The goals of the occupation of Donbass by the Nazi invaders. Donbass during the German occupation and under Stalin

In the Middle Ages, most of the territory of the Donetsk basin was inhabited by successive nomadic peoples. During the formation of the Cossacks, the border between the Don and Zaporozhye troops passed through the Donbass. After the official annexation to the Russian Empire, the territory of Donbass was divided between the region of the Don Army, the Yekaterinoslav province and Slobozhanshchina.

In the 19th century, its lands began to actively develop thanks to coal mining. In 1869, on the site of the village of Aleksandrovka, the village of Yuzovka was founded, which quickly turned into one of the most important industrial centers in Russia. But the working conditions of the miners were very difficult, and at the beginning of the twentieth century they joined the revolutionary movement en masse.

During Civil War Donbass has become the scene of bloody battles. On its territory the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was formed, which was a part of Soviet Russia. However, after the establishment of Soviet power in Donbass, the region was divided between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR.

After the formation of the Soviet Union, a period of explosive industrial development of Donbass began. New mines were opened in the region, metallurgical and machine-building plants were built. In the 1920s, Yuzovka was renamed Stalino, and in 1938, the Donetsk region of the Ukrainian SSR was divided into Stalin (later renamed Donetsk) and Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk).

By 1941, the city of Stalino alone provided 7% of the Soviet Union's coal production, 11% of coke production and 5% of steel. Its population exceeded half a million people, and it became one of the largest industrial centers in the country.

Nazi occupation of Donbass

In 1941, the Nazis captured Stalino, and in 1942 - Voroshilovgrad. Due to the proximity of the region to the front, its administration was carried out by the military administration.

“Donbass was of strategic importance in the eyes of both the Soviet and German commands. More than 220 enterprises of republican and union subordination were located here. According to Hitler, Soviet Union was unable to wage a long war with Germany without the coal resources of Donbass: in their absence, the dictator believed, the USSR would not be able to produce required quantity tanks and ammunition,” said Sergei Belov, scientific secretary of the Victory Museum, in an interview with RT.

According to the expert, having occupied the territory of the region, the German command was initially primarily engaged in plundering its resources. The use of Donbass industry was not part of the plans of the occupiers, who were counting on a quick victory in the war.

“However, after the breakdown of the Blitzkrieg, the Nazis began to restore the industrial capacity of the region. The first mines began operating in February 1942. In the summer of the same year, the so-called “Ivan” program was adopted. The German leadership planned to meet the needs of the active army at the expense of factories located in the occupied territory. Just to work in the Donbass mines, 65 thousand local workers were forcibly mobilized. At the Voroshilov metallurgical plant, the production of cartridges was established, and the needs of the Wehrmacht were served by the steel rolling mills of Makeyevka,” Belov said.

In Stalino alone, the occupiers created three concentration camps in which about 92 thousand people were killed.

Executions and burials of civilians killed elsewhere also took place at mine No. 4/4 bis. It became the second largest place massacres in the Ukrainian SSR after the Kyiv Babi Yar. Historians claim that it contains the remains of approximately 100 thousand people - some of them were thrown into the mine while still alive.

In May 1942, the Nazis exterminated 5 thousand Jews from the ghetto in the White Quarry. The total number of Jews killed by the Nazis in the Stalino area is estimated at 15-25 thousand people.

It was not possible to launch a large-scale partisan movement in Donbass due to the lack of large forest areas. However, the local population massively participated in acts of sabotage and joined the ranks of the underground.

After the start of the occupation, the Nazis destroyed all underground organizations created along the party line, but they were soon recreated. The underground members were engaged in reconnaissance, propaganda work, and coordinated acts of sabotage. In Stalino alone, 27 underground groups and detachments operated.

In Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, the legendary underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” waged a secret war. The youngest of its participants was only 14 years old. The organization arose soon after the occupation of Donbass on the initiative of local youth. Young people distributed leaflets, engaged in oral propaganda, and carried out sabotage against the Nazis. In December 1942, they burned Hitler’s “labor exchange” along with lists of boys and girls whom they planned to take into slavery in Germany. Thanks to this sabotage, the underground saved the lives of about two thousand people.

• Still from the film “The Young Guard” (1948)

As the front approached, the Young Guards planned to raise an uprising in the city, but, unfortunately, they did not have time. At the beginning of 1943, the Nazis (according to one version, due to betrayal, according to another, during raids) were able to get on the trail of the underground. Most of the Young Guard members were executed by the Nazis.

“According to official data from the Soviet side, the underground fighters and partisans of Donbass managed to destroy about 10 thousand invaders and their accomplices, defeat 23 garrisons and blow up 14 railway trains,” said Sergei Belov.

Hitler's nightmare

The occupation of Donbass led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population in the region. “A rationing system for food distribution was in effect in the cities, money circulation was reduced to a minimum, and trade took on a natural form. The miners were given only a ration of 325 grams of bread per person per day, and wages were calculated at Soviet pre-war tariffs, without taking into account hyperinflation and price levels on the black market,” Belov noted.

But in the summer of 1943, a radical turning point occurred in the Great Patriotic War.

“When Hitler looked at the Kursk salient on the map, he was overcome with horror at the thought that a strike from the Red Army from the southern front would cut off his group of troops in the Sea of ​​Azov region. And this nightmare of his was destined to partially come true - somewhere around 80%,” military historian Yuri Knutov told RT.

• Ruins of the memorial on the Saur-Mogila mound in the Donetsk region
• RIA News
• Valery Melnikov

On August 13, 1943, the Donbass strategic offensive operation of the USSR Armed Forces began. The heaviest fighting took place in the area of ​​the Mius River, where the Nazis created a powerful defensive line. One of the most important heights in the region, Saur-Mogila, changed hands several times. The battles were personally observed by the commander of Army Group South, Erich von Manstein. During the fighting on August 18-31, the height was finally occupied by Soviet troops.

August 30 Armed forces The USSR liberated Taganrog. Near the city, the Red Army defeated the 29th Corps of the German Army. On September 1, the Nazis began a hasty retreat along the entire front. At the same time, Manstein gave the order to use scorched earth tactics. The Nazis engaged in total looting and massacred civilians.

In early September, Gorlovka and Artyomovsk were cleared of the Nazi occupiers. On September 8, during heavy fighting, Soviet troops liberated Stalino.

Manstein called the fighting in Donbass the most difficult operation for Army Group South in 1943-1944. Already on September 22, Soviet troops pushed the Nazis back across the Dnieper.

Historical parallels

“It was during the battles in Donbass that a springboard was created for the liberation of all of Ukraine from the Nazis. This was a major moral victory. The events of 1943 show parallels with what is happening today. It’s not for nothing that American military researchers are still closely studying the fighting of the summer of 1943, not only from a historical point of view, but also from the position of military art,” emphasized Yuri Knutov.

During a poll conducted in 2006 in the Donetsk region, 13% of residents of the region said that they considered Donetsk Liberation Day the most important memorable day.

• Battles for Donetsk
• Wikimedia Commons

“For Donbass, September 8 has always been a holy holiday. You need to understand that this is the anniversary of the liberation of Donetsk not only from German Nazism, but also from Ukrainian nationalism. The Nazis used collaborators from the OUN-UPA* against the Donetsk people. Next to the swastika, a yellow-blue flag was raised over Donbass. Among the inhabitants of the region, they instilled the same ideology that they are trying to instill today. Therefore, the anniversary of the liberation of Donetsk is a doubly significant event,” political scientist Vladimir Kornilov said in an interview with RT.

Experts note that Donbass was liberated and what was destroyed by the Nazis was restored by citizens of the entire Soviet Union. “After the liberation, people from all over the country came to restore Donbass, and it must be said that they did it in record time,” summed up Vladimir Kornilov.

* “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) is a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated November 17, 2014).

Source: Mikhailov B. D. In the storms of revolution // Melitopol: nature, archeology, history. - Zaporozhye: Wild Field, 2002.

In February 1918, events in Kyiv, where the power of the Central Rada, headed by the first President of Ukraine M. Grushevsky, was established, unfolded according to a different scenario.

An agreement soon followed between the Central Rada and Germany on the entry of occupation troops into the territory of Ukraine to suppress the popular movement. In February 1918, the Germans entered the Right Bank of the republic and later reached the Melitopol region.

V.I. Lenin was able to “in his own way” assess the current situation, which posed a mortal danger to the young Soviet republic. The leader of the revolution saw in the Ukrainian people the force that was capable of restraining Austro-German imperialism, and therefore they urgently began to create military detachments in Ukraine under the guise of Bolshevik Ukrainian formations. Lenin wrote:

The immediate evacuation of grain and metals to the east, the organization of subversive groups, the creation of a united defense front from the Crimea to Great Russia with the involvement of peasants in the cause, a decisive and unconditional conversion of our units existing in Ukraine in the Ukrainian way - such is now the task.

On March 22, 1918, the Melitopol district executive committee of the Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies appealed to the population to resist Austro-German imperialism. The appeal stated that:

Those who value land and freedom should join the ranks of the Red Army and defend with arms in their hands the land and freedom obtained by the peasants. Brothers, citizen-peasants! All of you, stand up with weapons in your hands to free yourself from the yoke of capitalists and landowners who want to take away your land and freedom.

A difficult situation has arisen in the former Russian Empire. With the victory of Soviet power, the ruling class “did not lay down its arms,” but, on the contrary, began to unite into the “white movement.” Military detachments returning from the Romanian front began to appear in the region. On April 2, 1918, anarchists broke into the city on the armored train “Freedom or Death” under the command of Polupanov, and on April 3, Melitopol was occupied by the troops of Colonel Drozdovsky. Mass executions of Bolshevik activists began. Power in the city again transferred to the local Duma. So, on April 15, 1918, a tragedy broke out at the Akimovka station, near Melitopol, when a technical detachment of Poltava track workers ran into an officer’s cavalry squadron, which shot about 180 railway workers.

On the same day, April 15, 1918, Polupanov’s detachment again found itself near Melitopol, which was being attacked by the Austro-Germans. The armored train “Freedom or Death” covered the retreat of the red units and fought with an enemy who outnumbered them almost five times.

After the capture of Melitopol, the Kaiser's army rushed to the Crimea. Near Akimovka, the 1st Black Sea Revolutionary Regiment under the command of I.F. Fedko, together with local Red Guards led by G.K. Kochergin, blocked the path and held back the enemy’s onslaught for several days.

During this alarming time, the Bolshevik Central Executive Committee of the Council of Ukraine on April 19, 1918, issued a “Manifesto to the Ukrainian people,” in which the Soviet government called on the masses to rise up to fight against the German occupiers.

On May 20, 1918, an occupation regime was established in the city. The local bourgeoisie and part of the intelligentsia enthusiastically accepted the arrival of the Austro-Germans. The working population, which supported Soviet power, became wary and took a wait-and-see attitude.

Shops, restaurants, and cinemas opened in the city. The theater staged performances by V. K. Vinnichenko (Vinnichenko Vladimir Kirillovich (1880-1951) - Ukrainian writer, head of the Ukrainian Directory (November 1918 - February 1919), since 1920 - emigrant) “The Cossack of the Old Mlin”, “The Bazaar” ", "Pan Tvardovsky", etc. In July 1918, the Ukrainian people's socio-political and literary newspaper "Our Step" began to be published. The local “Prosvita” resumed its work, which consisted mainly of city and district teachers, who had established close ties with the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen from the Austro-German army in the city of Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhye). At the Melitopol district zemstvo, courses in “Ukrainian studies” began to operate.

In total, on the territory of Northern Tavria, the occupation army numbered 50 thousand soldiers and officers.

Chapter I. Invasion of Austro-German troops into the Soviet Republic in 1918

Although the Kaiser's government signed the peace treaty in Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, German-Austrian troops continued to advance into Ukraine. Long before February 18, 1918, the counter-revolutionary Central Ukrainian Rada sold Ukraine to German imperialism. Overthrown by Ukrainian workers and peasants at the end of January 1918, the Central Rada managed to flee to Zhitomir. On February 9, she signs an agreement with the German government, according to which not only the sale of Ukraine to German imperialism is formalized, but German and Austrian troops must occupy these vast lands.

On February 18, German-Austrian troops invaded Ukraine, continuing their offensive until the end of May 1918, occupying Ukraine, the Donetsk coal basin, Crimea and part of the North Caucasus in three and a half months.

The German high command, having sent 29 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions to Ukraine, with a total number of up to 300,000 soldiers with 1,000 guns, hoped that these troops would very quickly, briefly complete the task assigned to them. But already from the first days of the Austro-German-Haydamak offensive, it became clear that the enemy would face a big, severe struggle for every step forward.

Before moving on to characterize the military operations in Ukraine during this period, let us briefly consider the general military-political situation for the Kaiser’s Germany, as well as the strategic plans of German imperialism that they developed in 1918, before their invasion of Ukraine.

The entry of the United States of America into the world war on the side of the Entente sharply changed the real balance of power of both imperialist coalitions not in favor of the powers of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey).

