Did Col. Strelkov Really Execute People in the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’?

The story of Col. Igor Strelkov and his comrades in the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" writing execution warrants, shooting people, and burying them in mass or hidden graves seems extremely compelling. The cool Internet kids at Mashable have covered it. Simon Ostrovsky of VICE has been to the mass grave — the horror. The New York Times has blessed it. It sums up everything we know — and feel — about the awful enterprise of this deadly Moscow-contrived venture, and exemplifies perfectly the persistent Soviet/Bolshevik ideology of these people and their utter lack of scruples or morals let alone anything silly like "due process".

But is it true?

Having watched the separatist leaders and their gruesome antics since February, I don't have any problem calling out their murderous thuggery and mixture of depraved alignment with the Kremlin — itself a long-time bastion of war criminals — and self-serving opportunism.

But I think questions have to be asked about this story.

1) Are the documents authentic?

Lots of orders from Strelkov have been faked — it's a staple of pro-Ukrainian propaganda. For example, his demobilization order to the DPR fighters when he fled Slavyansk — this seemed likely to be authentic precisely because he was fleeing. But he decamped to Donetsk and regrouped there and went on fighting, made a number of live appearances where he urged people to keep fighting and it was proved fake.

Just like the fake execution carried out by his grisly rival/comrade-at-arms Igor Bezler "Bes" (Demon), whose execution was not only visibly fake at the time he released a video of it, it was proved fake when his "victims" appeared out of their dungeons when the rebels fled Slavyansk and described the details of their fake execution.

Sure, it could be that in their re-enactment of the Soviet Union, which the separatists seemed determined to play out in all its "glories," they have death warrants like the 1930s or 1940s which they carry out in basements like the NKVD and its successor the KGB.

But what's the proof?

2) Where are the bodies?

The discovery of a mass grave (with about 14 people in it) in Slavyansk seemed to shore up the story of the executions. Except so far, the bodies of the people in Strelkov's death warrants haven't been found — yet.

Instead, the bodies of 4 Protestant men from a local church have been found. No one ever bothered to cover their murders at the time — they were abducted from their church and then killed supposedly "for their cars" — although of course, one wonders if this was a hate crime because they were non-Russian Orthodox and perhaps not so supportive of Red Orthodoxy in their city. Their being Protestant might be a factor why their murders got ignored by Western journalists (and possibly even regional journalists, I just don't recall the story) — they don't "fit" in the drama of the narrative of Red Orthodoxy versus Blue (for EU) Uniate Catholicism (Ukraine).

There's another thing I wonder about these cases of executions. Their crimes are really minor — like stealing pants or abducting somebody and stealing something — the main crimes of the separatist leaders themselves, or so it seems — yet without their authorization.

If the patterns of the DPR are really taken from the Soviet annals, then usually the mass killings of the Leninists and Stalinists would begin first with those closest to them — their fellow believers, their comrades-at-arms, with whom they began the struggle. When some would become more corrupt or deadly, their fellow original believers who might know too much about where their bodies were buried, or who might reproach them on the grounds of deviation from the original pure revolutionary doctinres would have to be eliminated. That would usually be the first circle of murders.

Then came the need to eliminate the next circle, who were witnesses to the murder of the first — then the circle beyond that who might report to Moscow or a regional center — and before you know it, thousands have to be killed to cover up a story. This is pattern is explained in the memoris of Antonov-Ovsienko.

And anybody who has followed, say, the executions in Belarus that led first to killing most of the Communist Party — then killing the guy sent from Moscow who was sent to "bring order" — and then other witnesses — could see how this works. I find that Sovietologists discount this sort of intuitive grasp of the mass crimes of humanity in the former Soviet Union that most people who have studied them closely readily concede.

But as I always maintain, very little study of the patterns of mass crimes of the Soviet Union has really been made — Bloodlands is not one of them, as the author Timothy Snyder doesn't have a single reference to the huge amount of research done by the Russian Memorial Society, which would significantly correct upwards his too-low figures for victims of Stalin.

I cite this by way of making this point: that it makes more sense for people steeped in communist cadre doctrines and methods — as these people are, remember they were in the red/brown rebel White House in Moscow in 1993 — to start with killing one of their own — like Ponomarev, "people's mayor of Slavyansk" than some guy who stole a pair of pants. Maybe they did; maybe they didn't.

Killing another person is a taboo in any society, and to overcome this taboo, the mind has to have a conviction that it is a greater good. That conviction is easier to build for a comrade who is viewed as a mortal danger to the movement for his deviation or betrayal than it is for a common crook. Sure, it could be argued in the opposite direction, that for people with a strict notion of "order," killing the pettry criminal might be doable. How does that serve as an "object" lesson, though? I think for those practicing revolutionary justice, the fellow comrades come first, i.e. like the Kirov case.

