“I promised the dead to take them home” — searcher Oleksii Yukov

“There were parts of people's bodies lying there, torn apart. And some men, women, and kids were trampling on them. And they were all pulling copper, putting it in bags,” Oleksii Yukov recalls the picture he saw at the site where a Ukrainian helicopter shot down by terrorists crashed.

He and his group went there to retrieve the bodies of the servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Shortly after that operation, the searcher was captured by Girkin's terrorists and almost killed.

How did Oleksii become a searcher? Where and how does his group work? How does he feel the dead? How did his group help to return the bodies of those killed in Olenivka? And how does he communicate with Russians who are looking for the bodies of their relatives?

Oleksii Yukov, head of the Platsdarm search group, told this to Serhii Hnezdilov, a soldier and host of hromadske, in a ++ podcast.

About how he started searching for the dead

I have been searching for the dead and missing for 24 years. When I was 12 years old, my older brother showed me what war looks like — here, near Sloviansk, near the village of Bohorodichne.

We went into the forest, and what I saw surprised me: everything was green, but in some places, there were a lot of white spots. These spots were the bone remains of people and fragments of equipment from the Soviet and German armed forces. And the whole story we were told that all the soldiers of the Soviet army were buried in mass graves that just melted away before our eyes.

I saw how many people were lying on the surface — cut up, dug up, thrown away. Skulls, helmets, and ammunition were scattered all over the forest. Since then, I have been searching for those who died in World War II.

About the Platsdarm search group

We were the first in Ukraine to start searching for the victims of the Anti-Terrorist Operation. Our city was occupied at the time, and on May 2, when a large-scale assault began and two helicopters went down near Sloviansk, we were the ones who took the dead.

Then the Black Tulip was created. It included many search teams from all over Ukraine, including us. At that time, it was an evacuation of the dead, and now we also cooperate with the search groups “On the Shield”.

We find the bodies of Russian soldiers, local residents who were tortured and killed, and Ukrainian soldiers who died defending Ukraine's independence. We see death every day.

About the return of the bodies of those killed in Olenivka

Many bodies of Russian soldiers were found in Lyman. The tragedy in Olenivka had already happened by then. Of course, they did not want to give our side the bodies for burial, because investigations and DNA examinations could establish that these were war crimes against prisoners.

Various structures were involved in the exchange of the soldiers we found for the Ukrainian guys who remained in Olenivka: The General Staff, the Security Service of Ukraine… And we all managed to do it together.

For me, the life of every person is the most important thing. And when our guys died there, it was shocking.

We are different from those who kill us on our own land, where our parents are buried, and where our children are growing up. We remain human, even when we are killed based on our nationality, as Nazi Germany once did, almost a hundred years ago, when it killed Jews, Gypsies and Slavs.

Now history has been twisted, and those who sat in the same trenches with our grandfathers and fought against Nazi Germany are fighting against us.

We take the bodies of Russian soldiers and never mutilate them. For us and them, this is grief. It's terrible that some are fighting to remain slaves, while others are fighting to avoid becoming slaves.

About funding and spirituality

Currently, we work as volunteers and, of course, use our own funds. People help us: volunteers send us clothes and food. Unfortunately, we have no sponsors.

When a person dies, he or she is left out of the life of a whole lot of people. People have forgotten what humanity is. The most important thing is to remember those who give their lives for the future, even for children who have not yet been born.

I am inclined to paganism, to the native belief that the human soul and the body are the same. Until the body is buried by all religious canons, the soul will be nearby, tied to the body with shackles.

We need to bring each of our guys home because they risked everything they had. We also risk our lives, but we know that we are doing it for a reason: to bring a person home so that they can be reborn so that their soul can calm down and be born again, become part of our society.

We are losing the most important thing — humanity and the gene pool, and Russia is losing the same.

We do not step over a single body — neither Russian nor Ukrainian soldier — we take them all. Every Russian soldier is one Ukrainian soldier in exchange. We are returning souls, not just bodies.