The economic and political situation of Germany, which played a leading role in this union, was critical by the beginning of 1918. The military dictatorship of Ludendorff and Hindenburg subjugated all the resources of the state. Famine raged inside the country and at the front. The high mortality rate from systematic malnutrition severely weakened the population and armies of the Central Powers. Dissatisfaction and indignation with the Kaiser's government and command grew not only among the working people, but also among the masses of soldiers. Already at the end of 1917, the government and the main German command faced a dilemma: either immediately end the war and conclude an unfavorable peace, or concentrate the last forces and in 1918 achieve victory in the main - Franco-British - theater of military operations.

The military party took over. She decided to find a way out of the crisis in the further, even more strengthened imperialist policy of Wilhelmine Germany in the West and in the East.

According to the German government and command, huge food, fuel and other raw materials resources were located in the territory that emerged from the imperialist war - in the territory of Soviet Russia, especially its southern regions: Ukraine, Donbass, Crimea and the Caucasus. The Kaiser’s invaders rushed to the mines, plants, factories and black soil fields, to all the riches of Ukraine and Donbass.

The occupation of Ukraine began on February 18, 1918, and the German offensive on the Franco-British front began on March 21, 1918. In other words, Ludendorff, a month before the decisive offensive on the Western Front, threw the German-Austrian occupation army into Ukraine with the aim of overthrowing Soviet power and systematically pumping food and fuel resources out of the country.

With feverish haste, Ludendorff is finalizing an extensive plan for the occupation of Ukraine. The German General Linsingen became the head of the occupation forces, and from the end of March 1918, Field Marshal Eichhorn. Eichhorn and his chief of staff Groener, both under the Rada and then under Skoropadsky, became the sole and sovereign masters of the enslaved Ukraine and Crimea. In this case, the directive of the Kaiser’s ambassador to Ukraine during the occupation, Baron Mumm, was carried out, who wrote: “As long as German and Austro-Hungarian troops are in the country, Ukraine should not have its own troops; Only police units are allowed, in limited quantities, in agreement with the Commander-in-Chief.”

Baron Mumm was echoed by the German Foreign Minister Bush, who stated: "Currently the government[in Ukraine . – Vl. M.] is in our hands, and ministers must obey us.”

When in April 1918 Mumm was given a directive to overthrow the government of the Rada, expel even these obedient parrot ministers and establish the monarchical regime of Hetman Skoropadsky, Mumm wrote to Berlin that when the government of the Rada was changed, “Ukrainian scenes” (“Die ukrainische Kulisse”) must be absolutely preserved, and thus the impetus for the revolution will not come from us. General Groener hoped that perhaps he would be able to “overthrow the government from within through the peasant deputations that arrived in Kyiv today, and therefore contacted General Skoropadsky.” On April 28, 1918, the government of the Central Rada was dispersed by the Kaiser’s troops, and the kulak-landowner “Congress of Grain Growers” ​​the next day, at the behest of Eichhorn and Groener, proclaimed hetman the former tsarist general Skoropadsky, the largest landowner of the Chernigov and Poltava provinces.

Ludendorff based the strategic plan for the occupation of Ukraine, as can be seen from the official, diplomatic and military correspondence of the occupiers and the memoirs of Ludendorff, Hoffmann and Bülow, on the following tasks:

1. The separation of Ukraine from Soviet Russia and its transformation into a German General Government with a colonial regime. Ludendorff said that Ukraine “In no case could it be given to the Bolsheviks, because in the latter case no benefit could be derived from it... Germany had to protect itself from the penetration of Bolshevism from Soviet Russia with the help of a sufficiently extended barrier. In any case, we had to enter deep into Ukrainian territory.”

2. Remove as quickly as possible and as much food and fuel supplies as possible from the south of the Soviet country. For this purpose, the corresponding local procurement bodies (bureaus) and the Central Bureau in Kyiv were organized. Baron Mumm reported in March 1918 to the German Reich Chancellor Hertling: “The Central Powers organize a Central Bureau (Zentralstelle) in Kyiv for the procurement of bread, bakery products, legumes, livestock feed, oilseeds and other crops. The Ukrainian government has the right to assign its representative to communicate with the leadership of the Central Bureau.”

Subsequently, the protege of the German imperialists, Hetman Skoropadsky, undertook to urgently export 60 million pounds of bread, 3 million pounds of meat, 400 million eggs and a number of other food supplies from Ukraine for Germany. He partially succeeded.

3. Feed the huge occupying German-Austrian army with the resources of Ukraine itself, thereby removing it from the food budget (rations) of the Central Powers.

On this occasion, the German commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, General Bülow, reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin on March 10:

« Free supply troops by the Ukrainian government will be a relief for our homeland, and at least this will be some kind of real achievement... Bread and fodder are essential needs of life for us. In the west, we face the toughest decisive battles, so diplomatic considerations regarding future relations with Ukraine should not be taken into account here now. If it is impossible otherwise, then we must take by force what we urgently need for life and struggle. Whether we receive bread from the present government, which cannot hold out for long, or from another, is indifferent. Commissions are now irrelevant. The issue must be resolved exclusively by military force.”

The plan of military occupation developed by Ludendorff, Eichhorn and Groener was nothing remarkable from the point of view of military art. Preliminary intelligence data available to the main German command, including information received from the Central Rada expelled in January 1918, told Ludendorff and Groener that in the process of occupying the territory of Ukraine and Crimea, the occupying forces should not encounter organized armed resistance. It was expected that there would be sporadic battles with those improvised red detachments, which at that time numbered 15-20 thousand armed fighters in Ukraine. Because of this, Ludendorff believed that the entire occupation would be completed in no more than a month, simultaneously organizing the continuous supply of food and fuel to the railways and highways in order to quickly send them to Germany.

As we will now see, the occupiers paid dearly for this carelessness and bias. The Ukrainian people offered them heroic resistance.

The occupation corps were placed by Ludendorff and Groener in a uniform cordon from north to south (from Pinsk to the mouth of the Danube) with the aim of advancing east along the railways.

On February 18, 1918, with a sudden blow, the occupying army, simultaneously with the offensive in Belarus and the Baltic states, invaded Ukraine. The occupiers immediately restored the landlord system. In full agreement with the Williamite government and command, Baron Mumm declared: “It is necessary to resolve the agrarian issue by restoring property rights and paying peasants for the land they received. At the same time, it is necessary to preserve large estates in the interests of increasing the export capabilities of agriculture. Maximum size individual estates must be determined by a special law."

Austro-German military literature, considering the experience of the occupation forces in Ukraine in 1918, notes that the German-Austrian command and troops, although they had extensive combat practice gained in the battles of the World War of 1914–1918, were completely unprepared for special and the unique conditions of military operations in Ukraine. The echelon war that they had to wage in Ukraine and the Donbass, as well as the special nature of the fight against the partisan and insurgent movement that engulfed the entire near and deep rear of the invaders in the very first weeks of their stay in Ukraine - all this turned out to be for generals Ludendorff, Groener, Eichhorn, Kosch, Knerzer and others, as they state, an unexpected bloody and difficult period of struggle against the Bolshevik revolution in 1918.

On March 6, Red Guard detachments met the enemy in an organized counter-offensive in the Slobodka area. The command of the red detachments, having carried out good reconnaissance, discovered that the invaders were moving self-confidently, carelessly and without proper security. A sudden transition to a counteroffensive forces the enemy to hastily turn around in an unfavorable position for him, moreover, under fire from the Reds. The battle in the Slobodka area continued until late at night, as a result of which the enemy lost 7 officers and 430 soldiers killed and a large number wounded. The next day, March 7, at the Birzula station, the red detachments, having engaged in stubborn battles, again struck a sensitive blow, and, according to the chief of staff of the occupation corps, Colonel Dragoni, the enemy in the area of ​​the Birzula station lost 90 people killed and 600 wounded.

Serious military resistance met by the Kaiser’s troops from the very first days of the invasion Soviet country, the heavy losses they suffered here forced the command of the interventionists to radically change their point of view that, having enormous numerical and military-technical superiority, they could easily do a “quick, short military pleasure ride.”

The stubborn and fierce battles that ensued on almost all the main railway routes leading to Ukraine forced the Kaiser’s command to issue a number of orders that required careful organization of the further advance of the occupation forces to the east. These orders from the German command required constant reconnaissance from the troops with cavalry, armored vehicles and motorcycle units. It was necessary to act together with the counter-revolutionary Haidamak units, trying to keep them in the area of ​​​​combat work of the vanguards. In the vanguard column, orders required moving cavalry with armored detachments, and when troops were moving by rail, having armored trains in the vanguard. It was ordered to widely use aviation not only for reconnaissance purposes, but also for bombing railway junctions and stations with incendiary shells in order to completely hamper the actions of the red detachments.

On March 13, 1918, the invaders under the command of General Kosh invaded Odessa. From Odessa, German-Austrian troops moved to the region of Nikolaev and Kherson. They took the first on March 17, the second on March 20. The workers and Red Guards of the captured cities rebelled. Many days of bloody battles began. The entire second half of March 1918 was spent for the invaders in fierce battles with red detachments of workers and peasants in the areas of Nikolaev (battles from March 22 to 25) and Kherson (battles from March 23 to April 5). During these days, William's troops had to urgently demand new reinforcements from their main command, but despite this, Kherson heroically held out for two weeks. Only on April 5, having been completely cut off and drained of blood in a long and unequal struggle, the red fighters of Kherson stopped their heroic resistance.

Detachments of national heroes, Shchors, Kotovsky, Kikvidze and others, in March 1918 in the areas of Novozybkov, Kyiv and Olviopol inflicted crushing blows on the Haidamaks and occupiers. Under the leadership of K. E. Voroshilov, the miners and metalworkers of Donbass in March 1918 began their first battles with the Kaiser’s troops in the Konotop area (Dubovyazovka station), and then, as we will see below, continued them in April and May, fighting the enemy on the Stradnoye military route from Vorozhba to Likhaya station. Thousands of Red fighters of Ukraine were forced to move further to the east and northeast, but tens of thousands of them were scattered in the form of partisan detachments throughout the ravines, gullies, forests, farmsteads and villages of Ukraine.

Under the continuous attacks of the retreating detachments of the Red Army and as a result of the action in the rear of thousands of red partisan detachments, the Haidamaks and the invaders suffered huge losses in people and military equipment. Their rear was on fire, there was not an hour when they could feel safe in Ukraine. With each new decade, the People's Patriotic War assumed ever greater proportions. If the Haidamak-Kaiser search, when spreading to the east, initially had to act in the railway zone, then the ever-expanding partisan war forced them to remove entire divisions from the front and send them to the deep rear of Ukraine to fight the partisans.

The command of the occupation forces turned out to be unprepared for such a struggle with its special techniques and methods. The partisan tactics inflicted huge losses on the enemy. Local peasants usually very accurately and timely informed the headquarters of the partisan detachments about the location of the invaders and the punitive Haidamak expeditions. Having this data and first checking it again (usually by introducing well-dressed partisans into the point of attack in advance, with weapons hidden on themselves and in carts, with jugs of milk, bread, potatoes, etc.), at dawn, or even at night this target was surrounded by partisans on all sides, followed by a rapid attack and complete destruction of the enemy. Usually, by dawn, the operation ended with the final blows in the form of catching out of the huts, courtyards, barns of those distraught from unexpected blow enemy soldiers and officers. Having completed this operation, capturing weapons, convoys, banners and other trophies, the partisans quickly retreated to their places hidden from the enemy.

Such remarkable leaders of the partisan movement in Ukraine as Shchors, Kotovsky, Bozhenko and others often used tactics made up of a whole series of various, skillfully organized military tricks. For example, a favorite technique of the partisans was to direct enemy military units at each other. It was done like this: the commander of the partisan detachment learned through reconnaissance that in a given area one Haidamak detachment was moving towards another, then the partisans entered into battle with one of the detachments and fought with it until the evening, thereby getting closer to another enemy detachment. Being in the middle between these two detachments and bringing them so close that one could expect their inevitable collision, the partisans quietly retreated to the side through beams and copses, and the Kaiser-Haydamak units fought until dawn, showering each other with shells and rifle-machine-gun fire until until they discovered that the Red partisans had outwitted them.

There are dozens and hundreds of such examples when, with clever and advance orders from Shchors, Kotovsky, Bozhenko and others, the Haidamaks attacked the Austro-Germans or forced them to beat the Haidamaks. 15–20 thousand red fighters, scattered by February 18, 1918 across different areas of the vast Ukrainian territory (Kyiv, Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Donbass), delayed the advance of echelons with occupation forces, inflicted a number of partial defeats on the enemy, thereby ensuring the speedy evacuation into the interior of the country of all valuable from the points captured by the enemy. This is all they could do given the created ratio of forces of 1:10.

The food and fuel wealth of Ukraine, which the occupiers managed to seize, were immediately transferred to Germany.

