Photo: espreso.tv interview, Sept. 13th.

By Semyon Semyonchenko, Commander, Donbas Battalion
09.29.2014
Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine

Ilovaisk was yesterday… This “yesterday” lasted a month. Exactly a month ago, I woke up in the hospital to the phone call from a platoon leader, who became a company commander in the scope of one second – the second in which the cabin of his own commander’s vehicle swelled up into a dazzling white ball and flew apart in pieces. “We are surrounded.”

Before that, there were calls to everyone who could make decisions, a week of rallies, demands for reinforcements, lying cries on the TV that “help is on its way” … hysterical accusations, a [military] parade in Kiev. And now… “We are surrounded…”

After that, there were more calls, promises, howling in frustration, in an understanding that time is running out… Talking with the President, a hope for a “corridor,” and again, a blind rage from the fact that it’s been two days, but no humanitarian convoy from the Armed Forces of Ukraine reached our guys…

There were demands of punishment and retribution, promises, inquiry commissions, and military prosecutors, and retaliatory strikes of the system… Deserters under the guise of heroes, a river of lies and dirt, mobile phones, which, apparently, are to blame for everything…

40 lives of the Donbas [Battalion] fighters, over 100 wounded, 120 captured… More than 1,000 lives of all the lads in Ilovaisk and Savur-Mohyla… and for what? Pre-election gimmicks, nuclear attacks in clouded brains, and not a single person punished for stupidity, for inactivity, for cowardice.

We must live and go forward, onward to fight and win, so that these losses were not in vain… Walk through the mud, and remember the blood… Do not forget those who died in Sloviansk and Artemivsk, Dzerzhynsk and Karlivka, Donetsk and Ilovaisk, Popasna and Lysychansk, Luhansk and Shchastya, Debaltseve and Amvrosiivka, Snizhne and Mariupol, – every place where fighters stood up to non-humans, in spite of every lie, stupidity and treachery. Stood up and died for their homeland…

Eternal memory to you, brothers …
People – remember that nothing yet has been decided and it isn’t yet over. We only turned over the second page. If we stay alive, we can write this book to the end…
It is our duty to make it to the end.

Source: Semyon Semyonchenko FB