Bondo Dorovskikh - Confessions of a fighter. Revelations of a Volunteer

Translator Jack Doughty

Cover design Maksim Novikov

Editor Artem Pudov

Proofreader Alexandra Ryabukhina

© Bondo Dorovskikh, 2018

© Jack Doughty, translation, 2018

ISBN 978-5-4493-0438-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Bondo Borovskikh was born in 1974 in Dushanbe (Tajik SSR) into a traditionally military family. His great-grandfather on his mother’s side had fought, and his grandfather on his mother’s side was an air force pilot. All the men in the family had been involved in military matters in one way or another. It was not surprising that Bondo should want to be where it was dangerous, where a war was going on, where people and states defended their interests to the death.

Before the war, he led a normal life: school, faculty of chemical technology and cybernetics in an institute. Business. Yes, Bondo started his own business as long ago as 1992. First they sold cloth, then organized cotton deliveries from Central Asia. Since 2000, an oil business has been added: a gas station, a petroleum storage depot…

In July 2014 the family tradition made itself felt. As a member of the “Phantom” Brigade, Bondo took part in armed conflict in the south-east of Ukraine, and later in battles in defense of Nikishino village while in the First Slavonic Battalion of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Bondo Dorovskikh told of what he had seen and how it all was in a Radio Liberty interview in 2015. Subsequently he spoke out in various media, commenting on the situation in the Donbass.

Since October 2015, Bondo has been recruiting volunteers to support the Kurdish operations against ISIL (an organization banned in the Russian Federation). And on his Facebook page, he solemnly warns of the possible consequences of doing this. “You should remember that to go to help other people, risking your life, is a serious decision. The conflict is relatively intensive by modern military standards, with a death rate of over three per cent. If you are wounded, there will be no medical evacuation to an up-to-date military hospital. There will be no military pension or support. ISIL sets a high price on your head: $250,000 for each volunteer from abroad. And if you’re taken hostage, your chances of survival are very low.

“You will return home alone, with a few photographs to recall your everyday combat life, you may meet new friends, you may have to spend the rest of your life with post-traumatic stress disorder or you may suffer intense depression.

“Think about it. Do you really need this? Is this really your calling??”

At present, Bondo Dorovskikh is living in Russia but working abroad. The international crude oil trade, mostly with the countries of West Africa, takes up all his time.

However, the theme of war has not gone from his life: his interest in it has not only remained, it has increased. But the author cannot write about that, not yet anyway.

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indisputable meaning is, for rulers, nothing other than a weapon to achieve their power-seeking and selfish ends, and for the governed, a rejection of human dignity and conscience, and a slavish subordination of oneself to those in power. That is what is preached everywhere that patriotism is preached. Patriotism is slavery.

The desire to defend my country arose in me way back in the days when our forces were in Afghanistan. At that time, when I was still a boy, I dreamed of being there, where I would have the honor of being an international warrior. In Dushanbe, where I was born, everything was dominated by the fact that the Tajik SSR bordered on Afghanistan. One could often see columns of Soviet troops coming down from the mountain valleys and into our city, and though still a child, I felt an unusual interest in this. Soldiers often came into our school to tell us about Afghanistan, and we listened to them, fascinated. Many friends of my parents went there to work. Once when I woke early, I saw an army pistol, and it was a wonder I didn’t take it to nursery school with me. But to my great regret, our forces were withdrawn before the time came for my military service.

In the spring of 1992, when I went to the draft office, I asked to be sent to a war zone somewhere. The warrant officer shrugged his shoulders and said there were no conflict zones with Russian involvement apart from Yugoslavia, where we had a peacekeeping contingent, and only conscripts who had finished their time in the Army could be sent there. There was no internet then, and I was living in a small town in Tver province. Nothing had been written about this in the newspapers, information was not as available as it is now, so I did not know that a warrior could always find a place free at any time. All you needed was the desire and the money. But then, in 1992, the only thing I could do was enter a chemical technology institute, because serving in an army which was not fighting seemed a waste of time to me.

Request from DCOC KM MIA Ivanovo Province, 2002.

In 2000, I set up a business selling refined oil products. Every month my companies sold thousands of tons of oil products, as a result of which I became able to provide sponsorship, including to the security forces.

The cost of a barrel of oil at that time, in 2002, was only 25 dollars, so entrepreneurs in Russia carried the State’s burden of debt in the form of covering the activities of some state organizations.

Almost all the district internal affairs departments of the city of Ivanovo ran on my gasoline, and during the second Chechen campaign, I more than once financed the sending of SRRU (Special Rapid Reaction Unit) fighters to armed conflict zones.

With an RPG-7, 10 km. from Ivanovo, 2002

With a PK (machine gun), 10 km. from Ivanovo

With an RGP7 grenade launcher, 10 km. from Ivanovo

In gratitude, these fighters arranged training for me in certain weapons, namely the PKM (a modernized version of the AK-47) 1 1 A 7.62 mm Kalashnikov automatic rifle modified by Kalashnikov as the only standard automatic rifle for the USSR Armed Forces. , the RPG-7 rocket launcher 2 2 A Soviet/Russian reusable anti-tank missile launcher to fire cumulative ammunition, For use against tanks, self-propelled guns and other armor. Can be used to destroy enemy troops under cover and also against low-flying aerial targets. , the SSR 3 3 A sniper’s silenced rifle for Special Forces. sniper’s rifle, the original AK-47 and others. Some of them also served as my bodyguard.

We also helped the FSB Directorate for Ivanovo Province with money. The head of security of my company was an FSB lieutenant-colonel. We also had some other FSB Directorate agents working for us.

As a result of this, I received dozens of letters of gratitude from the heads of various sub-units of the All-Russian MIA and FSB.