Testimony by Vladimir Nikolayevich Pogorelov, resident of Selidovo, the Donetsk Peopleās Republic, in āWar crimes of the Kiev regime in the Kursk region and the Donetsk Peopleās Republic.ā ā Translated* transcript from the proceedings of the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo Nazis:
āMy mother and I went to Dimitrovo in the morning. We were taken there by ambulance. When we arrived, they did not put us in intensive care, even though they were supposed to. Instead, they put us in a regular medical ward.
They resuscitated my mother, raised her blood sugar, everything stabilized, she was talking normally.
Out of relief, she started telling them that she is Russian, that her niece lives in Moscow, that she has connections, that she contacted volunteers, and that when the Russians come here, the volunteers will come to our address and evacuate us.
There was another woman lying in the ward whose son has been working as a medic in āRight Sectorā since 2014. When her sons came to visit her, they would raise their arms and shout āHeil Hitler!ā Her sons would come and shout āHeil Hitler!ā, and she would answer them, also raising her arm: āGlory to Ukraine!ā
After that, they basically stopped treating my mother altogether. During rounds, the doctor would come up to her, say āThis is the left arm, this is the left leg,ā then turn around and leave. Everyone else who had tied a yellow-and-blue ribbon around their arm was approached and treated. I had not put one on my mother.
I began demanding that she be transferred to intensive care. The doctor said intensive care was not needed and that they would give her an IV drip there instead. The son of the woman from āRight Sector,ā whose call sign was āTornado,ā came to visit her and brought ampoules with him. I saw this myself on the second day, how he gave her the ampoules. Then that woman said, āLook, I have this medication.ā The doctors said, āAlright.ā
They put my mother on an IV with that medication, and my mother simply died. She started gasping for air, her tongue began to protrude, she could not breathe in. They suffocated her, basically. During the IV.
I am a churchgoing person. Since 2015, they have been telling me: āSuitcase, train station, Russia.ā They tried to drive us out for any reason and no reason, constantly pressuring us.
I remember a year ago walking across the town square. There was a jeep standing there, and music was blasting across the entire square, āDeutschen Soldaten und Offizierenāā¦ a German fascist march. They parked right on the square, turned it up to full volume, and played it.
Ukraine was forcing us out of the city. They would simply take children. If you didnāt evacuate, they would take your children. My godmother has four children, sheās from Krasnoye. They took her children and evacuated them to Vinnytsia. There they began to āeat them aliveā to harass and abuse them. Now she has had to rent another new house just to survive. They keep hounding them. She finally found a place with a well, so she doesnāt have to run around the village as much, so fewer people see her, basically so she doesnāt have to walk through the village. They broke them down.
Everything was wrong with her in their eyes. And on top of that, she spoke Russian. Now sheās struggling alone with four children. If they hadnāt left Selidovo, the children would simply have been taken, and their fate would be unknown.
I went to visit a friend on Ostrovsky Street. There were mortars positioned there, on one side of the street and the other. Two mortars, one at each end. All day long they were firing at Novogrodovka. Twenty shots at Novogrodovka. Russian troops had already entered there.
Then they turned toward Voroshilovka, the private sector of Selidovo, and fired two shots. Then they turned back toward Novogrodovka and fired twenty shots again. Then they turned back and fired at Voroshilovka again. There were no Russian troops there.
On October 4, I went to Sergeiās birthday on Ostrovsky Street. Near us, about five houses away, Ukrainian Armed Forces moved into a house. A vehicle pulled up, stopped, they went inside. From there, drones began taking off carrying ācarrotsā, RPG grenades. They flew over us, toward the other side of Selidovo, toward Artem Street, and further down. Houses were simply being destroyed. There were no Russian troops there.
I remember that birthday clearly, three drones carrying RPG grenades flew directly over us. We were sitting there celebrating, and they were flying right over our heads. All day long they flew like that, almost until evening, destroying houses in Selidovo. One of my friends came home from work and found his house destroyed.
