The Donbas-Ukraine Battalion, a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, objects to the use of its insignia by political protesters near the Verkhovna Rada, the unit’s fighters and veterans said during a press conference in Kyiv on Oct. 25.
They also repeatedly condemned Ukrainian parliamentarian and the unit’s former commander, Samopomich Party lawmaker Semen Semenchenko, for exploiting the unit’s combat history to boost his political career.
“There are people using the Donbas brand for personal ends,” the battalion’s commander, Colonel Vyacheslav Vlasenko, said, referring to Semenchenko.
The protests near Ukraine’s parliament building in central Kyiv started on Oct. 17. Protesters demanded the approval of several reforms bills, including ones on establishing an anti-corruption court in the country and on abolishing parliamentary immunity for parliament members.
Semenchenko was one of the leaders of the rally and helped set up the tent camp near the Verkhovna Rada. His supporters wear a military uniform with sleeve patches of a stylized falcon – an image widely associated with the Donbas Battalion.
According to Vlasenko, many of the protesters who claim to be Donbas fighters have never been engaged in combat in Ukraine’s east or have no connection to the battalion, and Semenchenko himself has no right to use the battalion’s insignia.
Actual Donbas Battalion soldiers and officers are continuing their combat duties in the war zone in Ukraine’s east rather than participating in political games in Kyiv, Vlasenko said.
Later, Semenchenko rejected all of the accusations made at the press conference.
“I and my brothers-in-arms have already got used to the fact that when we initiate some good cause… several people go out and tell ‘the truth about Semenchenko,’” the lawmaker wrote on his Facebook page on Oct. 25.
The Donbas Battalion was formed in the spring of 2014 as a volunteer force of pro-Ukrainian civilians after Russia launched its war in eastern Ukraine. In the flowing months, the unit, approved for service by the National Guard and initially led by Semenchenko, was engaged in several clashes, including the deadly battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve.
But over the past three years Semenchenko has been widely criticized by his former subordinates for alleged incompetence, personally avoiding combat, and deliberately allowing there to be a high death toll among his soldiers in order to draw the attention of the mass media.
Semenchenko was elected to parliament in September 2014 and later gave up command of the Donbas Battalion.
In January 2015, the battalion split, with most of its soldiers, disaffected with Semenchenko, following Vlasenko and forming a separate special forces unit called “Donbas-Ukraine” under the Armed Forces command. The newly created combat force continued using the sign of the falcon on their sleeve patches.
Semenchenko and other Donbas Battalion fighters and veterans have been in a bitter feud since then. Over the past three years, the unit’s veterans have conducted up to five press conferences and media addresses concerning Semenchenko, the former Donbas Battalion anti-tank platoon commander Volodymyr Babenko told the Kyiv Post.
The Donbas-Ukraine unit led by Vyacheslav Vlasenko is continuing to fight Russian-led forces in the Mariupol area, in southern Donetsk Oblast.
