Today is the anniversary of the Ilovaysk tragedy. Exactly four years ago, the Russian army destroyed a column of Ukrainian defenders. Ilovaysk was a town, through which the weapons got to the occupied Donbas. Our troops occupied it in the early August, at the end of the month they were surrounded by militants and an army personnel of the aggressor state. Then Moscow promised to give our fighters a “green corridor”, which eventually turned out to be a cruel trap. Further – in reactions from DUMKA.
It seems that the anniversary of the Ilovaysk tragedy hasn’t been forgotten. A few words or a long post, a mournful photo or a repost of last year’s post – the entire feed of the social network is full of sorrow about the dead Ukrainian soldiers. Petro Poroshenko stressed that every life of our soldier taken by the war is a crime of the Russian aggressor, for which he will certainly be punished. This war is our common pain, which can’t be forgotten.
Alina Bodnar, an activist and founder of the “Heavenly Hundred” website, recalled how she and the other like-minded people went to the presidential administration in 2014 with the request to support our boys or remove them from Ilovaysk. Back then, at the end of the day, everybody dispersed: someone said that there would be reinforcements. They were lying. Today, Bodnar was standing at another action. Again she was standing and hearing that “heroes don’t die”, like a mantra. However, according to the activist, one thing has changed – the heroes have died.
Serviceman Myroslav Gay wrote his post immediately after the end of the action in front of the embassy of the “country of killers and terrorists”. The author is convinced: Putin and all his sycophants will burn in hell during their lifetime.
The first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Herashchenko, also wrote about the action, stressing that Putin, as well as all the Russian leadership, has to be held accountable for Ilovaysk, Lutugino, Debaltsevo and thousands of dead and wounded Ukrainians, dozens of ruined villages, killed children and civilians, for our military shot in supposedly “green corridors”.
It’s clear that this day, not every post will be filled with some minimal argumentation, because all the arguments have actually happened. The writer and journalist Ruslan Gorovyi only wished death to all those who involved in death of our soldiers.
The blogger Oleksandr Daniluk told that on the eve of shootings of the “green corridors” in Ilovaysk, he tried to explain that Putin would use every opportunity to destroy our soldiers. Unfortunately, back then the wrong decision was made and the offer of Russia was excepted. In the end, this was because of the same provocateurs who now shout louder than the others that the shooting of Ukrainian defenders was not a military crime committed by Russia, but a military miscalculation of Ukraine.
What Ilovaysk means for you? Olena Dobrovolska, a journalist and blogger, tried to answer this question. For her, Ilovaysk is the names of dear people who miraculously got out of hell, this is the stories that they don’t like to tell. Also, this is the evidence, proof, and reason why for the author of the post “citizens of the Mordor” don’t have human faces.
An expert on international humanitarian and criminal law, Anton Korynevych said that it is sad to read certain “expert” reports that don’t cover many issues concerning Ilovaysk and violations of international laws. The expert stresses: I would like to believe that the case files, transmitted to the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, contain the facts of a war crime and treacherous murder during the withdrawal from the “green corridor”.
MP Igor Lutsenko emphasized that the question whom to blame for the Ilovaysk tragedy remains open, since conducting a comprehensive investigation and determining the degree of guilt or innocence of the participants is a duty of authorities. At the end of the post, Lutsenko appealed to everyone with one question: are we really ready to keep silent for four years and not to bring the perpetrators to justice, because these guilty ones remain “the lesser evil”?
MP Oleg Lyashko also wrote about the problems with the investigation of the tragedy. According to him, in four years we have heard a lot of speculation, but the relatives of the dead still don’t know who and for what reason sent their sons to death. After all, many soldiers, according to MP, were missing for months, because the military leadership wanted to hide the scale of the tragedy.
Denys Malykhin, a journalist and head of the NGO “Union of Disabled People of the Russian-Ukrainian War”, admitted that Ilovaysk has a special significance for him. Today is one more anniversary of the tragedy, then we were very close to the goal. Malykhin promised that they will return here, as well as in Donbas and Crimea. Now they’re just reloading their guns.
Political expert Olexiy Minakov, instead, reminded that the “true” history of Ilovaysk, as well as “the whole truth” can’t exist. The best way to know the past events is to read the memoirs of their participants. Those who described the processes from the inside, who saw everything with their own eyes, who felt everything the hard way. Taking into account this, Minakov proposed to read the book. “Ilovaysk dairy” by a soldier Roman Zinenko. Perhaps it won’t be possible to find answers to questions about the reasons and guilty ones, but live information is sometimes more valuable than the official investigation.
Lawyer Yaroslav Moskalenko reminded that back then, in 2014, no matter how much they sent aid to the front, our warriors couldn’t stop, because they understood: with this help, one more life has been saved. Everything changed dramatically when the Russian army started its attack. The only way out was the retreat.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Viktor Muzhenko noted that the heroism of the soldiers and volunteers in Ilovaysk is thousands of individual stories of courage and patriotism, from which everyone should take a lesson.
MP Sergiy Rybalka reminded that, according to the military prosecutor’s office, 366 Ukrainian soldiers died at Ilovaysk, and more than 150 were declared as missing persons. However, people responsible for this tragedy haven’t been punished for the lost fate of our defenders.
The saddest thing is that today hardly a half of Ukrainians know about Ilovaisk tragedy. And among those who know, lion’s share of them don’t comprehend the depth of hell where our guys appeared due to the Russian occupiers.
Reactions were collected by Stepan the Goat