“In February,” as Ludendorff writes in his memoirs, “the High Command, with the consent of the government, occupied Ukraine, not only bearing in mind the Bolshevik danger, but based on the deep conviction that we need Ukraine in order to feed the Quadruple Alliance. With the help of Ukraine, Austria-Hungary was able to flounder through the summer. We received cattle, horses and a lot of raw materials from there... Germany and other states of the Quadruple Alliance could receive the food supplements we needed from Ukraine; without her help, a severe crisis was inevitable at the beginning of the summer of 1918.”

“The army received a large number of horses, without which any further conduct of the war would have been impossible.”

The Wilhelmine command in Ukraine considered the most important operational direction going to Kyiv, Poltava, Kharkov, Lugansk and Rostov-on-Don. It demanded that generals Linsingen, Eichhorn, Groener and Knerzer as soon as possible conquer all these areas. From the front, Pinsk, Sarny, Rovno, Kamenets-Podolsk, Akkerman advanced, counting from north to south, in order: 41, 22, 27 and 1st reserve German corps, and then 25th and 27th Austro-Hungarian and 52nd Corps of General Kosh. On the front of Bakhmach, Poltava, Kremenchug, Yekaterinoslav, the offensive was led by the most powerful German corps - the 22nd, 27th and 1st reserve; from here they moved to Kharkov, Lugansk, Rostov.

At the end of February, March and April 1918, five of our Ukrainian armies, each numbering no more than 3-5 thousand, acted against the advancing German-Austrian troops. These armies (detachments) fought mainly along the railways, being in railway trains. Although they did not yet know how to fight in an organized manner in the conditions of a field maneuver war, in certain directions and in certain areas they were already beginning to successfully apply the principle of concentrating forces on the most important and vital directions, striking successively blow after blow against the Haidamak-Kaiser troops.

After the occupation of Kyiv on March 1, the headquarters of the Kaiser's High Command (Eichhorn and Groener) was located here; The representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Baron Mumm, also came here. On March 25, William's troops occupied Kremenchug in battle, on March 29 - Poltava and Krivoy Rog, and on March 31 - Vorozhba. The entire second half of March was spent in brutal, bloody battles throughout Ukraine. The occupiers suffered heavy losses in killed and wounded; their rear was burning in the flames of partisan uprisings. By the first days of April, intervention troops were approaching the Belgorod-Kharkov line.

Underground Bolshevik organizations led the struggle of the millions of Ukrainian people who rose up to fight against the occupiers.

In May 1918, German agent Kordt reported to the German embassy: “...disorder and devastation reign everywhere in the country. The peasants say: “It’s a pity that we didn’t kill all the bourgeoisie before the Germans arrived.” They don’t even want to hear about buying out the land.”.

And here is what the German diplomat Stumm told the German ambassador in Kyiv Mummu: “In Ukraine, the uprising is expanding every day. The Germans, by setting fire to entire villages in order to suppress the uprising, only arouse even greater rage against themselves.”.

Beginning in April 1918, more and more often, the commandant's offices of the occupiers in Ukraine registered and reported to the General Staff about the facts of the Kaiser's soldiers going over to the side of the rebellious Ukrainian people.

The Bolshevik revolution in Ukraine consistently and naturally took away its soldiers from German imperialism. In Ukraine, Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies began to form in the German and Austrian occupation units.

“...The German imperialists,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “promised to deliver 60 million pounds of grain to Germany from Ukraine and with this supply of food to destroy the germs of Bolshevism in Germany among the masses. But in practice, it turned out completely different: instead of 60 million poods of bread, the Germans brought only 9 million poods from Ukraine. But along with this bread they brought to Germany that Bolshevism, which gave such magnificent shoots there.”

Donbass during the civil war

The growing crisis and aggravation of the situation in the Donbass began already in the fall of 1917 in connection with the actions of General Kaledin. The Don Military Representative Office, created under his leadership, immediately after the October Revolution declared that it was taking power in the territory of the Don Army region into its own hands. On October 26, 1917, Kaledin declared the entire coal mining region of the Don Army Region under martial law. And on the same day he began to defeat the Soviets. The Makeevka Soviet was the first to suffer. But the joint actions of the workers forced Kaledin to withdraw troops from the Makeevsky region in early November. However, this was only the beginning of that brutal, bloody struggle in the east of Ukraine, the epicenter of which was Donbass.

On November 7, 1917, the Central Rada adopted the Third Universal, according to which the borders of the Ukrainian Republic were determined with the inclusion in its territory of the South of Russia, Odessa, Sevastopol, Krivoy Rog, Chernigov, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav provinces and the southern parts of Kursk and Voronezh provinces. Throughout Ukraine, there was a demand for the transfer of power to the Central Rada and its local bodies, incl. and where the power of the Soviets had already been established.

The universal published by the Rada noted that the Soviet government is the Council People's Commissars- an illegal government that came to power “accidentally” and “temporarily”, as a result of the usurper activities of the Bolsheviks. The General Secretariat of the Rada, in a special address “To the troops and citizens of Ukraine,” announced that all troops and all parties on the territory of Ukraine must recognize only the authority of the General Secretariat and fully obey its orders.

At the same time, the Central Rada established contacts with Kaledin. She gave permission to allow Cossack units from other fronts to enter the Don through the territory of Ukraine. For his part, Kaledin agreed to let Ukrainian military units pass from the Don to Ukraine.

On November 14, 1917, at a meeting of the Kaledin military government, the Rada’s proposal for a joint struggle against Soviet power was adopted and the formation of the “Union of the South-Eastern Regions and Ukraine” was proclaimed.

Having secured the support of the Central Rada, Kaledin continued active struggle with the Soviets in Donbass. In November, Kaledinites raided Rovenkovsky, Prokhorovsky, Bokovo-Khrustalsky and other Soviets. They tried to start a rebellion in Slavyansk, Bakhmut and other places. Kaledin said that the Cossacks entered the Donbass to “establish order” and would not interfere in the affairs of “the people’s struggle with capital.” By order of Kaledin, rallies and meetings were prohibited, the Soviets and other workers' organizations were dispersed, and the Red Guard units were disarmed.

On November 25-26, 1917, the 2nd regional conference of mining and mining committees of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog basin took place in Debaltsevo. On behalf of the 200 thousand workers represented by it, the conference declared that it did not recognize Kaledin’s autocratic decrees, but considered only the orders of the Council of People’s Commissars binding for itself.”

The confrontation intensified. Military strength became the main argument in resolving the issue of power. On December 16, the Kaledinites defeated the Yasinovatsky and Bokovo-Khrustalsky mine councils. Fierce fighting with multiple casualties broke out in the Yuzovka and Makeevka areas. Through these areas, the Kaledinds tried to reach Debaltsevo, and then to Kharkov. On the night of December 21-22, the Red Guards began to advance from Yuzovka. The battle that began covered the areas of Yuzovka, Makeevka, Khanzhenkovo, Mospino, and Ilovaisk. On December 27, having suffered heavy losses, the Red Guard detachments left part of the Yuzovsko-Makeevsky region and retreated to Nikitovka. The situation around Lugansk and Debaltseve was unfavorable.

The struggle for the Yasinovsky mine was senseless and cruel. On December 29, the Kaledinites made a number of unsuccessful attempts to capture the mine. For three days, the Red Guards, miners, Poles, Hungarians, and Austrians who worked at the mine put up resistance. However, the forces were not equal. On December 81, the Kaledinites managed to capture the mine. Having burst into the Yasinovsky village, they carried out massacres of its inhabitants, sparing neither women nor children. 118 people were killed and they were forbidden to even bury them. The struggle for power took on increasingly brutal forms. Moreover, violation of basic human rights and violence were allowed both on one side and on the other.

Kaledin's advance into the Donbass caused serious concern among the Bolshevik government of Russia. The loss of this region dealt a tangible blow to the fledgling Bolshevik power. Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars was extremely interested in the defeat of Kaledin and the restoration of Soviet power in the Donbass.

The Russian government sent armed detachments and weapons from Tula factories to the Donbass to support the Soviets. The headquarters of the military command was organized in Kharkov, headed by V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko. In the Donbass there was an intensive formation of Red Guard detachments. Its number reached 16 thousand people by mid-December.

In the second half of December - early January, Red Guard detachments fought with the Kaledinites in the areas of Nikitovka, Yasinovataya, Yuzovka, Mushketovo. On January 10, 1918, the general offensive of the Bolshevik troops against Kaledin began. In the rear of Kaledin, the Bolsheviks of Donbass organized an uprising. Already on January 12, 1918, Makeyevka was liberated, and by the end of January the entire Donbass was liberated. The entire territory of Donbass remained virtually under the control of the Bolshevik government of Russia. On January 29, 1918, Kaledin admitted at a meeting of the Military Government that further struggle was hopeless and shot himself.

Having captured Donbass, Bolshevik troops continued a large-scale offensive against Kyiv. On January 9, the Central Rada accepts the IV Universal, in which the Ukrainian People's Republic is proclaimed an independent, free, sovereign state of the Ukrainian people. However, Bolshevik troops were approaching the city. On January 26 they captured Kyiv. The Central Rada was forced to leave the city.

At the same time, the UPR delegation participated in peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. Taking into account the general situation in Ukraine, on January 27 (February 9, New Style), 1918, the UPR delegation signed a peace treaty with Germany on certain conditions (supply of agricultural and industrial products from Ukraine to Germany, etc.), essentially agreeing with German occupation of Ukraine.

After the breakdown of negotiations in Brest-Litovsk between Germany and Soviet Russia, February 18, 1918, German troops launched an offensive along the entire front. One of the main ones was the Kiev direction, in which 23 divisions operated. They were given the task of capturing Kyiv and moving further to Poltava, Kharkov and Rostov-on-Don. Together with the Germans, 10 Austro-Hungarian divisions advanced. Although the campaign of German and Austro-Hungarian troops in Ukraine in February 1918, that is, after the signing of a peace treaty between the central states and the UPR, did not have legal signs of intervention, in essence it was an intervention that had an extremely negative impact on the position of the Ukrainian people and contributed to the fall of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

As the intervention began in early March 1918, Donbass was declared under martial law. By decision of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Ukraine, the scattered Red Guard detachments were subordinated to a single command, headed by V. A. Antonov-Ovsienko. However, the forces were unequal. On April 18, Austro-German troops captured Yenakievo, on April 20 - Mariupol, the next day - Kramatorsk, on April 22 - Yuzovka, and on April 24 - Bakhmut and Nikitovka.

In the territory of Donbass captured by Austro-German troops, power formally passed to the Central Rada, and after its dissolution to the hetman government.

However, anarchy and anarchy reigned everywhere. The struggle for power continued. On the initiative of the Bolsheviks, active resistance to the occupiers began in Donbass. Already in April 1918, underground groups took shape in a number of cities and towns in the region, leading the workers’ struggle.

A strike movement developed. At the end of May, the miners of Gorlovka and Shcherbinovka declared a strike. They did not go down into the mine for 20 days. On June 4-5, the miners of the Kadievsky mines, then the Novoekonomichny mine, and at the end of June, the workers of the Hartmann plant in Lugansk stopped working.

A major strike took place at the Yuzovka metallurgical plant and mines. The strikers demanded the establishment of an 8-hour working day, higher wages, and imprisonment. collective agreement. The strike ended only in September with the victory of the workers.

The general strike of Ukrainian railway workers, which began in mid-July 1918, was a strong blow to the occupiers. It was of a clearly political nature. The main demands of the strikers were: recognition of the railway workers' union, preservation of the 8-hour working day, and the immunity of elected officials.

Donbass railway workers took an active part in this strike. Workers at Nikitovka station and Popasnaya depot went on strike. In mid-July, they were joined by workstations Izyum, then stations Kramatorskaya, Debaltsevo, Avdeevka, Liman, Khanzhenkovo, Krinichnaya. To lead this movement, strike committees arose in Lugansk and Mariupol. The strike covered all the railways of Ukraine, about 200 thousand people took part in it. Cargo transportation has almost stopped.

The insurgency movement became increasingly widespread. The struggle against the occupiers took on the character of an armed uprising. So, on the night of July 28, 1918, an uprising began in Mariupol. By that time, strike groups had been created in factories, in the port, in the city, on the railway. The main group of rebels, consisting of workers from Mariupol factories, captured the city and port. Railway workers in the area of ​​the Mariupol station captured the headquarters of the Austro-German troops, and a detachment of workers of 200 people captured the city headquarters. The work detachments disarmed and dispersed the hetman's warta. Having requested reinforcements from Volnovakha and Berdyansk, Austro-German troops began an attack on the city. The battle lasted two days. The rebels were forced to retreat. 150 people were arrested and handed over to a military court, of whom every tenth was shot. The German headquarters imposed an indemnity on the city residents - 837 thousand rubles, and on the port - 300 thousand rubles. A state of siege was declared in the city.

