The life of a modern Nazi mercenary
Sergei Korotkikh interview. Assassinations and kidnappings. Chechnya and Donbass. Belarussian KGB and opposition. Organized crime and neo-fascism.
If I were to choose a single favorite website, it would be the wayback machine. Modern history is both made and preserved online. But unfortunately, web pages disappear quite quickly. Luckily, unlike paper, destroyed websites can be recovered.
I am hence glad to deliver to my readers the following 2015 interview with Sergei Korotkikh, alias ‘Boatswain’. Tomorrow, I will release a long article on this fascinating figure, a true ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare of the post-soviet world. While he is linked with countless murders, decapitations, and even acid-baths, he remains at large in Ukraine to this day. Naturally, he enjoys his own military unit, which is of course under no one other than Kyrylo Budanov of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR).
The following interview was conducted in 2015 by Belarussian Partisan. This publication opposes the government of Alexander Lukashenko and holds liberal-nationalist, pro-western beliefs. The editor of said publication, and the man who conducted this interview with Korotkikh, was none other than Pavlo Sheremet. After his 2016 assassination in Kyiv, many blamed Korotkikh.
But more on all that tomorrow. For now, here’s the interview.
A Belarusian from the Azov battalion - a hero, adventurer or Nazi? The story of Sergei Korotkikh
In early December 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko gave Ukrainian citizenship by his decree to a scout from the battalion "Azov", a Belarusian citizen Sergei Korotkikh with the call sign Boatswain. The story instantly became scandalous, because Korotkikh's biography is too rich to ignore. "Belarusian Partisan" tracked down the fellow countryman and talked to him about his turbulent life.
In Ukraine Sergei Korotkikh with the call sign Botsman is an undoubted hero. With weapons in his hands, he resists Russian aggression, participated in heavy fighting near Ilovaysk and Mariupol.
For Belarusians, Sergei Korotkikh, nicknamed Malyuta, is a neo-Nazi, a friend of the head of the Belarusian branch of the Russian National Unity (RNE) [a transnational fascist organization - EIU], Gleb Samoilov, and a friend of special forces Valeri Ignatovich, sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2000 kidnapping of ORT cameraman Dmitri Zavadski [an ally of the man conducting this interview, Pavlo Sheremet - EIU].
Sergei Korotkikh is accused of participating in the beating of a group of Belarusian opposition activists back in 1999, and then - in 2013 - in a bloody conflict with Belarusian anti-fascists.
It should be added that Korotkikh is a friend of another Russian nationalist or neo-Nazi nicknamed Tesak, who is now in a Russian prison.
The mere enumeration of these facts alone already causes mild consternation. Therefore, the meeting of the Belarusian with the Ukrainian president and handing him Ukrainian passport a could not but cause questions and protests on the part of Belarusian journalists.
Belarusian journalists have never personally communicated with Siarhei Korotkikh. "Belarusian Partisan" searched for the Ukrainian citizen and asked him about everything in detail. The conversation turned out to be very long, the questions have been accumulated for almost 20 years. That's why we publish the interview in two parts.
Sergei Korotkikh was born in Toyagliati, Russia in 1974, but then moved with his parents to Belarus. From 1992 to 1994, he served in the Belarusian army and received a specialty of a specialist of technical means of intelligence. He served in a reconnaissance battalion. After serving in the army he entered the KGB school. He studied there for 2 years, but dropped out because of his connections with radical groups.
- I was expelled from the KGB school for Chernobyl Way 1996 [the largest protest against the Lukashenko government in the 1990s - EIU].
- What happened to you at Chernobyl Way?
- It's a well-known story, when there was an opposition rally in Minsk, which turned into clashes with the police. Naturally, due to my youth and desire to get some adrenaline, I was there.
- And you were there as a KGB officer?
- No. We were a group of people. Back then there were no soccer fans as such, they were just being created. It was a soccer or fan group.
- Was it that Chernobyl road when the militants of the Ukrainian UNA-UNSO [a Ukrainian fascist organization, members of whom later formed the famous Right Sector - EIU] came and overturned patrol cars?
- Yes, but in addition to the UNA-UNSO, there were also citizens of Belarus there. It was probably the first Maidan of the post-Soviet period, the first clashes with the police.
- But in 1996 you participated in Chernobyl on your own and not as a part of some organization?
- We had a group of people, we were interested in what was happening there. We could not pass by. We had connections with the BPF [Belarussian People’s Front, a nationalist, anti-Lukashenko organization - EIU], we were friends with them, we were in contact with them. In fact, they invited us there: "Here, there will be an event, come". They even paid us some money for it.
- So you, a cadet of the KGB school, were friends with the BPF?
- Yes. Why not? There were many of us.
- And how did you personally manage to escape punishment? Eight people from UNA-UNSO were imprisoned for that Chernobyl way protest.
- First of all, we saved some connections, acquaintances, and just paid money. They paid off the police.
- After 1996, did you participate in any opposition actions?
- No, because after that I realized that the Belarusian opposition can only frame you, but will not pull you out.
- And how did you end up in RNE, the organization of Russian fascists?
- I was a member of RNE from 1999 to 2001. I was brought there by Valera Ignatovich. Our parents came from the same village, a small town near Minsk - Krupki. And our grandmothers are cousins. That is, we have some distant family ties. And, naturally, we socialized. We practiced sports together: first judo, then karate.
- Did you join the RNE after you were expelled from the KGB school, in 1996?
- No, in 1996 Valera was an ideological militiaman. Valera is a unique person in his own way. He graduated with honors from the police academy, and he was an ideological cop. He didn't take bribes and joined the police because "the thieves need to be behind bars".
- Why was he expelled from Diamond?
- An injury.
- Or because of some criminal offense?
- An injury.
- But in the late 90s the police and Diamond were involved in some dubious stories related to the control over markets and entrepreneurs. Ignatovich couldn't have been involved in that?
- Naturally, not without it. Those years were the era of Lukashenko's young state, which gradually transformed into the state that Lukashenko has now. And, of course, at that time all the police were involved in criminal schemes. Nowadays, if it is involved, it is not in such a form, in any case.
- And how did you live before 1999, before joining the RNE?
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