I was buying milk in Voroshilovka. An old man asked the Ukrainian soldiers: āBoys, when the Russians come, how will we live with the Russians?ā One of them, the biggest one, turned around and said: āGrandpa, donāt be afraid of the Russians, be afraid of us.ā He said it completely seriously. He said: āWe have 600 guns. When we leave, weāll wipe Selidovo out.ā
They had been promising to wipe us out since 2015. Ukrainian soldiers personally told my mother twice, and told almost all the women: āWhen we leave, weāll wipe Selidovo off the face of the earth.ā But I stayed here so it wouldnāt be wiped out.
Near Shop No. 56 thereās a small store on the steps where people used to shop. One mine landed there once, no one was killed. A week later, people started gathering there again. I also felt the urge to go in the morning to buy mineral water, but I decided to go after noon. My godfather Alexey and my friend Gena went there to buy meat. Around ten in the morning, a mine landed and wounded four people.
A woman had her kidney torn out. Genaās leg was pierced and his artery severed. A fragment remained inside him and was not removed. My godfather, Alexey Vanin, was hit there as well, his leg was pierced straight through and he was grazed on the head. Ukraine was firing. This was in September to October.
In September, near Revin Bridge, I went to feed my godfatherās dogs. Ukrainian soldiers lived three houses away. When they left, they simply threw a grenade into the house. The house caught fire and no one could put it out. It burned for two days because people were afraid it might be mined.
Or on Ostrovsky Street, they were sitting there. A soldier walked out from a house two buildings away from us. He walked off, and about three minutes later the house exploded.
Refugees from Peski and PervomaĢysk were living in the childrenās hospital. Ukrainian soldiers came, the AFU. They went through the entire building, checked where people were living, collected all the fire extinguishers, and left. About six hours later, the building was hit. The shot came from Ostrovsky Street, directly into the wing where the refugees were living. With no fire extinguishers left, there was nothing to put the fire out. Everyone who survived gathered what they could and fled deeper into Ukraine.
Russian troops were not there yet. They entered on Thursday around two in the afternoon.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces entered Building No. 19 in front of my building, and Building No. 17. They went door to door, breaking down doors and shooting everyone they found. Anyone who opened the door was shot immediately in the head.
An 80-year-old woman, a teacher who had worked her entire life, was shot straight in the head. Everyone there was shot in the head. Only three people survived in that building. One didnāt have time to open the door. Another barricaded himself inside and heard French and Ukrainian being spoken. A Frenchman said something, and a Ukrainian replied: āWe donāt have time to break down doors anymore. Weāve already cleared it.ā They left him and didnāt finish breaking in. Thatās how he survived.
On Wednesday, someone walked through our courtyard shouting with a Georgian accent: āIs anyone alive? Is anyone alive?ā He came up to my entrance. I was about to open the door and answer when he started shouting obscenities. Something felt wrong. I gathered everyone in the stairwell, six of us. What should we do, open or not? Everyone said: heās swearing, we wonāt open. Weāll wait for polite ones. That was Wednesday, meaning he was deliberately looking for civilians to kill.
In one house, a family of five with a child was taken outside into their garden and shot. The entire family was executed in the garden by Ukrainian soldiers.
A sniper was stationed here. They deployed snipers starting Tuesday. The sniper began shooting all the menā¦ their bodies are still lying there. One man hid and ran into a shop; the sniper shot him inside the shop. His body is still lying there.
At the intersection further down, bodies were lying almost in a row. All were shot in the head. Around this house, all the men were shot by Ukrainian snipers, maybe mercenaries.
A son came from the lower street and saw his father lying there, shot dead. He ran home to get shovels [to bury his father]. While he was running, the sniper shot him in the head near āDonbassā [likely a local landmark or building/store/institute]. There were still two snipers there. He was shot straight in the head. He never got to bury his father.ā
*There is an English translation available however, due to the quality, I elected to manually translate this
