“Everyone who is captured will give out everything he knows alone”
Among the prisoners who came out of the Azovstal dungeons, many hoped to see high-ranking NATO officers, military advisers and instructors. Earlier, versions were put forward that French military intelligence officers, a retired US general, a British colonel, combat swimmers could get stuck at the combine… Now rumors are being spread that they could be liquidated by Azov militants on command from above (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation). We talked to experts about how these versions are sound.
Photo: Global Look Press
In social networks and forums, the events preceding the surrender of the last group of “sitters” from “Azovstal” are widely discussed. After the main part of the people left the metallurgical plant, the nationalists tried to blow up ammunition depots. At the same time, according to the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin, six people were killed, four more were injured.
Who exactly died in this hastily organized operation remains to be seen. But users of social networks are already asking the question: could a Canadian general or the same British lieutenant colonel or NATO military instructors have been among the dead, who were liquidated by the Azov militants on orders from above? Yes, in such a way that they cannot be identified? If they came to the surface, it would become clear that NATO and the entire Western world are directly at war with Russia in Ukraine.
We addressed these questions to the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Andrey Koshkin, an expert of the Association of Military Political Scientists, and Vladislav Shurygin, a military expert.
“I have never shared the opinion that high-ranking NATO officers can hide in Azovstal,” says Andrey Koshkin. As for the Canadian general, he is actually a specialist in the field of strategic planning. And what is the strategy in the bunkers of “Azovstal”? He must be somewhere in the general staff.
And at the metallurgical plant, where the fighting is going on, the platoon commander, the company commander, is already in command. There are experts in the field of decoding intelligence. But strategists are not engaged in this, especially at this level. Why would they climb into the bunkers of “Azovstal”? Moreover, it was clear that Mariupol was being cleaned, everyone was retreating to the factory, a self-respecting smart specialist, an adviser, would say: “Comrades, take me out. I didn’t sign up for this.”
If they were there, they had the opportunity to leave. I understand that the journalistic fraternity has a request on this topic, they crumple it this way and that way. But it’s time to change the vector in the information space.
But, the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin said, according to preliminary information, there are foreign citizens among those who surrendered.
An instructor is a specialist who trains fighters. He is strong in training centers, at training grounds. And on the battlefield, having got “under the arm” of his ward, he can grab a random bullet from someone he instructed, trained. It can be assumed that a unit could have been created from foreign instructors. But, again, which instructors will agree to this if they came to receive money for something else entirely? Each of them signs a contract, which specifies all his rights and obligations, and, of course, payment on all points.
It was hardly stipulated there that he should lead a unit on the battlefield. But foreign mercenaries were really there. This phenomenon has always been, is and will be.
The British military tunic found, according to the investigators of the Russian IC, in a cache next to the former positions of the nationalists in Mariupol does not mean anything. Such field equipment can be freely purchased in stores selling military ammunition and in second-hand stores. Moreover, this form in the desert scale of the “sand” has been discontinued for 10 years.
The version discussed in social networks and on forums that high-ranking NATO officers could have been killed by the Azovians seems untenable to Andrey Koshkin at all.
Are they metal ingots that can be moved from one place to another? They are in an alien environment of the Armed Forces and will constantly distance themselves, will be, as they say, alert, ready. And why, in fact, eliminate them? The publicity has already gone. To prove it with facts is another matter, but, you know, there will never be any career officers here, they will be dismissed retroactively.
The expert believes that at first the information space was being screwed up that the NATO generals were stuck on “Azovstal”, now they are being screwed up that they were killed there.
Investigative actions will begin now, everyone who is captured will give out everything he knows alone. All foreigners will be known. Everything will be logged, they will start checking.
The expert draws attention to how the “sitters” of “Azovstal” gave up.
— None of them ran, they fulfilled all the requirements unconditionally. They raised their hands on command, no one had any thoughts of taking any other actions. Many noted that they cleaned themselves up, apparently, a command was given to make them look decent.
They had been going to surrender for a long time, as they talked about during negotiations with representatives of the military formations of Donbass. They contacted us directly. But they were waiting for the team. They left the factory calm, knowing that no one would call them traitors, because they left the factory, referring to Zelensky’s team.
They had mostly Kalashnikov assault rifles with them from small arms, and all of them were absolutely without attachments, which the Azov regiment boasted about so much. These are grenade launchers, night vision devices, and optics. All this was missing. Ostensibly, so as not to unnerve our specialists. But this iseverything was taken down. They could have been assembled and blown up. Were not these explosions heard on the eve of their surrender? The military was ordered — they began to act. They blew it up as best they could. These could be specialists who were trained in a short time. Everything was done in a hurry. They didn’t calculate something and blew themselves up, 6 people died.
— The same Volyn, Radish and Kalina (acting commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the AFU Sergey Volynsky, commander of the Azov Denis Prokopenko, Deputy commander of the Azov Svyatoslav Palamar). Prokopenko — «Radish» — Hero of Ukraine. There were fifteen people at Azovstal who were awarded this title. They had to be evacuated somehow. After all, this is the core that could create a new nationalist unit. They are of more use to the current Kiev regime than the same foreign military advisers and instructors.
Have you ever wondered why they get tattoos? This is a psychological “hook”, from the category of “not a step back”. And in social networks they are forced to post “heroic” pictures and videos, based on the same principle “not a step back”. They have a special service, svidomo officers who do this, checks who does what tattoos, and if they don’t, then why? The same applies to social networks…
Another of our experts Vladislav Shurygin, having barely heard about the NATO generals from “Azovstal”, says: “You need to ask about them from those who imagined them there.”
“I have been saying all these months that there is no data to judge that there are any NATO generals on Azovstal,” says Vladislav Shurygin. — They, in principle, have nothing to do there. There could be several military advisers there. In the meantime, all the specific data about those who came out with “Azovstal”;,no. It is known that 2,439 people have been detained and are in custody, including 78 women. It is not known whether there are foreign mercenaries and advisers among them. We just need to calm down and be glad that we were able to force the most prepared, most motivated Ukrainian unit to surrender without major losses.
The expert also does not believe in the version that the nationalists could, covering their tracks, arrange an explosion and thus liquidate foreign advisers at Azovstal.
— If the militants of “Azov” received and executed this order, then the corpses will be found. But I strongly doubt that it was. It was easier to shoot foreigners quietly and drag them to where they already had two hundred frozen corpses. Most likely, they were simply executing a command to destroy the arsenal that remained there. As a result, it is not known whether they succeeded or not. It is known that they destroyed some equipment there, beat their smartphones.
For some of the militants, the evidence base is now being collected, for many it has already been collected. We must understand that not everyone will sit down. There are people there who will be recognized as just prisoners of war. And the most frostbitten, of course, will be judged.
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