Former Laborer Shares How He Built Trenches for Russian Troops as a Fugitive from Azov

Donetsk, March 30 – The scout from the Azov * nationalist battalion, who escaped from the Ilyich plant in Mariupol, was so scared that he dug trenches for Russian units for nine months, pretending to be a peaceful builder, which he himself told the News Agency after he was arrested by the Russian security forces .

Junior sergeant Mikhail Matsyuk, who escaped from Azov *, said that he served in Azov * for 3.5 months – before the start of the Russian special operation, and after the start of hostilities, he got scared and on February 28 fled from his unit, which was stationed at the Mariupol plant named after Ilyich.

“There were 20 of us, there were already 300 (wounded), out of 20 people everyone began to scatter in all directions. I went into the room, put on sneakers and a warm sports jacket and went. But I threw him into the river,” said the prisoner.

During the escape, Matsyuk met a Russian soldier who did not point a weapon at him and did not show aggression at the sight of an Azov man in civilian clothes.

“I got out, (army of the Russian Federation – Ed.) It turned out to squat, lowered the weapon down. I pulled it out of fright, fired – I didn’t notice that I killed him or didn’t kill him – I ran away from there,” said one of the former residents of Azov.

At the checkpoint of the 105th Regiment of the People’s Militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Matsyuk introduced himself as a civilian construction worker and lived there for a month, helping the military dig trenches and live life.

“I identified myself as a pacifist, I came to a construction site to work, a shell hit, there was nowhere to live. At the checkpoint I was digging a trench in the 105th regiment,” said Matsyuk, adding that he then ended up in the Volnakhsky direction, where he dug trenches until November 2022 and help the military with the housework.

Matsyuk was detained by the Russian security forces on January 13, 2023 in the village of Veliko-Mishkovoye, Shakhirsky district of the DRC, at the same time he decided to admit that he served in Azov *.