell at each corner that I'm a volunteer from Russia, it's no secret. I'm explaining to everybody that I have come to defend my historic homeland. My mother asks me, "If you're going to pass by my village, under Shakhtersk, make a picture of my home, I just wonder what happened to him." I'm not on a visit here, and I assure you that a large part, if not the largest, of those who came here from Russia, have their grandparents here. In Russia, for example, according to opinion polls, a third part of Russian citizens - not immigrants, but citizens - claim that they have their grandparents in Ukraine. It means - what? How do you think?

- It's kinda one country ...

Can this mean that a third part of the citizens of Russia are -

- ...the Ukrainians?

Yes.

- Sure it can.

How can a country...

- If you even take the Ukrainians, how many of them are all over Europe, that is the same thing here, more than half, well, a third part for sure.

So, I'll make a pause, I do not want to lose the video track, it does not download well in HD quality.


* * *

INTERROGATORS:
- ...We'll publish it [video], your family will take a look at it.
- You'll be a hero...
- You'll be a hero, known all over the country...
- Well, wait, now in a serious way. From jokes to business. You will be a hero. You're one of the military officers - in my opinion, the only one, the first one - in the history of Ukraine, who has military honor. Every officer, of any army, would consider it an honour when the enemy show mercy to him and allow him to shoot himself. Any country. And the Japanese, how they called it?
- Harakiri?
- Bushido? no, I don't remember.
- Seppuku? it's when he jump...
- Let's go back 70 years ago. Any German officer would take the gun. Yes, it's the Nazism, it's a lousy fascist, but he would take the gun. Any Soviet officer would take the gun. That's time when people had a notion of the officer's honor. And now ...
- Well, give the gun?

POW:
- My country won't appreciate it.

INTERROGATOR:
- But you're at war for it!

POW:
- It sent me to slaughter.

INTERROGATORS:
- But you denied it...
- And what, it's the family who will appreciate. Everybody will admire you, tell to your mom: "Look, what a son you had, a true hero!"
- There will be a street named after you.
- They will meet your coffin on your knees.
- "Right Sector" will...
- Kiss your ass.
- ...set up a monument to you, as a hero of Ukraine.
- Well, give the gun?

POW:
- No.

INTERROGATOR:
- I promise: no one will interfere. OK?

POW:
- No.

INTERROGATORS:
- Why no? Afeared?
- Tell us the reason, why.

POW:
- I don't want to die.

INTERROGATOR:
- "Don't want to die"? or "Don't want to die for..."?

POW:
- Don't want to die for the country that betrayed me.

INTERROGATOR:
- Do you really think you still have the homeland? We all were betrayed in the Maidan Square - both you all and we. When Maidan was taking place, we were working hard at the mines, factories. You were probably also doing something?

POW:
- Yes.

INTERROGATOR:
- Worked, right?

POW:
- Yes.

INTERROGATOR:
- And guys who stood there [in the Maidan square], "Berkut", were burned and beaten with chains, did you see that?

POW:
- In the news.

INTERROGATOR:
- Did see it in the news?

POW:
- Yes.

INTERROGATOR:
- Well, and how? There were guys like you, officers like you. They stood and did not fire a shot. And were beaten. Did not it offend you for the army?

POW:
- It offended me that the authorities allowed them to do so, allowed to do so to them. <...>

INTERROGATOR:
- Well, why you then went to serve to this country? The country that had trampled into mud the officers, the soldiers. They are like you.

POW:
- I had been mobilized.

INTERROGATOR:
- Mobilized... you coward ass. Coward ass, hear? You're a shit, not an officer.

Conclusion
Not very spectacular, but still this gives some insight in the mindset of the Russian proxies. Basically: we can take (parts of) Ukraine, because our parents lived there.


If you see errors or have additions to this translation, please let me know.