Under the influence of the revolutionary events in Germany in the fall of 1918, throughout Ukraine, the struggle against the Austro-German troops took on a wide scope. In this regard, at the end of October, the withdrawal of “unreliable” units from Donbass began, and in mid-November - all occupation forces located in Ukraine.

In the second half of November 1918, the offensive of Ukrainian rebel troops together with units of the Red Army began from the neutral zone. Under their attacks, the Austro-German troops hastily retreated. They also retreated from Donbass: on December 25, 1918, the troops left the Nikitovka station, on January 6, 1919 - Lugansk.

But at the same time, in accordance with the agreement between General Krasnov and the occupying forces and the hetman, Don White Cossack units began to arrive in the eastern part of Donbass, and a little later Denikin’s officer detachments began to arrive. They occupied the areas of Lugansk, Debaltsevo, and Mariupol. In the Donbass, by the end of December 1918, the White Cossack Don regiments were in charge. A division under the command of General Mai-Maevsky arrived to help Krasnov from the North Caucasus, where Denikin’s volunteer army was stationed. Its headquarters were located in Nikitovka. The division's tasks were to strengthen the left flank of the Donetsk Front of the White Cossacks, weakened due to the evacuation of Austro-German troops, and to eliminate the insurgency in the Donbass. The Denikinites were supported by the Entente, interested in seizing the Donetsk basin: French, English, Belgian capital invested in coal mines and metallurgical plants amounted to hundreds of millions of francs.

At the beginning of 1919, many settlements in Donbass were occupied by White Cossack units. However, overcoming resistance, the Bolshevik troops fought their way to Nikitovka and Debaltsevo, captured Starobelsk on January 10, a few days later the Loginovka station, Popasnaya, Markovka, and entered Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. The fighting was stubborn. On January 18, the Konstantinovka station was liberated, on January 19, Slavyanoserbsk, on January 24, Alchevsk, and on January 28, Bakhmut.

In settlements liberated from the White Guards, temporary authorities were formed - military revolutionary committees. On February 1, 1919, by decree of the Soviet government of Ukraine, the Donetsk province was created from the Bakhmut and Slavyanoserb districts. At the beginning the center of the province was Art. Yama, and later the city of Bakhmut.

The nationalization of enterprises has resumed. Their restoration has begun. In the spring of 1919, some mines in Gorlovka, Grishin, and Yuzovka began to operate. Donetsk coal was primarily sent to the central regions of Russia. Transformations also unfolded in the villages. Landowners' estates were confiscated. However, in contrast to the previous year, when the land was transferred to the peasants, at the beginning of 1919 an attempt was made to forcibly communize the peasantry. For this purpose, communes, artels, and state farms were quickly created, which caused mass discontent and resistance of the peasants against the socialization of the land. The Bolshevik government was forced to temporarily abandon its intention to create large farms. State farms were placed at the disposal of the peasants. Forcibly created collective farms were dissolved, land was redistributed among landless and land-poor peasants. However, this was a temporary retreat of the authorities from their plans. The Bolsheviks did not abandon the very idea of ​​communization of the peasantry. In the spring of 1919, the state simply did not yet have enough strength to use violence on a large scale for the communist transformation of the Ukrainian countryside. And the time was extremely turbulent, military operations were still ongoing.

In the Donbass in the spring of 1919, Denikin’s troops replaced the retreating White Cossack units of General Krasnov. On the 350 km front from Lugansk to the Sea of ​​Azov, battles broke out again, as a result of which some settlements - Bakhmut, Konstantinovka, Popasnaya, Debaltseve - changed hands several times.

In March and April 1919, fierce fighting continued in the Donbass. The main area remained the Debaltsevo-Nikitovka-Popasnaya area. In the second half of May 1919, the situation on the Donetsk sector of the southern front became more complicated. On May 19, a counter-offensive of fresh forces of Denikin’s troops, armed with artillery, armored cars, and tanks, began here. They went in three directions: to the center of Donbass, to the Lugansk region and to the Azov region. Under superior forces of Denikin's troops in the center of Donbass, the Red Army was forced to retreat to Bakhmut. Denikin's troops captured Krinichnaya station, Khatsapetovka, Debaltsevo.

In the Azov region, Denikin’s troops broke through the front, taking advantage of the retreat of N. Makhno’s troops. Acting during this period together with the Red Army, N. Makhno captured Mariupol on April 1, 1919. Despite the difficult situation of the Makhnovists, they held the line of defense for almost three weeks, and at the first opportunity they launched a counter-offensive. At the same time, receiving almost no support from the Red Army.

The April battles and the lack of decisive and effective assistance from the Red Army dealt a crushing blow not only to the combat effectiveness of the Makhnovist brigade, but also significantly undermined its previously low discipline and moral and political sentiments. For several months the brigade was practically self-sufficient, obtaining food and ammunition on its own, which inevitably led to aggravation of relations with local authorities of the Soviet government. Having captured Mariupol, Makhno announced that 2 million pounds of coal intended for the Baltic Fleet and Petrograd would be given in exchange for the equipment the brigade needed. In the same Mariupol, he captured 15 million pounds of coal, which the French loaded onto their ships. After negotiations, he was given weapons as payment for coal. Of course, in such conditions, discipline fell and the combat effectiveness of the Makhnovists decreased. At the end of the second ten days of April, the brigade's forces were completely exhausted, and it was forced to retreat.

In the following months, the relationship between N. Makhno and the Soviet government worsened significantly. In June 1919, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front ordered his arrest and trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal. However, N. Makhno with a small detachment went beyond the Dnieper.

By the end of May 1919, the situation in the Donetsk sector of the Southern Front worsened. After intense fighting, the Bolshevik troops were forced to retreat. By the beginning of June 1919, Denikin’s troops captured Donbass.

In the occupied territory, Denikin's followers established a military dictatorship. Denikin set the goal of fully using the production capacity of Donbass. On May 21, 1919, a “special meeting” adopted a resolution to organize the Donetsk Basin Committee “to assist the armed forces in southern Russia and to restore the economic life of the front.” At the enterprises, Denikin’s men introduced the old, pre-revolutionary management and turned to foreigners with a request to help restore industry. But two months after the Denikinites entered the basin, the economic life of Donbass froze. The metallurgical and metalworking plants of Druzhkovka, Kramatorsk, and Lugansk stopped. The Yuzovka, Slavyansk, Debaltsevo, and Yenakievo factories did not produce products: there was no labor force. Coal mines stopped. Railway transport came into complete decline. In the second half of 1919, miners in southern Russia began to sell off their enterprises piece by piece. Copper, tin, zinc, brass, and babbitt were removed from the Lugansk locomotive and cartridge factories. The Makeevka plant ceased operation, the Makeevka mines fell into complete disrepair due to the theft of equipment. Many Donbass enterprises find themselves in a difficult economic situation.

Denikin's government tried to rectify the situation. To revive the mines, industrialists were given loans. But this measure did not bring the expected results. Average monthly coal production decreased from 625 to 291 pounds, and in anthracite mines - from 467 to 287 pounds per worker.

By the beginning of October 1919, the situation on the Southern Front was difficult. The Red Army, advancing, forced Denikin's troops to roll back to the south. In December 1919, battles for Donbass began. The Soviet command decided to immediately take possession of this region. On December 24, 1919, Lugansk was occupied, on December 25 - Slavyansk, and on December 27 - Kramatorsk, Bakhmut and Popasnaya, three days later - Gorlovka, and on January 4 - Mariupol.

On occupied territory Soviet power was restored in the form of emergency bodies - military revolutionary committees. On December 29, 1919, the Revolutionary Committee of Donbass was created, local revolutionary committees were formed. They assumed full power and ensured order. The nationalization of industry began at a rapid pace. Moreover, nationalization covered all industries and by its nature was another “Red Guard attack”, an idealistic attempt to create a “fair” economy, independent of market relations devoid of capitalist exploitation. Practice has shown that nationalization did not eliminate the alienation of workers from the means of production, but eliminated the master-owner. And the new owner, represented by a government agency, had no material interest and was unable to engage in specific production on a daily basis. Therefore, there was an objective need to develop various criteria, standards, plans, reports and other indicators with the help of which it would be possible to somehow evaluate enterprises. Which in turn required a large army of accountants and controllers. A branched administrative apparatus began to form over the nationalized enterprises in the form of central administrations, centers, trusts and bushes. In Ukraine, the Bureau for Industrial Reconstruction (Industrial Bureau) was created. By the end of 1920, it already had 45 branches, directorates, headquarters and centers, which were in charge of 10,720 different enterprises.

In the Donbass, given the importance of the economic potential of this region, the new government by the beginning of 1920 industrial enterprises nationalized and transferred to the management of the Supreme Economic Council of the Russian Federation. To facilitate the extraction and shipment of goods from Donbass to Russia, the Ukrainian Labor Army was also created at the front with headquarters in Debaltsevo, the miners were transferred to a semi-military situation. These violent measures stabilized the operation of the mines to a certain extent. Already in March 1920, coal production doubled compared to January and reached 31 million poods per month.

However, at the beginning of the summer of 1920, a new threat arose for Soviet power in the Donbass. On June 6, 1920, Wrangel’s troops launched an offensive from Crimea, numbering more than 30 thousand soldiers and officers. They came close to Donbass.

At the same time, peasant resistance intensified. Suffering from exorbitant food appropriations and constant hostilities, the peasants increasingly showed dissatisfaction with the attempts at communist construction undertaken by the Soviet government in the Ukrainian countryside. Already in the spring of 1919, armed peasant detachments led by atamans appeared in the Donbass. Most often, such a formation controlled its area, actually exercising the functions of local authorities there. The detachments of Nazarov, Shapovalov, Terezov and other atamans were active on the territory of Donbass. There were many small detachments in Slavyansky, Bakhmutsky, Grishinsky, Lisichansky and other areas. According to rough estimates, there were more than 20 detachments, uniting up to 10 thousand people. Peasant detachments could not be accurately counted: many of them sometimes grew to significant sizes, and then quickly disintegrated. Some of them were in villages and were of a local nature, but at any moment they could represent a real force. They attacked executive committees and police, destroyed documents, and killed rural activists. Wrangel tried to use these units to fight against Soviet power.

The fight against peasant resistance in the Donetsk province took place very quickly. In the summer of 1920, the Red Army brutally dealt with a number of large peasant detachments, but many small ones remained, the fight against which continued in the following months.

In the summer of 1920, Wrangel began intensively preparing an attack on the Donbass. The goal was set: having occupied the coal and metallurgical base, transfer the fighting to right-bank Ukraine.

On September 14, the 1st Army of General Kutepov went on the offensive. The Don Corps delivered the main blow in the Donbass direction, with the goal of capturing the Volnovakha station and breaking through to the Donbass. On September 27, Wrangel's troops took Volnovakha.

To fight Wrangel, the Bolshevik government of Russia created the Southern Front back in August 1920, whose troops launched a counteroffensive on October 1. On October 5, Soviet troops occupied Volnovakha and Mariupol. Soviet power was again restored in Donbass.

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Donbass, which is experiencing war today, is not the first time it has become the target of invaders. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the capture of Donbass was among the priority tasks assigned to the Wehrmacht.

This desire of the Nazis was explained by the highest industrial potential of the area. The city of Stalino, as Donetsk was then called, was one of the largest industrial centers of the Soviet Union, providing 7% of all-Union coal production, 5% of steel production and 11% of coke production.

By the beginning of 1941, there were more than 220 enterprises of union and republican subordination in Stalino.

In the early autumn of 1941, fierce battles broke out for Donbass. Despite desperate resistance Soviet troops, On October 20, 1941, German and Italian troops entered Stalino. The occupation of Donbass began, stretching for a long 700 days.

First renaming, then killing

One of the first decisions of the invaders was to rename streets and squares in order to completely erase memories of the “Bolshevik regime” from the memory of local residents. The city itself was returned to its former name Yuzovka, Lagutenko Avenue became Bazarnaya Street, Truda Avenue - Muzeynaya Street, Fallen Communards Avenue - Nikolaevskaya Street, Tchaikovsky Avenue - Sadovaya Street, Dzerzhinsky Avenue - Pozharnaya Street, and so on.

The Nazis established a tough regime, trying to ensure the speedy restoration and use of local industry.

During the occupation of Donbass, Soviet underground fighters and partisan detachments were active here. In response, the Nazis carried out punitive actions and mass executions. The pit of mine No. 4/4-bis in Stalino turned into a huge mass grave. During the occupation, from 75 to 100 thousand people were dumped there. Some were thrown into the mine after execution, others alive. Of all the victims, no more than 150 people were identified.

Hold on at all costs

Despite the most severe repressions, the Nazis failed to conquer the inhabitants of Donbass - resistance continued throughout the occupation.

The eastern part of Donbass was liberated by Soviet troops in February 1943, immediately after the victory at Stalingrad. However, it was not possible to build on the success due to the lack of reserves for a further offensive, as well as due to the stubborn resistance of the fascists.

