Call Sign “Esenin”: a Russian Who is Fighting for Ukraine in the “Azov” Regiment, Was Taken Captive Near Bucha and Saw What Was Happening There

We want to retell the story of a Russian citizen who chose to fight for “Azov” against Russia, fought near Bucha, was taken prisoner there and then, before the Russian occupiers left Kyiv, told about the war crimes of rashists, which he saw with his own eyes, writes BBC.

In 2017, Artem Shirobokov from Samara became the first Russian citizen to be sentenced in absentia to five years in prison in his homeland for fighting in the “Azov” Volunteer Battalion in the Donetsk region. In February 2022, Shirobokov again volunteered, set out to defend Kyiv from the Russian offensive, and even managed to be taken prisoner, where he had been for some time.

The BBC correspondent spoke with Artem Shirobokov from March 16 to 28 – before the retreat of the Russian army from Kyiv. The BBC deliberately did not publish this interview, as at that time “they could not conduct an independent investigation and find confirmation of his story”.

However, after the withdrawal of the Russian army, numerous photos from Bucha, which appeared in the world media, showed that Shirobokov’s story coincides with the testimony of a large number of people who were near Kyiv. Finally, the fact of war crimes can confirm a full-fledged investigation of these events, and Shirobokov is an indisputable witness.

The detachment in which Artem fought was stationed in the Kyiv region, near the town of Vorzel, 2.5 km from Bucha. These cities were attacked by the Russian army from Belarus through Chernobyl.

“There we had a fight, the group split into several small ones. Me and a couple of fighters in search of a successful position moved towards the enemy. We lost contact with the commander – Russian troops turn off the communications completely in the occupied territories. I had to get out myself, through two settlements under the control of orcs (Vorzel and Bucha)”, recalls Shirobokov.

Leaving the encirclement, Artem and his comrades buried their weapons and changed into civilian clothes, but in Bucha they were still captured for a short time. In this city, according to Artem, the Russian military set up a kind of concentration camp for captured and detained local men, where they took Shirobokov.

“Before that, an old man from our group (of detainees) was shot in the leg, so no one in particular rushed to the center”, he said. – But someone started firing at our group near the center. Everyone fled to the yards of private houses and through gates and fences first fled deep into Bucha, and then managed to bypass the concentration of Russian troops in Irpin to return to Kyiv”.

Artem says that they were captured on Yablonska Street in Bucha. He and his comrades were not taken prisoner by the “Kadyrovites”, “they looked like Slavs, I don’t know: paratroopers or intelligence”, but they planned to hand over the prisoners to Rosguard. The military selectively inspected the detainees, they were especially interested in people with tattoos, which Artem does not have. Shirobokov said that when he was taken prisoner on March 4, the Russian military shot and killed only one elderly man, but when they took them to the detention center, he said they were “walking down a street littered with bodies”. The one that is now shown in the photo”.

Artem left the encirclement in four days, and when he returned to the capital, he began to plan in which unit he would continue to fight for Ukraine. Having got out of the Russian encirclement, Artem created a document in Google.doc, where he described his adventures, and sent links to it to all journalists he knew. After Russian troops left Bucha, local testimonies published by the world’s largest media turned out to be very similar to his story.

“If in Kherson and Melitopol people rush to the equipment and go to rallies, it is because there is a connection. In the towns through which I made my way, where there is no mobile connection and the Internet, everything looks much different, – Artem described his way out. – Civilians are being shot. Just for fun. To their satisfaction. Regardless of age and gender. The street along which I was led under the sight of the “captive base” was littered with the corpses of elderly. They escorted the neighbors, went for water, were left without food – and that’s it. They lie in every 10 meters”.

“The population totally hates Russians. My Russian dialect made people wildly angry when I talked to them. Because the Russians have now staged a terrible genocide in 2022. There was not a single person who would not call the Russians, bastards. I want the end of the war for Ukrainian children to stop being killed so that air bombs are not dropped on a peaceful city. The Russians want the end of the war to devour the BigMac and buy a bedside table at Ikea. We are different. I don’t know how it should end for me to stop hating you”, Artem said emotionally.

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