KYIV, Ukraine — Former platoon commander Vitaly Yatsyk remains impressively calm when he remembers the day he says Russian tanks killed scores of his comrades outside a sleepy railway hub in eastern Ukraine.
The ambush was the deadliest of surprises: As far as the battered and encircled Ukrainian troops understood, they were to be granted safe passage by the Russians — a so-called “green corridor” — back to friendly territory after days of fierce fighting.
But it didn’t turn out that way.
Instead, tanks, artillery and machine gun fire blew apart their convoy as it sped away in panic, leaving bodies scattered and machinery burning across desolate fields and dirt roads.
“It ended up as a corridor of death,” Yatsyk says.
He was one of about 1,200 Ukrainian volunteer and professional troops who fought in the Battle of Ilovaisk, which ended on Aug. 29, 2014 in a disastrous Ukrainian defeat that forced Kyiv to the negotiating table in Minsk.
It’s still the bloodiest battle of the year-long war, which continues to grip Ukraine despite two ceasefires and other diplomatic efforts to end the violence that’s killed nearly 7,000 people.
First, there was the ill-prepared assault on the strategic city. Then came the resulting encirclement by Russian and separatist forces. Finally, the most tragic episode: several hundred Ukrainian troops were massacred as they tried to leave.
The battle marked what Ukrainian officials claim was Russia’s open invasion of eastern Ukraine. But it also sparked widespread public anger and raised questions over the military chiefs’ mismanagement — and, possibly, their outright betrayal.
Now, on the first anniversary of the Battle of Ilovaisk, critics are decrying the slow pace of an official investigation into the affair. They say those responsible for giving bad orders, or none at all, remain untouched.
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A deadly scramble
With few other options, the Ukrainians were eventually forced to negotiate on Aug. 28, 2014 for safe passage back to Ukraine-controlled territory.
Muzhenko, the general staff chief, says he held talks with his counterpart in the Russian high command to discuss the plan — a claim others dispute. But talks between lower-ranking commanders on both sides did take place that day, continuing into the morning of Aug. 29. The Russians reportedly delayed several hours, changing the conditions for the exit.
Hearing of the negotiations, the Ukrainian troops expected orders for a swift and orderly withdrawal after days of encirclement.
But as his column of around 400 Ukrainians waited to leave through the corridor from a suburb just south of Ilovaisk, Yatsyk claims an infamous rebel commander, nicknamed “Motorola,” broke through their communication lines.
The rebel commander trolled Yatsyk and his men over the radio, warning of their imminent demise. “But through profanity,” Yatsyk adds.
Shortly after, he says, the mortar fire began.
To escape, Yatsyk’s convoy of armored vehicles and buses hightailed it a couple of miles farther south through open fields. There, Russian tanks and artillery were dug into prime positions — thanks to the delays in negotiations, officials say — and the turkey shoot began.
The Russians fired at will on the Ukrainians from both sides, decimating the convoy.
“The first vehicles to burst into flames were ones with the wounded inside, with red crosses painted on them, flying white flags,” Yatsyk said.
(This video purports to show a first-hand account of Ukrainian soldiers fleeing Ilovaisk under fire. GlobalPost could not independently verify the content.)
Parts of the battered convoy stopped in the next village, where regular Russian forces were concentrated. Incredibly, the Ukrainians fought back, destroying two Russian tanks and taking around seven prisoners. But when Yatsyk and others attempted to trade the prisoners in exchange for a safe exit from the Russians, talks broke down.
“We told them we have their prisoners,” the Ukrainian ex-platoon commander says, “and they said it didn’t matter.” Then the Russians fired some more, Yatsyk claims, killing several more Ukrainian troops.
Burdened by their own wounded, the Ukrainians wound up in Russian custody and passed over to the rebels two days later, despite promises to the contrary. Yatsyk was released in late December, four months later.
Russia still denies any direct involvement in the conflict. As for the captured paratroopers, Russian officials claimed they had crossed the border by accident.
In terms of losses in the so-called green corridor, Yatsyk estimates around 100 men in his column alone were killed that day.
According to figures released this month by Ukraine’s military prosecutor, 366 troops were killed in the Battle of Ilovaisk, and nearly 450 wounded. More than 150 of the dead remain unidentified.
Those are conservative figures, some believe: On Wednesday, the head of the parliamentary investigation into the affair claimed the total number of Ukrainian casualties for the entire operation may actually reach 1,000.
Many of the volunteer fighters were ordinary men from a broad range of backgrounds and professions, from IT workers to street activists who participated in Kyiv’s street revolution. Though Yatsyk, an avid poker enthusiast, served a stint in the armed forces years ago, many of his comrades-in-arms had little training and received meager monthly salaries of a couple hundred dollars.
Tough lessons
The massacre outraged the public. It exposed nearly every Ukrainian military weakness at the time: a lack of resources, poor coordination, and the apparent inaction of top brass.
To this day, a high-profile blame game continues to muddy the picture of events.
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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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