In the summer of 1943, at a meeting with the Wehrmacht generals, Hitler gave vital importance holding Donbass.

The defeat of the Germans on the Kursk Bulge and the successful offensive of Soviet troops in the Belgorod-Kharkov direction created the conditions for the expulsion of the invaders from Donbass.

The task was entrusted to the Soviet group of troops, numbering more than a million soldiers and officers, 21,000 guns, 1,257 tanks and 1,400 aircraft. The Nazis could oppose the attackers with about 540 thousand soldiers and officers, 5,400 guns, 900 tanks and 1,100 aircraft.

The southern front is making a breakthrough

The Donbass operation of Soviet troops began on August 13, 1943 with the offensive of the right wing of the Southwestern Front. These units, having crossed the Seversky Donets River, assisted the Steppe Front in the liberation of Kharkov.

The offensive in the center of the Southwestern Front, which began on August 16, was stopped by the Germans almost immediately - Soviet troops were unable to overcome the line of powerful enemy fortifications on the Mius River, the so-called “Mius Front”.

However, the blow of the Southwestern Front General Rodion Malinovsky forced the Nazis to use a significant part of their reserves to repel it.

On August 18, taking advantage of the situation, the troops of the Southern Front under the command of General Fyodor Tolbukhin. Parry this blow German group Army "South", commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, I couldn’t anymore. On the very first day of the offensive, Soviet troops broke through the Nazi defenses to a depth of 8-9 kilometers.

By the end of August 20, the breakthrough of the troops of the Southern Front was already up to 24 kilometers deep and up to 16 kilometers wide.

Battle for Saur-Mogila

Fulfilling Berlin's directive to hold Donbass at all costs, Manstein gave the order to launch a series of counterattacks, thanks to which the Red Army's advance was slowed down. But on the night of August 24, Soviet units occupied the road to Taganrog, depriving the enemy of the opportunity to maneuver reserves.

On August 28, the assault on Saur-Mogila, a peak of strategic importance in the Donbass, began. The battle for Saur-Mogila lasted three days and was especially fierce. On the morning of August 31, fighters of the 96th Guards Rifle Division finally threw the enemy off the top, starting to pursue the retreating Nazis.

On August 30, Soviet troops, with the support of a naval landing, liberated Taganrog, encircling and defeating the 29th German Corps in the area of ​​the city.

On September 5, 1943, units of the Southern Front entered Artyomovsk. Manstein reported to Berlin that continuing to hold Donbass was fraught with the complete defeat of Army Group South. Hitler was forced to give the green light to the withdrawal of troops beyond the Dnieper.

Manstein's revelations

As Mantshein wrote in his memoirs, the retreat from Donbass was “the most difficult operation” of 1943-1944. The Germans did not have time to remove ammunition, property and even the wounded. The evacuation was extremely complicated by the attacks of the Red Army.

What the Germans could not take with them, they destroyed using “scorched earth” tactics. “In a zone of 20-30 km in front of the Dnieper, everything that could help the enemy immediately continue his offensive on a wide front on the other side of the river was destroyed, destroyed or taken to the rear, that is, everything that could be a shelter or quartering place for him, and everything that could ensure his supply, especially the food supply of his troops,” wrote Manstein. Persons of military age who were under occupation were driven away by the Nazis to Germany.

On September 7, 1943, battles broke out for the capital of Donbass, the city of Stalino. On the morning of September 8, units of the 50th Infantry Division burst into the city from Rutchenkovo Colonel Vladychansky. Soldiers of the 301st and 230th rifle divisions and partisans also took part in the liberation of the city.

By the end of the first half of the day, Stalino was completely under the control of Soviet troops. Subsequently, September 8 began to be celebrated as the Day of Liberation of Donbass.

Donbass cannot be broken

The troops who participated in the liberation of Donbass were thanked by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of September 8, 1943, and a salute was given in Moscow with 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns.

The Donbass operation ended on September 22, 1943 with the entry of Soviet troops to the line Novomoskovsk - eastern Zaporozhye - the Molochnaya River.

In the battles for the liberation of Donbass from the Nazis, more than 66 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were killed, more than 200 thousand were wounded. The exact losses of the Nazis are unknown.

For military skill, mass heroism, courage and bravery shown during the Donbass operation, over 40 formations and units of the Red Army were awarded the honorary names Artyomovsky, Gorlovsky, Slavic, Stalinsky.

At the time of the occupation by the Nazis, there were about 400 thousand people in Stalino; about 175 thousand waited for liberation. Soviet soldiers were greeted by the ruins of residential buildings and businesses, destroyed and half-flooded mines, many of which concealed the bodies of victims of Nazi terror.

But the Nazis failed to destroy Donbass. By the beginning of 1945, three quarters of the mines had resumed work and started working largest enterprises region.

The territory of the Stalin region, most of which was occupied in the fall of 1941 by units of the 17th field and 1st tank armies of the Wehrmacht, was part of the so-called “military control zone.” As it moved away from the front line, it consisted of a combat area, an operational rear area of ​​armies, and a rear area of ​​an army group. Management was carried out by field and local commandant's offices, subordinate to the commanders of divisions, corps, commanders of rear areas of armies and army groups. The boundaries of the areas of responsibility of the commandant's offices changed, the commandant's offices themselves were transferred as the location of units and formations changed, the front line moved away or approached. For example, in the summer of 1943, the territory of the former Stalin region was under the jurisdiction of the military command and control bodies of the 1st Tank and 6th Armies of the Wehrmacht.

To regulate public life and implement the orders and regulations of the occupation authorities, local government bodies were created - city, district, and village governments.

Of course, control by the German authorities over the population in the occupied territory would have been impossible without the widespread involvement of representatives of the local population in local governments, industrial and commercial enterprises, and in police forces. For most of them, cooperation with the enemy became a manifestation of a personal survival strategy and adaptation to the prevailing conditions. At the same time, part of the population began to cooperate with the enemy voluntarily and consciously, thus seeking revenge for the numerous insults inflicted by the Soviet regime.

It is significant that the backbone of local government bodies consisted primarily of former communists, as well as people who held responsible positions before the war. So, in particular, the chairman of the Yuzovka city government A. A. Eichmann, a member of the Communist Party (b)U, before the war worked as the chairman of a collective farm in the Zaporozhye region, and his sister was married to the secretary of the Kuibyshev district party committee.

Many began to cooperate with the occupiers, being in a state of deep mental crisis, disappointment caused by the failures of the Red Army, the actions of the authorities, who destroyed industrial enterprises, food supplies, and often left people face to face with their problems. One should not ignore such a factor as well-directed propaganda. Thus, many residents of Yuzovka were shocked by the corpses of more than two hundred prisoners discovered by the Germans in the prison yard, shot by the NKVD during the retreat.

Naturally, local government bodies operated under conditions of complete control and dependence on German administrative and police authorities. The structures of city and district governments were not completely identical, but most of them had departments of general administration, police, schools and cultural institutions, health, finance, trade, industry, veterinary and municipal services.

During the occupation, a number of settlements were renamed, and, according to German documents, a proposal to rename Stalino to Yuzovka was made by a group of local residents.

The main functions of police forces from among local residents included “preserving peace and order.” First of all, this involved a fight against criminal elements, which had appeared in large numbers at that moment. But the “pacification” of the occupied territory, the fight against the political opponents of the Third Reich, and all “unreliable elements” were carried out by purely German structures - primarily the Gestapo and the Sonderkommando. On the territory of Donbass, Sonderkommando 10a (part of Einsatzgruppe D), as well as Sonderkommando 4b and Einsatzkommando 6, which were part of Einsatzgruppe C, became notorious for the execution of the Jewish population.

Unlike the regions of Ukraine, which were part of zones with civil administration, on the territory of the Donetsk region, the field police and field gendarmerie teams, Abwehr commands located in the immediate or operational-tactical) subordination of army groups, armies, military administration bodies.

In order to ensure security in the rear of German troops and minimize a possible threat, the occupation authorities almost immediately carried out large-scale measures to identify and record party, Komsomol and economic assets. With the help of the local population, a significant number of activists were arrested, imprisoned in prisons and camps, or executed.

A tragedy on a European scale was the total extermination of the Jewish population. The first documented execution of Jews on the territory of Donbass took place in Mariupol on October 20–21, 1941, when Sonderkommando 10a shot more than 8 thousand Jews outside the city at the so-called Agrobaz.

Here are the memories of the miraculously surviving resident of Mariupol, Sarra Gleich:

It rained all night. The morning is gloomy, damp, but not cold.

The entire community left at 7 o'clock. morning, then cars with old people and women with children pulled out. You need to walk 9–10 kilometers, the road is terrible, judging by the way the Germans treat those who came to say goodbye and brought packages, the road does not bode well. The Germans beat everyone who comes with batons and drives them away from the regiment building for a block...

We were ordered to undress to our shirts, then they looked for money and documents and took them away, drove along the edge of the trench, but there was no edge, at a distance of half a kilometer the trenches were filled with corpses, dying from wounds and asking for another bullet, if one was not enough for death . We walked over the corpses.

In every gray-haired woman it seemed to me that I saw my mother. I rushed to the corpse, Vasya followed me, but the blows of the batons returned us to our place. Once it seemed to me that the old man with his brain exposed was Dad, but I couldn’t get closer. We started saying goodbye and managed to all kiss. Remember Dora. Fanya did not believe that this was the end. “Will I never see the sun and light again,” she said, her face blue-gray, and Vladya kept asking: “Are we going to swim?” Why did we undress? Let’s go home, mom, it’s not good here.” Fanya took him in her arms; it was difficult for him to walk on the slippery clay. Vasya did not stop wringing his hands and whispering: “Vladya, Vladya, why are you here?” “No one will even know what they did to us.” Fanya turned around and answered: “With him I die calmly, I know that I am not leaving an orphan.” These were last words Fani. I couldn’t stand it any longer, grabbed my head and started screaming with some kind of wild cry, it seems to me that Fanya still managed to turn around and say: “Hush, Sarah, hush,” and that’s where it all ended.

When I came to my senses, it was already twilight, the corpses lying on me were shuddering: the Germans, when leaving, were shooting just in case, so that the wounded would not be able to leave at night, as I understood from the conversation of the Germans. They feared that many were left unfinished. They were not mistaken - there were a lot of them. They were buried alive because no one could help them, and they screamed and begged for help. Somewhere under the corpses, children were crying, most of them, especially the babies, whom their mothers carried in their arms (and they shot us in the back), fell from the hands of the stricken mother unharmed and were covered and buried alive under the corpses.”

At the end of November 1941, Einsatzkommando 6 carried out the first executions of Jews in Yuzovka, during which 226 people were killed. In December 1941, more than 400 Jews were shot in Slavyansk, 240 in Konstantinovka, about 500 in Makeevka. One of the most large-scale crimes against the Jewish population was the extermination of Jews in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) in mid-January 1942. In accordance with the order of the commandant of the city of Zobel and the announcement of the mayor of Glavna, written under the dictation of SD officers, all Jews of the city were to report on January 9, 1942 to the premises of the former NKVD department by rail. After a three-day stay there without food or water, people were taken out of the basement of the premises and driven to the place of execution - the mine of the alabaster plant. As adit No. 46, chosen for the execution site, filled with people, they were shot standing or on their knees. According to emergency calculations State Commission, which worked after the liberation of the city, the number of victims was about 3 thousand people, although German data indicate the execution of 1224 Jews in Artemovsk.

The extermination of Jews in the region was carried out mainly by executions, although from March 1942, at least in Yuzovka, gas chambers began to be used for this purpose - specially equipped vans, the exhaust gases from which were diverted into a hermetically sealed body, where people doomed to death were located. The last action to exterminate the Jewish population in the region usually dates back to the fall of 1942.

In accordance with the data of the emergency commission to establish and investigate the crimes of the occupiers, more than 25 thousand Jews were exterminated in the region. At the same time, calculations made on the basis of German sources, mainly current reports of the Einsatzgruppen, Soviet materials, prisoners of war, allow us to talk about 15-16 thousand victims of genocide from among the civilian population, as well as at least 2 thousand exterminated Jewish prisoners of war.

Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge the fact that the identification and registration of Jews would have been impossible without the active assistance of local policemen who sought to curry favor with the occupiers, or residents who, for selfish reasons or out of a desire to avenge some pre-war events, As a rule, everyday conflicts betrayed the Jews.

At the same time, it should be noted that there were numerous cases of solidarity towards Jews and their rescue by local residents. In general, the genocide of the Jewish population in the Donetsk region became a real tragedy for the entire multinational population of the region.

In addition, executions of local residents suspected of certain crimes were constantly carried out. They became especially widespread in the summer of 1943, just before the arrival of Soviet troops. We will cite only some documents from the Soviet side.

Here, for example, is an act on atrocities in Donetsk:

“On September 7, 1943, at 10–11 pm, when units of the Red Army were approaching the city, a group of Germans approached the house demanding to leave the house, as they would now set it on fire. Residents were asked to hide in a barn located near the house...