The killing of the guy over the pair of pants would come later when there are many, many more killings and the norms are further eroded. So far, we are told by Ukrainian authorities that there are 52 graves (of course there are likely more) and one mass grave of 14.

If Ponomarev were still dead, this idea of the "revolutionary justice" pattern might be more believable (if this pattern is to be believed), but he's now supposedly turning up alive again on LifeNews.

To be sure, the thugs in the DPR, especially while drunk or on drugs, which is often the case, might kill a guy over a pair of pants while interrogating him, by accident or on purpose. So perhaps there's a case. Except…the bodies have not been found yet. They are reported as missing.

3. Is this "advisor" to Strelkov, Igor Druz (AKA Dus) who has turned up to testify that people were executed in the DPR telling the truth? Or is he part of the discreditation campaign?

My question about this is that we hear first — or at least most — about "Druze as advisor" from several Western journalists who are covering him in this story or in exposes of Strelkov, and we didn't seem to hear about him much before that.

That is, I don't recall him flanking Strelkov at press conferences or sightings before this. That doesn't mean he wasn't there, because you can't see everything, there is a flood of information, and it can be missed, or has to be dug for as it is played down or even hidded.

But given that we seem to have our first Western appearances of Druze in this story, we have to wonder how much of an adviser he really is, what he really knows, and whether his story is part of a Moscow-driven discreditation campaign against Strelkov.

4. There is a Moscow-driven discreditation campaign against Strelkov. This shouldn't require any persuasion — not only is there Kurginyan's antics with the denunciation and the press conferece in Donetsk, and other Russian-language bloggers — outside the Ukrainian PR axis I mean — denouncing him, he seems to have been superceded by Antyufeyev, who has now been made "acting commander-in-chief" instead of him.

Strelkov has been made by Sputnik&Pogrom and other ultranationalist PR outlets in Moscow into an iconic hero for the Novorissya cause — his face, in Soviet-style Constructivist art form – is visible everywhere on posters and blogs and memes. So likely they can't retire him completely, but can only demote him even if "the powers that be" decide he must be "reined in" because he poses "a threat to Putin" (a story that I think deserves to have its tires kicked a lot harder as well).

At the furious start of this campaign, the execution warrants story appeared — and then Druz appeared a few weeks later.

Who is Druz and how does he relate to Strelkov?

It's useful to know that he is reported to be Viktor Medvedchuk's man. Medvedchuk is Putin's crony and has been selected by him to conduct "negotiations" — although, of course, anyone outside their circle could point out how biased that is. The separatist leaders themselves claim he isn't their representative, but — please.

Here's what the Ukrainian INSIDER says about him in an expose of Strelkov:

Druz is known in Ukraine as leader of Popular Assembly, a civic organizations and an activist of the Viktor Medvedchuk's Ukrainian Choice. He fiercely opposed the European integration of Ukraine.

This aide to Medvedchuk reported to Girkin when he took part in the Crimean operation about the movements of the Ukrainian army, sending lists of licenses plates from the Odessa AutoMaidan, which went to Crimea, advising about his actions.

As INSIIDER learned from competent organs [intelligence], it was through Ukrainian Chose that for two years, Medvedchuk formed networks that would later serve the separatists.

Now Druz is Girkin's information adviser. He runs around with a machine gun in the ranks of the terrorists in the East. On 7 July he published the text, 'We left Slavyansk in Order to Return to Kiev," in which he justified the surrender of the city by the terrorists.

It was precisely this text with the thesis 'Forgive us for not dying outside Slavyansk," which Sergei Kurginyan later criticized when he spoke out against the leaership of DPR in the person of Girkin and Boroday.

Now, I don't have any way of knowing that this Internet artifact is any more true than any other Internet artifact. But it raises the question of whether — if Druz is Medvechuk's man — the way in which Strelkov is being discredited to "rein him in" from Moscow is precisely this way — having Medvedchuk direct him to tell stories about Strelkov's excesses.

Again, Strelkov may very well be guilty of these excesses, but since the bodies haven't been found and the story hasn't been proven yet, this question has to be asked.

It's also useful to know that Colonel Cassad, who is a very big booster of Strelkov and protector of him against the calumny of the likes of Kurginyan has re-published this piece by Druz dated 29 July praising Strelkov. In it, Druz denounces Kurginyan and those other "couch warriors" who slam Strelkov.

His "admission" (boast) that Strelkov orders executions is then to be seen in the context of admiration and praise for him only a few days before, but then that makes the "confession" all the more realistic — it seems like a "slip" (like Khodakovsky saying he heard the LPR had a Buk.)

Ultimately, this story may be proved — Strelkov and his comrades are deadly thugs. But it needs more work.