It's time to realize that a nation is made up primarily of the spiritual. Who are we if we do not respect our dead? Then we are not a nation, then we are not a people, then we are not even human.

I see how the military treats the Russian dead: they bury them, show us where they lie — no one fights with the dead.

Death will never forgive insults, and you have to remember that. Unfortunately, the other side does not take this into account.

Sometimes we pick up bodies in places that have been liberated to some extent but are still shelled occasionally. Sometimes we work 100-200 meters from enemy positions.

The dead are on my side, and I will always be on the side of the dead because there is no one to stand up for them.

About the equipment of the occupiers

Kevlar inserts in the groin, knees, and back of the thighs protect the Russian soldier from shrapnel injuries. Our soldiers do not have such uniforms.

We can throw millions of shells, but the war is won by the infantry. I saw this in my own experience when I took the bodies of the dead. Our guys had crossed this forest plantation with heavy losses, and here they were lying. And I realized that the soldier's inguinal artery was hit, and he could not help himself.

We can talk about Russian SSh-40 helmets, still of the Soviet model, as they were modernized later. The inside of this helmet is protected by a thick layer of Kevlar. In addition to Kevlar, there is metal protection. We conducted a ballistic test — these helmets withstand ballistics quite well.

Needless to say, the Russian military are dressed like bums. They learn the same way we do. But now we've stopped with the “everything will be given to us, we'll get everything” attitude, and we need to produce our own. We need to make sure that the soldier is protected: Kevlar should be inserted into the clothing to maximize the protection of soft tissues.

About the culture of burial

We have, as some people say, “dog monuments”, and the whole thing looks like a human dump. This is disrespectful to the dead. Monuments should be such that you can see that it is a soldier's grave. Right now, the flags at each grave are fluttering, and it's heartbreaking.

It would be very cool if all the monuments were the same. You can put a Cossack cross, a layer of life, and a book of death on top. Not only the dead need this, but also we, and every generation that will come after us.

We have one front for everyone. We have one war for everyone. And we have one grief for all.

We like to put up Christmas trees and say: “This is for the military.” When some people come to cry near these portraits in the square, bend their knees, and others come to open the champagne, how will it look? This is disrespectful to the dead and their loved ones, this is hypocrisy.

You can call the war “ATO” or “special military operation”, but it will still be a war. War is not divided by nationality or religion. War divides into the living and the dead. No one will ever win the war, because there are victims.

Back in 2014, the mothers of the “DPR” fighters came here and begged us to help. We helped them because we are human beings, and all mothers have the same pain. For this mother, her life is over because this is the child she prayed for. Maybe the mother supported the war, maybe she didn't, but we can see the fact, that these are destroyed lives. The boy is lying there, it is not known what kind of person he was: good or bad. His chance to live, to be a human being, has already been taken away from him, because someone wanted to become an emperor, to revive the Soviet Union. But is it really worth so many lives?

About the mood in Donetsk region

Even those who supported the “DPR” and “LPR” are now fighting for Ukraine and say: “How could we fall for this?”

Of course, some people will shit themselves, but they won't admit that they were wrong. New generations — even those younger than me — want to go back to the Soviet Union, which they have not seen and do not know.

I lived here in the 90s. We spent the night in basements, it was very hard. People were killed and their future was taken away from them. We had to take it all in.

I saw with my own eyes how it all began: how people were encouraged to go to “defend” Donbas and give weapons to anyone. It was wild: who to kill, which Banderites?

I saw how people were trained to gather in a bunch of 100-200 people, how they were given rods and Molotov cocktails, how they drank vodka, and then got in buses and went to “defend” Sviatohirsk Lavra from the phantom right-wingers.

About the tragedy in Karpivka

When Ukrainian soldiers were killed on May 2 near Karpivka, our group was the first to go there to find the wounded. The town was occupied, and any of our actions could be qualified as treason.

There were body parts and torn organs, and everyone was trampling on them — men, women, and minors. Someone was carrying some glass, someone was carrying iron, and someone was chopping down a helicopter with an ax. And I thought: “How people are changed by war, what kind of beasts they become.”