People who lived in the professor's house and two adjacent houses went down to the basement, they were driven there by 4 people with rifles...

After the entire basement was filled with people, the military outside blocked the entrance so that no one could get out, and set the entrance doors on fire...”

And here is the act of executions in the city of Kramatorsk:

“In addition to the 6,000 victims of mass shootings, many hundreds of city citizens were killed in their apartments and on the streets. The parish priest Petrovka Vontshod testifies: “Such atrocities as the Nazis committed had never been heard of or seen in Russia. I know that in February 1943, a group of German soldiers led by officers murdered civilians, in particular old men and women, with impunity. One of the groups, walking along Slavyanskaya Street, called residents out of their apartments and immediately shot them point-blank...

In total, at least 50 people were killed in the village in this way over several days. The corpses of the dead were prohibited from being removed for 15 days. Only after this period did I have to bury them and perform a funeral service."

The above document ends with the following paragraph:

“All these murders and robbery... were aimed at the wholesale extermination of peaceful Soviet citizens of Kramatorsk through executions, the creation of intolerable living conditions, through the forcible abduction of girls and boys to hard labor in Germany. This is what this act is about.”

Another act, also drawn up in the city of Kramatorsk, described the procedure for shooting civilians. All testimonies were given by people who miraculously survived such “executions.”

The specifics of the partisan struggle in Donbass were as follows. All partisan detachments, when the enemy approached, retreated along with the troops of the Red Army and by the beginning of November, in one form or another, they were attached or became part of regular units. Thus, according to the political department of the Southern Front, 8 detachments (493 people) operated in the zone of the 18th Army, 14 (716 people) of the 12th Army, 8 (900 people) of the 6th Army, 14 of the 9th Army (495 people) - a total of 44 out of 167 detachments and 2604 people out of 4200 people of the original composition. Let us also note that in reality only detachments in the zone of the 12th, partly of the 6th Army, organized in the Artemovsky, Konstantinovsky, Yamsky districts and the city of Dzerzhinsk, could operate on the territory of the region.

In all other cases, the units conducted combat operations not behind enemy lines, which is what they were intended for, but on the front line, in cooperation with regular units of the Red Army. There were often cases when partisans were given tasks to participate in offensive battles on an equal basis with ordinary rifle units. Given the weak military training, the partisans were quite advanced in age, had weak weapons (rifles and a small number of machine guns), and the partisans had little chance of surviving in an open battle with German units. In this regard, the army command, as a rule, tried to use partisans as guides or to support combat activities in auxiliary sectors.

By February 1942, contacts were maintained from the “Mainland” with only 19 partisan detachments, all of which were located in unoccupied territory. The unsatisfactory state of the partisan movement was repeatedly considered by the regional and republican leadership at various meetings.

Characteristic, for example, is the resolution of the People's Commissar of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, Commissar of State Security 3rd Rank Sergienko, on the report (No. 169075 of 02/11/1942) of the head of the NKVD for the Stalin Region, State Security Captain Zachepa: “The partisan detachments of the Stalin Region look unimportant. Inactivity, cowardice, disintegration are characteristic features of an ugly attitude towards selection, organization and leadership. Apparently, the best part of the detachments was intercepted by the political departments. 02/14/1942". Although this description was given for the winter, it was not possible to correct the situation until the summer of 1942.

After the occupation of Donbass, the situation of the partisan detachments sharply worsened. In fact, they were surrounded by the Germans on a small island of forested area in the Krasnolimansky district, which ultimately led, as well as due to a number of objective and subjective circumstances (loss of communication with the leadership, lack of food, etc.) to the death of the partisans Artemovsky and others squads. The surviving partisans retreated with their troops to the east, although they were strictly prohibited from doing so by various instructions.

In order to illustrate the dry calculations, we present the history of the partisan movement in Gorlovka. With the beginning of the war, two partisan detachments were created here. One, named Gorlovsky, was commanded by the head of the local flying club D.E. Shevelev. It consisted mainly of fighters from the disbanded fighter battalion.

The second consisted of Nikitov and Krasnoliman railway workers, and state security captain Boris Semenovich Smolyanov was appointed its commander. Thanks to his recently discovered memoirs (written in 1975), it is possible to trace the combat path of a detachment of Nikitov railway workers.

The detachment was organized in the summer of 1941 on the basis of the NKVD transport department on the North Donetsk railway. Smolyanov wrote that he personally received instructions from his boss Arzamastsev to avoid combat contacts with the occupiers if possible and to carry out the main task - reconnaissance. In October, the group arrived at Krasny Liman station. Here Smolyanov met the then commander of the 34th Cavalry Division, A. A. Grechko. The main task of the detachment at that time was reconnaissance in the interests of the 6th Army.

During numerous raids, the main enemy defense center on this section of the front, located in the village of Mayaki, on the shore, was localized Seversky Donets. Therefore, the partisans were given the task of setting up ambushes in the near rear of the Germans. At dawn one October day, the detachment, having crossed the river, went deeper into the forest. Soon a German column appeared on the forest road. As a result of the rapid clash, the Germans only lost more than 50 people killed (as in the report, the real numbers may be lower). In addition, the capture group on the road captured two liaison officers and a soldier who were carrying documents that were very important for our command.

Such successful raid operations allowed the partisans to believe in themselves and begin planning even larger-scale actions. So, the command of the partisan detachment decided to attack the small German garrison in the village of Tatyanovka. In agreement with the army command (and the partisans clearly did not have enough of their own forces to strike), on November 5 it was decided to cross the Donets and strike. 20 fighters were assigned from the 34th Cavalry Division. The progress of the operation itself is vaguely indicated in Soviet sources, but there is evidence that about 70 Germans died as a result. In addition, Gorlovka local historian P.I. Zherebetsky indicates that eight partisans received orders and medals for this operation.

In the summer of 1942, after the 6th Army retreated to the east, a detachment of railway workers had to split into three groups. One of them was headed by the militarily experienced commissar F. T. Pokidko (he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the liquidation of the garrison in Tatyanovka), who before the war worked as a carriage inspector at the Nikitovka station. The approximate composition of the group is also known: in addition to him, it included the former duty officer at the Trudovaya station I. L. Vysotsky, the head of the personnel department of the locomotive depot of the Nikitovka station F. M. Gura (both received the Order of the Red Star for the “case” in Tatyanovka), a railway guard gunner F. N. Kulagin and train compiler T. M. Tsybenko.

The only “action” of the group was the undermining of the German echelon. Apparently, at this point the explosives and ammunition were exhausted and the group members decided to make their way to their native Nikitovka. However, on the outskirts of the village of Skelevaty, the railway workers were surrounded and pelted with grenades. Shrapnel killed Pokidko and Vysotsky. The wounded Kulagin and Guru were taken prisoner, and only Tsybenko managed to escape. Fyodor Kulagin died almost immediately, but 35-year-old Fyodor Guru was brought to hometown, where the barbaric interrogations began. According to available information, before the execution his eyes were gouged out and his tongue was torn out. His burial place is presumably located in the Batmanovka quarries.

In 1943, his dead comrades were reburied on the station square of Nikitovka station. In 1952, a monument was erected at this place, and on May 25, 1963, the remains of four more Red Army soldiers rested in the same grave. The group commander T. M. Tsybenko himself died in June 1978.

Considering the issue of the partisan movement in Donbass, it should be noted that during the combat activities of various formations, such an important element of partisan activity as mass sabotage on roads, especially railways, was almost completely missed. But at least two important railway lines pass through the territory of the region: Dnepropetrovsk - Krasnoarmeysk - Yasinovataya - Ilovaisk - Rostov-on-Don and Zaporozhye - Volnovakha - Ilovaisk - Rostov-on-Don. It was through them that the necessary supplies were transported for the German units operating in the southern direction. The Dnepropetrovsk branch was especially important, since a large bridge in Zaporozhye across the Dnieper was blown up, and the Germans had to reload cargo and pass through the Dnieper. Intelligence, both partisan and left in the rear, did not bring the desired results.

In this regard, it is appropriate to cite another interesting document:

“Owl. secret.

Information on the case of leaving two residents with walkie-talkies by the 4th department of the NKVD in the Stalin region in 1941.

In the twentieth of October 1941, the 4th department of the UNKVD, in connection with the withdrawal of units of the Red Army, created 2 residents with radio stations in the region and left them behind enemy lines. Due to the lack of communication with these residencies, an investigation was carried out at the end of 1941 and at the beginning of 1942, as a result of which it was established that:

a) the station was not provided with installation data for communication with the headquarters of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR.

b) the personnel of both residencies were not trained in encryption.

c) due to the fault of the former deputy head of the 4th department of the NKVD Shkurenko, the addresses of safe houses where the station was set up were lost.

Both through the 4th Department of the NKVD and through the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, measures were repeatedly taken to establish contact with these residencies. However, no positive results were achieved.

(Head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel (signature) 08/04/1943.")

By January - February 1942, it became clear to the leadership that the entire partisan-underground network in the Stalin region had failed. Subsequently, the situation did not change, and with the withdrawal of the Red Army troops further to the east, it even worsened.

And only after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad and with the entry of the Red Army into the region, a new rise of popular resistance began.

Already in May - July 1943, the headquarters of the partisan movement under the Military Council of the Southern Front sent 17 sabotage and reconnaissance groups consisting of 78 people to the rear. However, almost all groups were destroyed by the enemy immediately after landing. This was the case, for example, on May 30, when most of the 21 paratroopers (groups of M. Trifonov and V. Avdeev) died.

Characteristic feature The resistance movement in the summer of 1943 was that it was led by people who were not appointed by party structures, but nominated by life itself. It is not surprising that subsequently the merits of these leaders were not recognized by the party leadership for a long time.

This fact is also important: if in 1941-1942 fighters of partisan detachments, if captured on the battlefield and with weapons in their hands, could count on being treated as prisoners of war, then already in 1943, those who took up weapons, the Germans did not recognize them as combatants and applied the only measure - death penalty. This is the heroism and self-sacrifice of those who died, most of them remaining unknown.

In March 1943, following the denunciation of traitors, members of a youth organization in the village of Stepano-Krynka were shot; in June, the youth group “Mykola” was defeated in the village of Petropavlovka (Amvrosievsky district); in August, also on the denunciation of local residents, 13 men were shot - residents of the village of Alexandrinka, Volnovakha (Olginsky) district, who were waging an underground struggle against the fascists. In the city of Stalino, on September 3–4 (that is, just before the arrival of Soviet troops), underground workers were shot on the territory of a former brick factory. On June 24, 1943, the Nazis executed 37 members of the Komsomol youth underground in the cities of Krasnoarmeysk and Novoekonomicheskoye.

Such failures were not accidental; the occupiers had a very dense network of counterintelligence and punitive services: the Gestapo, SD, field security service, police - both German and Ukrainian, - an intelligence network of informants: foremen, Pentecostals, Sotskys, neighborhood commandants, elders streets and headmen, numerous secret informants. According to the most conservative estimates, in Stalin alone there were 15 police (district) stations, in each of which several dozen police officers served, mainly from local residents, who were the most dangerous enemies of the underground fighters, since they were well in control of the situation.

Unfortunately, the exact number of all the dead partisans and underground fighters in the region is still unknown. At the same time, there were cases of armed uprisings by local residents, mainly during the approach of Red Army troops. For example, in February 1943, when units of a mobile group broke through in the area of ​​the city of Dobropolye, they were joined by armed local residents who took an active part in the battles. In Krasnoarmeysk during the same period, 600 local volunteer residents fought shoulder to shoulder with the Kantemirovites. There were armed uprisings in other settlements: Krasnoarmeysk, Selidov, Slavyansk, Amvrosievka, Stalin. Basically, they took place at the time of the German retreat, thanks to which a large number of different objects were saved from destruction by teams of torch bearers.

However, in general, the damage caused by the partisan and underground movement to the occupiers is very modest... It is believed that from October 1941 to September 1943, partisan detachments carried out more than 600 operations and destroyed over 10 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, derailed 14 echelons, destroyed 7 steam locomotives and 26 railway cars, blew up 2 ammunition warehouses, 19 warehouses with various property, dismantled 131 km of railway lines, destroyed 23 German garrisons and 18 police stations. Considering that only 25–30 thousand German soldiers died in battles in the region from October 1941 to September 1943, the figure of 10 thousand people killed by partisans is clearly overestimated.

A generalized idea of ​​the losses of reconnaissance and sabotage groups can be drawn from the table on pp. 58–60.

The number of partisans killed in battles in the region is also quite modest: it can be assumed that no more than 200–300 people died in open armed clashes.

In the period from 1944 to 1980, some work was carried out to establish the names of the dead partisans and underground fighters. According to the rules of those years, it was extremely difficult to obtain the status of a participant in the partisan underground movement if the person’s name was not on the lists approved by party bodies (primarily district and city committees). In total, according to the regional archive, at the end of 1980 there were: in the city of Stalino - 226 people in 1941, 1942 - 224 people, 1943 - 305 underground participants, a total of 755 people. 179 people were awarded government awards.

