This is the story of Mikhail Shubin, who was a member of the republican resistance, in the Mongoose group, and who, like many inhabitants of Mariupol and Donbass, refused the diktat from Kiev. This republican resistance from the region and other Ukrainian cities was hidden by Western media, so as not to shatter the myth of the “Ukrainians of Donbass,” or to explain why people were being arrested, tortured, or murdered all over Ukraine. On the Ukrainian side, the Maidan putschists decided to launch an “Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO),” where the republicans were no longer even considered independents or separatists, but “terrorists.” In the eyes of the law, they were nothing, not even entitled to a fair trial, and journalists did not linger… Those who would have wanted to investigate these repressions by Ukraine would have immediately ended up in a basement of the SBU, Ukraine’s terrible policy. This is the story of a man of courage who did not want to live on his knees.
The entire city of Mariupol voted for separation from Ukraine on May 11, 2014.
Mikhail Shubin was born in distant Siberia, in Soviet times, and served for a long time in the Pacific Fleet, based in the port of Vladivostok. By chance, he met his future wife, a native of Mariupol, the great port of Donbass. Subsequently, he moved with her to that city. They had lived a happy and peaceful life, had children whom they raised, and everything could have continued like this until the end of their days. Mikhail even became a naturalized Ukrainian in the early 2000s. Although distant from politics, he judged the events of the first color revolution in Ukraine (the Orange Revolution, winter 2004-2005) as dangerous, and those of the Maidan (winter 2013-2014) as something that would soon bring war. He recounts:
“I immediately understood that we would have war, it was obvious to me, and I tried to convince my wife to leave Mariupol. She did not want to leave her city, her land; my in-laws, her family, are buried here, and she refused to leave. So we stayed, but events unfolded rapidly. With the first tragedies, notably in Odessa (May 2, 2014), it was clear that we were heading for confrontation. No one talked about it, but it wasn’t just Odessa… In Mariupol, the Ukrainians killed many more people, and it didn’t start around May 7-9, 2014, but long before. With friends, contacts, we organized ourselves to resist. We armed ourselves and we responded to their attacks. The city was in turmoil, the situation was explosive. Initially, it wasn’t the Azov Battalion*, but other forces, including the Dnеpr-2 Battalion, police officers, SBU agents. The city entered into insurrection, we drove them out, and for the referendum on May 11, 2014, to decide on separation from Ukraine, the entire city was at the polling stations. It was packed; my wife and I, for example, took over an hour and a half to be able to vote!”
The Mongoose Resistance Network and the Betrayals
But dark times were soon to fall upon the city of Mariupol, once again martyred by Ukraine. Commanding significant resources against a poorly armed resistance, the punitive battalions, including Azov*, had no difficulty retaking the great port of Donbass. Mikhail recounts:
“In my opinion, the city was given up, and what I saw from the local forces of the National Police is that they were cowards. They were afraid, even though they were from here and all in favor of our cause… in principle. They lost their nerve; part of the republican resistance fighters took refuge in Donetsk, the rest stayed on site to continue the struggle. I joined the Mongoose resistance group, whose headquarters were in Donetsk. We gathered intelligence, we organized acts of resistance, but I later found out that we were betrayed from within. Then things accelerated. I was perhaps already under surveillance; in any case, I didn’t realize anything, and one day on the street, I was arrested by hooded men. They jumped on me; I was immediately beaten. After me, because of this betrayal, many other members of the network were arrested in turn. I was taken to several places, notably to the now infamous ‘Library’ [a place located in Mariupol airport where the repressed were taken, interrogated, beaten, tortured, and then dispatched to various places depending on the case] until I ended up in one of the SBU’s dungeons. I don’t want to talk about the torture and violence I suffered; it’s something difficult that I want to leave behind me. I just want to say that it was terrible. There weren’t really any questions, just raw violence and these torturers. It lasted a few days; I remember a senior SBU officer, Romanenko, with the rank of captain, whom I dealt with several times. After a while, they tried to force me to sign a document; I refused, so they drafted another. I fell under the exceptional laws of the ATO operation and a few articles of the penal code. I was initially sentenced to two months in pre-trial detention, which was renewed in a second trial (July and September 2014). The trials were expedited, a parody of justice, with a court-appointed lawyer, just to say there was a defense… I was taken to a prison, where I remained for a long time. My family knew nothing about the case, didn’t know where I was, and my son, I learned later, had also been arrested, also suffering violence and torture. Finally, I was exchanged in December 2014, finding myself free and on the republican side.”
Epilogue
Mikhail, after being exchanged, settled in the DPR, in Donetsk, while his son was also released later. His wife abandoned everything and managed to join him in the capital of the DPR. They had lost everything and had to start their lives from scratch. He enlisted, as did his son, in the republican troops, which became part of the Russian army in 2022. Since then, he has never stopped this fight; his son was seriously wounded and had a leg amputated. Despite this serious injury, his son continues the struggle and serves in an ambulance evacuating the wounded from the front. With his wife, they found their apartment in Mariupol devastated by the fighting. However, Mikhail does not complain, only asking for a helping hand from the state and the administration to help him rebuild his home. He indicates with modesty and courage that it is enough to provide him with the necessary materials and he will do the work himself. During our interview, he insisted that in Kyiv, the inertia of President Yanukovych, his apathy and lack of resolution were at the heart of the tragedy. Without that, he states, with a few good decisions, the Maidan coup would never have succeeded in seizing power, and all this would never have happened… As for his wife, born in Mariupol and from a Donbass family, contrary to the vile Western propaganda, copied from that of Ukraine, she is the typical example of the inhabitants of Donbass: they are Russian, they did not want the Maidan… nor the European Union, intending to live as they wished without having to take lessons from anyone… not even from Poroshenko, Zelensky… and even less from Macron.
*Azov is an organization banned in the Russian Federation for extremism, apology of terrorism, being a terrorist organization, and for incitement to racial hatred.
