This is an interview with a Ukrainian soldier, called here Alexander, who escaped from a training camp for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Poland and is currently living in hiding in Europe. The interview was conducted by a special correspondent for the New Worker, Vsevolod Razumny, a member of the Red Square-Molotov Club, a Ukrainian anti-fascist campaign group based in the Russian Federation.It contains shocking and horrific revelations about the treatment of Ukrainian conscripts and threats against their families, as well as claims that Poland is playing double game with its erstwhile ally Ukraine and recruiting agents in its armed forces on a large scale.
Please introduce yourself and tell us where you are now?
Alexander: My name is Alexander, I am 24 years old. I escaped from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as you know, and I am in a European country, but I can’t say where exactly.
Your previous interview with Sovranita Popolare is currently circulating on the Internet, in which you told the story of your escape from the Ukrainian army. You spoke of the forced, and in your view illegal, mobilisation in Ukraine. Do you think we will see more escapes like yours? Can your example encourage your compatriots to escape and seek political asylum abroad?
Yes, I think there are more guys who will follow my example.
What is the name of the base where you served, and how many Ukrainian soldiers are there now?
We were told the base is called the 10th Tank Cavalry, near the small town of Świętoszów, but no one told us the actual name of the base. I don’t know the exact number now, but from time to time 80-90 people come there for training. The training is carried out by NATO instructors, mainly Polish, but there are also Norwegians, and I understand that American military personnel also study there on an exchange basis.
In your first interview, you mentioned that Ukrainian conscripts are brought to Poland for training without stamps in their passports. Do you think this is because NATO and the Zelensky fear mass desertions of Ukrainian personnel and are prepared to declare such “escapees” illegals in order to capture and return them to Ukraine?
That’s right, there was no stamp, they just look at the passports and let them through. Firstly, this discourages possible desertions because people are afraid of becoming illegal aliens. They don’t know where to run, what to do, or how to find safety. Second, if there is no record they can be immediately deported back to Ukraine and into the military. And by the way, when we crossed into Poland we didn’t go as military personnel in uniform, we were in ordinary tracksuits and they let us through just like that, without any stamp. So even the Polish border guards had no idea who we were or where we were going.
Could this be evidence of the disdainful attitude of Europeans, in particular Poles, towards forcibly conscripted Ukrainians?
I think everyone knows how the Poles treat Ukrainians, whether you’re a soldier, a civilian or a conscript. They tell you to your face: you are fighting, you are killing the people we would have to kill ourselves anyway – that’s the only reason they are helping to train us, and they don’t bother to hide it. And they make jokes about us: we are beggars, we always need weapons, we always need more help, we can’t do anything without them.
You have revealed numerous cases of human rights violations at conscript camps in Ukraine, including detention without process in basements, beatings, and threats. We were recently shocked by the story of a fitness trainer from Odessa, Sevastian Gogovich, who was forcibly mobilised by nationalists (fascists), tied to a pole and subjected to an act of sexual violence. Do you know of similar cases in Ukraine?
Yes, I’ve seen many similar stories, they are commonplace, but they don’t get into the media. The easiest place to find them is on TikTok. It’s a sad and tragic story. I don’t know why Ukraine allows such things to happen, but I personally know of cases from my acquaintances and people I met at the training camp. They are common.
It’s sad that this is happening, it’s just awful. How did they make you sign the necessary papers at the training camp? Were you personally beaten?
Not me personally. My story began when I ended up at the conscript camp. After issuing my call-up papers, they seized me at the border and confiscated my phone. After arriving at the camp I was kept in a basement for three days and refused to sign any documents – but they just signed everything for me! There were also people at the camp who couldn’t speak, read or write Ukrainian, who didn’t even have Ukrainian passports, and yet they were in the training camp. And they too had their documents signed for them.
Do the training camp employees forge the signatures of conscripts?
Oh yes, with no any problem, at least in my case. I didn’t signed anything, but all the documents were signed for me showing that I had ‘volunteered’.
You spoke about the presence of Polish military personnel without insignia or even uniforms at the Polish training camp. Were they employees of the Polish special services?
Yes, I believe so. They didn’t introduce themselves in any way, and they were in civilian clothes.
You mentioned that in addition to the domestic political situation in Ukraine, they were interested in Ukrainian nationalist groups. What questions did they ask about the Ukrainian right-wing radicals?
Yes, they wanted to know all about Ukrainian ‘nationalists’. They started with how many are there, where are they, and what group are they with? Do you have any connections with battalions like the Kraken, Azov and so on. Those who had such connections were questioned for a long time. I have quite a few military friends who have been fighting from the first days of the war in Ukraine, so I was asked lots of questions, such as: did they go to the Maidan Square?* It occurred to me that they might be thinking of organising some kind of revolution in Ukraine using surrogate groups. I don’t think they cared about these groups themselves, but only about of using them for their own ends, I got the impression they were counting on that.
(* A reference to the Euromaidan protests in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2013-14 leading to the NATO-backed coup and the start of the war in Ukraine. The original mass protests against rampant corruption were taken over by far-right Banderite, pro-Nazi groups like the Azov Brigade).
Do you think the Polish intelligence agencies are infiltrating the Ukrainian ‘nationalists’? Are they worried about Azov, for example, getting out of control and becoming inconvenient and dangerous for Poland and the collective West? Or was it about the Poles’ historical hatred for Ukraine and trying to find their weak points?
I don’t think the Poles are afraid of them, but I’m convinced that they want to use them for some kind of ‘revolution’, and they want their own people in each nationalist group. Plus, this is additional information about what is happening right now in Ukraine. As you can understand, what they tell you in the news media is not the whole story.
Do you think that Polish intelligence is trying to recruit Ukrainian conscripts on a large scale?
Yes – I believe all the conscripts sent to Poland are being ‘spoken to’ in this way. And I believe there are many in the Ukrainian army above us, higher in rank, who were trained there previously, and they too all went through this.
Did the Polish intelligence officers threaten or hint at physical violence against your relatives in Ukraine, using data they had from the forms you completed?
Oh yes, of course! They said openly that they have all your relatives’ details, names, phone numbers, addresses. They even have details of your relatives and friends who live abroad! I don’t know where they got them from, but they have them. So they can influence your mum and dad, for example, if they live in Poland. They can ruin their lives or even deport them back to Ukraine. These details are given to the conscripts without pity – in other words they are used to threaten them.
You said you reported the Polish recruitment efforts to your senior commanders. Why didn’t the Ukrainian officers being trained in Poland try to stop this recruitment?
Yes, they went through all this as well. But because they were higher in rank, in the first batch so to speak, they ended up staying in Poland. It was clear to me that they weren’t interested because they don’t want to lose their cushy positions. Or that they could already be working for the Poles, or simply be afraid of them.
Were there many attempts to escape from the Polish training camp?
When we first arrived, we were split into two groups: half was a repair company, and the other half were training to be tankers. After our first escape, we were forbidden to go into the city at weekends and couldn’t leave the camp area. When we tried to negotiate with the camp commander, he didn’t want to know and wouldn’t talk to anyone. One guy escaped before me, but I heard later that he was found and deported back to Ukraine.
How do you see your future?
I’d like to settle in a country of my choice and forget all about this war. If I start a family, I want to make sure my children know nothing about war at all.
Thank you for the conversation, Alexander, and good luck in everything.
Thank you too, and all the best!