Losses of reconnaissance and sabotage groups

Group commander	Area of ​​operation	Number of members	Died	Source
Alekseev P. S.	Konstantinovka, June 1943 - September 1943	23	14	GADO. D. 166. L. 22, 23
Avdokhin P. I.	Makeevka, February 1943 - September 1943	14	-	GADO. D. 254. L. 17, 18
Batula P. F.	Donetsk, Kuibyshevsky district, as part of the partisan detachment of A. A. Shvedov, November 1941 - September 1943	12	12	GADO. D. 5. L. 79, 80, 107. D. 2. L. 111, 112
Bizyukov A. S.	Donetsk, Kirovsky district, December 1941 - September 1943	8	2	GADO. D. 2. L. 104–108. D. 5. L. 79-107
Verbonol A. A.	Donetsk, Kirov district, as part of the partisan detachment of A. A. Shvedov, October 1941 - September 1943	28	7	GADO. D. 2. L. 102–104. D. 5. L. 82–84, 105, 106
Vlasov A. D.	Donetsk, Kirov district, March 1942 - September 1943, as part of the partisan detachment of A. A. Shvedov.	15	-	GADO. D. 5. L. 80–81. D. 2. L. 108–111
Gritsaenko M. A.	G. Konstantinovka, s. Alexandro-Shulgino, June 1941 - July 1943	12	10	GADO. D. 297. L. 4. D. 299. L. 11
Gida F. S., Gorbatkov F. V.	Krasnoarmeysk, October 1941 - September 1943	2	-	GADO. D. 5. L. 84, 106
Golovin I. G.	G. Makeevka, Khanzhonkovo ​​settlement, October 1941 - March 1943	5	5	GADO. D. 254. L. 11
Golovchenko A. M.	P. Novoaleksandrovka, Krasnoarmeysk, October 1941 - July 1942	8	8	GADO. D. 260. L. 13–14
Grishin, youth group	Avdeevka, December 1941	6	6	GADO. D. 299. L. 20
Danilevsky G.V., Deryabin I.V., Ivanov I.M.	Donetsk, Kirov district, October 1942 - May 1943	29	20	GADO. D. 325. L. 10, 11
Demin P.S.	City of Mariupol, reconnaissance group, February 1942 - September 1943	3	-	GADO. D. 140. L. 14, 15
Evdokimenko F. I.	Mariupol, shipyard, beginning 1942 - September 1943	7	-	GADO. D. 300. L. 8
“For the glory of the Motherland”, leader I. N. Zvyagintsev	G. Dobropolye, s. Nikonorovka	12	5	GADO. D. 299. L. 4, 5
Group Inyutin M. P. (conditional)	G. Makeevka, sh-you named after. Ordzhonikidze, “Chaikino”, October - November 1941	5	4	GADO. D. 325. L. 8
Kolodin P.I.	Donetsk and regions, December 1942 - September 1943	10	2	GADO. D. 64. L. 14, 15, 33–37
Kosminsky S. P.	Donetsk, Petrovsky district, October - November 1941	6	6	GADO. D. 299. L. 7
Ladonenko S. S.	Makeevka, September 1943	14	-	GADO. D. 254. L. 18, 19
Litvinenko A. T.	Selidovsky district, village. Kurakhovka (Zoryanoye), October 1942 - September 1943	26	1	GADO. D. 260. L. 29
Machkarin P. P.	Khartsyzsk, May 1942 - September 1943	14	-	GADO. D. 156. L. 13, 14
Polyatskovo I. K., Bildiy S. Ya.	Volnovakha district, village. Olginka, November - December 1941	24	24	GADO. D. 2. L. 117. D. 5. L. 75, 76, 104, 105. D. 166. L. 101, 102
Popov F. A.	Mariupol, Ilyich plant, October 1941 - September 1943	6	2	GADO. D. 166. L. 24
Romanchuk N. M.	Donetsk, Proletarsky district, July 1942 - September 1943	7	1	GADO. D. 254. L. 25–26
Syrman A. A.	Makeevka, May - September 1943	8	-	GADO. D. 254. L. 13
Skripnik S.K.	Alexandrovsky district, October - November 1941	4	1	GADO. D. 260. L. 19–20
Sotnikov A. S.	Gorlovka, November 1941 - September 1943	6	2	GADO. D. 260. L. 21
Sinchugov I. F.	G. Enakievo, Yunkom mine, November 1941 - September 1943	10	2	GADO. D. 140. L. 22, 23
Sibelev G. S.	Novoazovsk, October 1941 - September 1943	6	-	GADO. D. 166. L. 2. D. 62. L. 100, 101
Trifonov (Yugov) M. M.	Amvrosievsky district, June - October 1942	9	-	GADO. D. 328. L. 11
Tulupov N. T.	G. Enakievo, mine named after. K. Marx, November 1941–1943	6	6	GADO. D. 140. L. 22, 23
Trifonov (Yugov) M.M.	Maryinsky district, reconnaissance group SF, 05/31/1943	13	13	GADO. D. 2. L. 119–125
Kholonevets F. N.	Makeevka, November 1941 - September 1943	13	6	GADO. D. 325. L. 9, 10
Shtanko E. M.	Mariupol, Azovstal plant, October 1941 - July 1943	7	7	GADO. D. 166. L. 23
Shumko P. S.	Mariupol, intelligence officer, October 1941 - February 1943.	7	3	GADO. D. 5. L. 84, 106
Yakovlev N. A.	Khartsyzsk, Ilovaisk, October 1941 - May 1942	23	6	GADO. D. 156. L. 12. D. 199.L. 29
Yarovenko A. A.	Amvrosievsky district, village. Stepano-Krynka, November 1942 - March 1943	13	-	GADO. D. 156. L. 2–3

After the formation of the independent Ukrainian state, starting in 1994, the rules for recognizing a person as a participant in the partisan underground movement were relaxed. For example, they began to be recognized as such not only according to documents from the party archive, but also according to the testimony of witnesses (at least two people). Even indirect evidence was taken into account (that is, the witnesses did not personally participate in joint actions with them, but heard about it from the stories of others). This was reflected in the statistics of participants in the resistance movement; their number began to increase. According to some reports, the number of participants exceeded a thousand people, which is not confirmed by any archival documents.

It is also worth talking about such a little-known topic in Soviet times, but which has become popular in the last few years, as the actions of OUN detachments in the Donbass.

During the years of independence, articles appeared in various Ukrainian publications (primarily of a nationalist bent) talking about “the numerous extensive network of OUN organizations in the Donbass,” “joint Soviet-OUN partisan detachments on the territory of the Stalin region,” “about the struggle of the OUN in the Donbass until 1958.” of the year".

However, upon closer examination, the reality is this: only representatives of the so-called “OUN marching groups” actually acted on the territory of Donbass. Let us cite just a few pieces of evidence: for example, from the annotation of the interrogation protocol of OUN member Shimon Evstakhovich Turchanovich dated October 21, 1944:

“At the beginning of 1941, the Central Line began creating the so-called “OUN marching groups,” which were supposed to begin their activities after the German attack on the USSR and the advance of German troops deep into Soviet territory.

The marching groups were given the following tasks: to take control of everything leadership positions in local self-government bodies in German-occupied Ukraine, as well as in the Don and Krasnodar Territories, or put at the head of them specially selected persons who were hostile to Soviet power; create powerful OUN organizations in the designated territory; conduct active anti-Soviet nationalist agitation among the population. Semchishin himself arrived in Dnepropetrovsk."

From the annotation of the interrogation protocol of OUN member Methodius Pavlyshyn dated October 27, 1944: “According to Pavlyshyn, from October 1941, for two months he was a referent for work with youth of the Krivoy Rog district branch of the OUN and at the same time worked as the head of the historical archive at the local government. In January 1942, he and Semchishin were arrested by the Germans and first kept in prison in Krivoy Rog for three months, and then in Dnepropetrovsk for seven months. In October 1942, they escaped from custody and established contact with the Southern Regional Line of the OUN, which was created at that time in Dnepropetrovsk.”

From the testimony of another active member of the OUN in Donbass, Andrey Iria-Avramenko:

“After Mariupol was occupied by the Germans, active Ukrainian nationalist figures - emigrants, especially Galicians, arrived with them, who, as a rule, worked as translators in the German army. They began to establish connections with old nationalist cadres and Ukrainians who lived in Mariupol, treating them in a nationalist spirit. So, in one of the military units there was a translator, Ivan Dubas, 23 years old, an active nationalist, who was closely connected with the head of the printing house, Yakov Zhezhera, the latter introduced me to Dubas in March 1942.”

Ukrainian nationalists very successfully joined the ranks of the occupation administration and, not out of fear, but out of conscience, began to put their policies into practice. Here, for example, is how the eradication of the Russian language was carried out: “Also in the Donetsk region in 1942, with the assistance of the OUN members, seven orders were issued on the introduction of the Ukrainian language as the official language in six regions. We know of a similar order at the end of 1942 regarding the introduction of the Ukrainian language throughout the Lugansk region.”

Thus, in the village of Novotroitskoye, five OUN members took leadership positions and handed over Komsomol and Communists to the Gestapo, and also helped organize the sending of people to work in Germany and the mobilization of the local population into the German army. During their “leadership” they confiscated and handed over to the Germans 114 tons of bread, 226 horses, 1279 cows, about 1200 sheep, 640 pigs and a lot of poultry. In addition, they sent 60 people to work in Germany and mobilized 240 people into the so-called volunteer army.

Ukrainian nationalists were also able to seize a leading position in the media. Thus, almost all newspapers published in the Donbass during the occupation were under the ideological influence of nationalists.

At the same time, Ukrainian nationalists quite willingly joined the ranks of the occupying forces. Here are the biographies of several collaborators, materials about which can be found in the regional archive:

“Toroneskul Petr Vasilievich, worked as a teacher in Gorlovka, Ukrainian nationalist. With the arrival of the German occupiers, he voluntarily enlisted in the SD, recruited agents through which he identified hiding communists, partisans and Soviet citizens carrying out work against the German authorities. He was also closely associated with the Ukrainian nationalist organization. The investigation file against him was sent to the UNKGB."

“Gulyaev Sergey Andreevich, voluntarily joined the police, and then volunteered for the Ukrainian detachment and for good work was nominated as a police platoon commander. While working in the police, Gulyaev was involved in arrests and beatings of Soviet citizens. In June 1942, he was sent for training and transfer to the rear of the Red Army to carry out the assignment of the German command. The investigation has been completed and transferred to the KGB."

In general, as the well-known researcher of this issue, Donetsk historian V. Nikolsky, writes: “As evidenced by the data we established, the number of OUN members in the Donbass was very, very insignificant. Of the 27,532 OUN members arrested in the Ukrainian SSR, 150 people were in the two regions of Donbass, that is, 0.5%. Of course, such a number could not somehow really influence the anti-fascist struggle, especially since the OUN members of the armed struggle against German fascists and their Hungarian, Romanian and Italian allies were practically not fought."

Notes:

TsAMO (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense). F. 151. Op. 14104. D. 17. P. 324.

History of the Second World War. 1939–1945 M., 1975. T. IV. pp. 116–117.

The Einsatzgruppen (operational punitive squads) were special units of the SS and police. The Einsatzgruppen was controlled by officers of the Security Police (Sipo) and the Security Service (SD). Their tasks, among other things, included the murder of racial and political enemies of the Reich found behind the front lines in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union.

The list of persons subject to extermination included Jews, Gypsies, as well as Soviet government and party workers. Many historians believe that the methodical extermination of Jews in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen and battalions of the German order police (Ordnungspolizei) was the first step towards the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” - the Nazi program of killing all European Jews.,

During the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen followed the German army as it advanced deeper into Soviet territory. The Einsatzgruppen carried out mass destruction operations, usually relying on the help of local collaborators. In contrast to the practice of deporting Jews from cities or ghettos to death camps, the Einsatzgruppen came directly to Jewish communities and carried out massacres there.

Nikolsky V. M. The OUN (b) sub-pill in Donbass. K., Institute of History of Ukraine NASU, 2001. P. 39.

Shchur Yu. The underground-revolutionary stage of the OUN activity in the Naddnipryan region (1942–1943 pp.). C. 61.

GADO. F. R-1838. Op. 1. D. 43. L. 21a vol.

Nikolsky V. Decree. op. pp. 132–133.

The US President promises to ease sanctions policy if Putin changes his behavior in Donbass. However, the US Senate sees no change. “Russia continues its occupation of Donbass,” says Senator Menendez. What could make him give in? Discussed by military analyst Yuri Butusov (Ukraine), political analyst Andrei Korobkov (USA), journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk (Ukraine), sociologist Igor Eidman (Germany), political scientist Sergei Markov (Russian Federation).