We dismantled the first helicopter and loaded the fragments of the bodies of the dead guys. Then we got to the second one — it burned for three days, and we worked for three days, while the “DPR” mortars were shooting at us. No one knew we were working there, because, of course, we would have been immediately eliminated.

We pulled out body fragments and bones right from the fire. My hands were burned.

About a month later, one of the locals turned us in.

About contusion

We took the bodies in Semenivka. A man was lying on the road, the process of decay had already begun, there were maggots, and dogs had started to tear apart body parts. Maybe the man was just riding a bicycle — it was not clear. I thought: now I'll pick him up and drag him away quickly. But I couldn't pull him off the asphalt, he was stuck to it — it was so hot. I loosened it a little bit, then hooked a rope and started pulling it — I thought it was easier because everything was in this corpse jelly.

Then I heard a whistle and I was thrown away, all in slow motion, like in some movie. Well, of course, contusion, brain damage. I got up and started working automatically: I had to pull that guy. I took the rope and pulled a little bit. I looked there, and there was only a piece of the body — it hit close by and this guy was torn apart. I came to the other half — one leg and a part of the pelvis — and took it and pulled it all.

I was walking, throwing up on the go, blood coming out of my ears, wounded all over, scratched up — oops! A checkpoint of the DPR. And they told me: “Stop!” They wrapped me in wire and put me in a cell. I remember sitting there, he was asking me something, and I didn't understand what. I had never felt so bad, I was sitting there wishing I could die! I was shaking so much, I didn't understand what was happening.

An ambulance arrived, loaded the corpse, and no one took me away, I was sitting there covered in blood, tied up.

About being “in the basement”

About a month after we took the boys from Karpivka, I was walking down the street and saw that there was no one there, because we usually have some drunks walking down the street, but here it was silent. Two cars pulled up, and men in uniform ran out, one wearing a Soviet pilot's cap with a star and a machine gun. For some reason, I felt so funny. Then the Russian said: “Stop! Lie down! Sit!” I said: “Figure out what I should do — stop or lie down…” The bolts were jerked, the cartridges flew out, and I started to get hysterical.

They wrap my legs and arms with tape, throw me into a car, and drive 100 meters to the Security Service building. They pulled me out and took me to the basement, and there Lienka, Motorola's future wife, and some other girls were standing heroically with their guns.

They took my wallet, divided the money among themselves, took my phone, and there were photos from this helicopter. Somebody in charge comes, and they read me an order from 1941 about the execution, about the betrayal of the Donetsk People's Republic, about betrayal of people, sabotage. I start laughing: what 1941, guys, are you crazy? And they hit me! A physical remark on the kidneys.

They carried out a man in a diaper on a blanket, threw him near the steps, and one of the gunmen shot him dead. And then they said: “Let's take this guy out, we're going to finish him”.

They take me to the Security Service building wall, and then our guys start shelling! There's a trench behind the gate, and they got into it. I thought to myself: our guys will hit me with shrapnel, it's a stupid way to die — I didn't do anything. I took two steps back and fell into this pit.

The shelling ended, and they pulled me out of there. A car approached, they threw me in, and this dead man was lying there, covered in blood, smelling of feces and urine — I think he was tortured for a long time.

The last number I called was of one of the “DPR” guys who let us through when we were taking the bodies of civilians out of Semenivka. They took my phone and dialed the last number: "Hello, we've captured a saboteur”. And this guy told them: “What the f*ck are you bitches doing? Who did you f*cking catch, you morons, this is a searcher. He was picking up Soviet soldiers.” They said: “But we have an order, it's signed for elimination!” And the man said: “Who signed it?” “Strelkov”.

I thought there was no chance, and about 15-20 minutes later Strelkov called:“I'm canceling the order, let him go. Let him go, we'll figure it out later.” They brought me back — I thought they were taking me to the old city cemetery — they opened the door and said: “Sorry, dude, we didn't know.”

I got the hell out of there. Then I took my parents out of Sloviansk and returned myself.