Elena Rykovtseva: Exactly at these minutes, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American Senate decides what to do next with Russia, lists what sanctions have already been applied, what the effect of these sanctions is. It is serious economically, destructive, these senators believe. But at the same time it is said that Russia continues its policy, the annexation of Crimea continues, the occupation of Donbass continues. They don’t really understand what to do about it, and there is a discussion going on now. At the same time, we will also be discussing in our studio what to do with all this. "How to force Putin to peace?" - this is exactly the title of an article by Yuri Butusov, a Ukrainian military analyst. Roman Tsymbalyuk, a Ukrainian journalist, is with us. Donald Trump promises to soften the sanctions regime if Putin agrees to some progress on the Donbass issue. Political scientist Sergei Markov will be with us on Skype; I think he will not be offended if I call him the mouthpiece of the Kremlin, who will explain what Putin wants to do in Donbass and what he can do to ensure that peace reigns there. I propose to start immediately with the abstract of Yuri’s article. Do I understand correctly that you do not believe in any peaceful solution, that only by military means can Ukraine regain these territories?

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Yuri Butusov: I believe that the solution must be combined - it must be a political decision, it must be a military decision. These are two parallel paths that must be followed. If diplomacy is not backed up by forceful instruments, negotiations with Putin will not be effective.

Elena Rykovtseva: All the diplomatic methods that were used, these negotiations, these threats, these attempts at sanctions pressure, did any of this bring any effect over these four years?

Yuri Butusov: Of course, diplomacy has done a lot. Thanks to diplomacy, the war in Donbass has been transferred into a diplomatic channel. Let me remind you that before the Minsk agreements, the situation in Donbass was outside of any international legal regulation; it was exclusively a Ukrainian problem, in which the West did not interfere in any way and did not take any responsibility. It was only after the events in Ilovaisk, the heroic self-sacrifice of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who died in battle with the regular Russian army, that the West took responsibility and intervened in the situation in Ukraine. This led to a significant reduction in the escalation of hostilities, but, nevertheless, did not stop the war completely. In my opinion, exclusively diplomatic appeals cannot completely stop it.

Elena Rykovtseva: We are talking, of course, about stopping the war completely, which can help and contribute to this. I will read several theses from Yuri’s article, in which he says that there is no need to be afraid of these words “military solution to the conflict.” He lists three stereotypes that exist in the mind: “A military solution is considered to be a full-scale offensive operation to the border with large losses in personnel. Second: Russia will definitely intervene and invade other regions of Ukraine. Third: in the event of a full-scale military operation of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass, Russia will use all types of weapons against Ukraine, including aviation and operational-tactical missiles, and will bomb cities. These hypotheses are risk factors that Ukrainian society and the state are aware of. But are these hypotheses the only possible scenarios? No." Yuriy Butusov believes that there is a high probability that Russia will not use such a full-scale military intervention if the Ukrainian army intensifies its military operation.

Roman Tsymbalyuk: The sanctions really had a great impact in sobering up the minds of the Kremlin residents. No matter what anyone says, on the one hand, we, Ukrainians, of course, believe that we should have been several times tougher. However, it is not difficult to analyze the negotiations that took place in 2014 with Vladimir Putin. As far as I understand, the attack on a number of Ukrainian cities in the summer of 2014 was stopped after the collective West actually put forward an ultimatum, including the shutdown of SWIFT, the oil embargo, and so on. After that the question stopped. As for now, when Putin turned Donbass, this territory into a zone of the Russian dead world, because they plundered and destroyed all the “Russian liberators” there, the only way for a man is to take a machine gun and go to fight against Ukraine, for this he is paid from the budget RF 15 thousand rubles, as a result, Russian citizens are increasing their retirement age. In this situation, when the President of Russia is positioned as God or half-God, it is clear that Russia does not need Donbass as such in this state - it is purely a tool for bargaining; it is not clear what he will do. I would proceed from the fact that there may be different developments. Let me remind you that not so long ago, Vladimir Putin, when communicating with the Russian people, threatened to deprive Ukraine of its independence and statehood in general if it attempted to liberate the occupied territories. Therefore, everything is actually simple here: if you want peace, prepare for war. Russian federal channels giggled a lot about the fact that we had an incident: a Buk launcher, the pilot mixed something up, and it drove into a business center. You can laugh for a long time, but I think Russian Ivan, who will potentially board a Russian combat aircraft, looks at this situation a little differently. There is only one condition that needs to be created, that further advance of the Russian military in any form will lead to an inevitable result, that sooner or later something will be written about them" New Newspaper"that these people died in Ukraine.

Elena Rykovtseva: This is approximately what Yuri Butusov is talking about. I will quote one more phrase from his publication: “The superiority of the Ukrainian army means inflicting unacceptable losses on the Russian occupation army using the types of weapons permitted by the Minsk agreements. Unacceptable losses means that Russian local mercenaries who go only for a salary to serve in the Donbass will increasingly refusing to enter into contracts due to high risk."

Roman Tsymbalyuk: In fact, if we are talking about a Russian group that was formed directly in the occupied part, it is clear that the slightest direct clash - these guys will very quickly rush to Rostov and other directions.

Elena Rykovtseva: Actually, there have already been a lot of clashes, but they are not really rushing to Rostov.

Roman Tsymbalyuk: If the Ukrainian army launches a full-scale offensive, then these units deployed there have no chance. In order to counterbalance the Ukrainian group deployed there, they deployed at least two divisions.

Elena Rykovtseva: Sergey, you heard yesterday a statement by Donald Trump, who says that if Vladimir Putin changes his policy towards Syria and Ukraine, then a softening of the sanctions policy is possible. What do they want to achieve from Vladimir Putin? What can he do, what concessions are being sought from him in relation to Donbass?

Sergey Markov: I would share Donald Trump and the so-called deep state. Donald Trump does not control Ukraine, he is not involved in it. Control over Ukraine is exercised by the deep state, more specifically by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the intelligence agency of the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, and the Department of Justice. In general, this headquarters is located in the office of the US Vice President, who oversees the intelligence services, in this case, according to his official powers, he is the chief protector of Ukraine. They have completely different positions. Donald Trump wants to get some concessions from Vladimir Putin in order to take some steps to improve relations, as most Americans demand: according to opinion polls, they want America with the great nuclear power Russia to have more or less normal, not a bad relationship. The deep state wants something completely different, it wants Vladimir Putin to somehow take the path of surrendering Donbass. Ultimately, for the capture of Donbass to take place in a harsh form, approximately the same as in which the forceful suppression of Odessa and Kharkov took place, when hundreds of people were killed, even more harsh and demonstrative. In the wake of this harsh, demonstrative suppression of all pro-Russian forces, in the Donbass the Russian people in the Donbass experienced a sharp drop in the rating of Vladimir Putin, and then, purely technically, they were burned and replaced with a puppet government. This is what the plan is from the Donbass point of view.

Elena Rykovtseva: I didn’t understand anything at all, what kind of forceful suppression in Odessa and Kharkov, what killings of people? What is the takeover of Donbass? By whom? You said that Donald Trump wants some relaxations, Vladimir Putin’s deviations from his line that he is pursuing there, and the other wing wants... who should capture and suppress whom?

Sergey Markov: The US deep state, primarily the American intelligence services, want Putin to take the path of surrendering Donbass, then they will forcefully cleanse it, expel everyone or destroy those remaining who are for Russia, who rebelled against the Bandera junta. Against this background, there will be an absolute collapse in Vladimir Putin’s support rating within Russia, then it will be quite easy to organize the removal of this already unpopular Russian president from power.

Elena Rykovtseva: When you say they want him to surrender Donbass, what does surrendering Donbass mean in your understanding? What actions must Vladimir Putin take to surrender Donbass?

Sergey Markov: The surrender of Donbass is the creation of conditions under which the Bandera junta could carry out its subsequent forceful cleansing. For example, Kurt Volker proposed the option that the DPR and LPR, the government and their army, are dissolved, instead a peacekeeping corps of 60 thousand people enters, a civil administration, they replace the government, they rule Donbass for some time. Representatives of the Kyiv junta are gradually infiltrating, after which they do not hide their desire to repeat the Croatian scenario: storm and stress, UN troops part ways, none of them, of course, will fight. After this, a capture and complete forceful clearing occurs. This is what the surrender of Donbass is. Putin, of course, will not agree to these conditions. In this regard, the Americans threatened some kind of war on the eve of the World Cup. But the war did not happen.

Elena Rykovtseva: If this is demanded of him, it means he can agree to these conditions, he can replace the government of the LPR and DPR with peacekeepers, does that mean it’s all within his power?

Sergey Markov: Of course, this is not actually hidden. In the DPR and LPR, the army is organized with the help of Russia. Just as the Ukrainian army became more combat-ready in terms of weapons, Banderization took place with the help of American and other NATO advisers. There is a proxy war going on there; Russia and the United States are fighting in the Donbass at the hands of their clients. From the US point of view, the clients are the Bandera junta; from the Russian point of view, the clients are the administrations of the DPR and LPR.

Elena Rykovtseva: You say that Vladimir Putin will not agree to this, he can, he controls these administrations, he can replace them with peacekeepers, he does whatever he wants there, he is the master in this situation. What can he do, what actions can he decide to take in order to ease international tensions and mitigate sanctions?

Sergey Markov: Nothing will be done, believe me. Not a single Russian leadership will agree that, in fact, over the Russian people of Ukraine - Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that we are one people, not fraternal peoples, we are one people - that a forceful dictatorship of Russophobic power has been established over the Russian people of Ukraine, which makes Ukrainian Russians anti-Russian. Not a single coherent government will agree to the existence of a Russophobic junta. Everything will be done to ensure that this junta is eliminated, so that power in Ukraine is returned to the people of Ukraine. And we know very well the position of the people of Ukraine if freedom and democracy are returned to Ukraine. This position is extremely clear - maximum friendship with Russia right up to reunification. Naturally, in the style of the 21st century, the name Ukraine will remain, the anthem, coat of arms, parliament, and president will remain.

Elena Rykovtseva: Thank you for your kindness in leaving Ukraine’s coat of arms and anthem. This is a completely complete, complete concept that Vladimir Putin can do everything there, he can meet the West halfway, install peacekeepers, etc., but he will not do this, because his task is to sweep away the anti-people regime that has established itself in Ukraine and recreate friendly family of peoples. Everything was said in absolutely clear open text. Do you believe that it will be exactly this way and not otherwise, that he will not move an inch from his position until he solves the problem of establishing in Ukraine the regime that he considers correct?

Yuri Butusov: Of course, this is why Putin started the war, in order to install in Ukraine the power that he considers necessary. All Putin’s actions are just fantasies and stupidity. One of the symbols of the Russian failed policy, the gangster Russian policy, is Sergei Markov himself, a man who was a symbol of Russian imperialism for many years and voiced its slogans. We see that Russian imperial policy in Ukraine has failed in all the years that such propagandists have been talking. In general, the pro-Russian movements in Ukraine that existed before have disappeared; Russian politics in Ukraine. Russia is leaving Ukraine, the remnants of its influence are leaving, and only half-finished occupation corps remain in a small part of the territory of Donbass. It is a matter of time before Ukraine responds enough to throw out all foreign occupiers and aggressors from its land.

Elena Rykovtseva: This thesis, which is actively being introduced into the brains of the population of the Russian Federation, was just repeated by Sergei: what is Donbass, what is the war in Donbass - this, on the one hand, is the US army, whose puppets are Ukrainian troops, and on the other hand, this is Russia, which fights in the guise of the so-called "militia", the armies of the DPR and LPR. Is this without comment or do we need to explain to people how things really stand in this territory?

Yuri Butusov: For many years, Russian propaganda has been talking about this, that they want to explain why they have to kill Ukrainians, about whom they say that they are a fraternal people. We just want a good, fair government in Kyiv, but at the same time, excuse me, we are killing Ukrainians, thousands of people. How to explain this, it’s illogical: if Ukrainians go to defend their own power, why are you killing them and want some kind of justice of your own? It looks absurd. That’s why Russian propaganda came up with the thesis five years ago that we are not fighting the Ukrainians – it’s all America that is fighting. It turns out that America is fighting according to the words of the Kremlin, such propagandists as Markov, and only Ukrainians are dying in the war on our side, and soldiers are also dying on the Russian side regular army, to whom Putin then awards orders and even Hero of Russia for killing Ukrainians. That is, for some reason some mythical Americans do not suffer here, but for some reason, for five years, while at war with America, Russia has been killing Ukrainians, and then propagandists on TV are telling the Russians that, you know, it’s all the USA. Such a cheap design. I am calm about the fact that Russian propaganda has many such fakes that have been thrown into the Internet space. More will pass several years, and even in Russia, for the most downtrodden person, traumatized by Russian television, it will become clear that all these fakes about the war with America in Ukraine, justifying the murders of Ukrainians by Russians are lies, nonsense. Then there will be a movement in Russian domestic politics, as there was in Afghanistan.

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