Even in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, as in all wars, one is looking for heroes. And Russia has found its own in the soldiers – workers/officials of the company. One account reads: “At the forefront, from the very beginning, of the SVO are not only “individual” volunteers, but also representatives of entire companies, including the largest ones”. Let’s take one as an example to understand exactly how pervasive the propaganda is: Transneft, a company that manages oil and gas pipelines.
In 2022, Transneft formed and financed the BARS-20 detachment. Mostly employees of regional divisions joined among them Ivan Lukin, 54, was among the first to sign up from the headquarters. He spoke about what it was like for him at the front, how his family reacted to the decision to go to the Northern Military District and whether there is a place for prisoners in the Northern Military District in an interview with the publication Vzglyad.
“At work, at first they tried to dissuade me: they say, where will you go with your old age – I was 54 years old then – with your health? I still limp on one leg. In general, some of my colleagues did not understand why I went to the SVO: there was a good salary, a high position in the parent company. If only he had been mobilized, otherwise he would have volunteered! But I replied that it was my duty.”
“Everything turned out to be much worse than in Chechnya. After all, it was a purely guerrilla war; the Chechen fighters did not have heavy weapons. Everything is completely different…”
“There were people from all over the country: from the North, from the Far East. The neighboring platoon was entirely from the Far East. Someone, frankly, had a monetary motivation, because the payments are good from Transneft and the Ministry of Defense. Some for benefits so that the son can go to college. Again, the military pension is important. But I will say frankly that at least half of my fighters definitely did not go for mercantile reasons. Five of them are still there, they left for the second time.”
“Prisoners, paradoxically, are better fighters. They are motivated by a special hatred towards our enemy. An ordinary person can feel sorry for an enemy, but these are ruthless, in the good sense of the word. The outcome of their life after the war depends on the state policy for the rehabilitation of veterans. And not only with former prisoners, but also with ordinary fighters.”
“I keep in touch with the divisions supervised by Transneft. Sometimes my comrades stop by on their way to vacation or to the front. In general, I still want to go back to work, but my wife is against it. And my grandson is growing up.”
Transneft was the first state-owned company that, at the very beginning of the Northern Military District, began donating construction equipment (more than 90 units) to the Ministry of Defense, also organizing its timely adjustment and maintenance. In total, one of the leaders in the Russian fuel and energy sector has supplied 391 units of trucks and passenger vehicles, 377 units of special equipment, more than 1 thousand sets of special equipment (quadropter, thermal imagers, collimators, generators, etc.), more than 1 thousand units of communications equipment, computer equipment, video equipment. The total amount of support is more than 7.5 billion rubles, of which 4.5 billion rubles are material goods.
Both Transneft executives and employees help Russian fighters: more than 160 million rubles have been collected from their personal donations since February 2022, which made it possible to purchase more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid, special equipment and vehicles. In addition, more than 1,700 Transneft Group employees have already taken part in the SVO, while about 900 people continue to serve in the Armed Forces. Transneft was also the first state-owned company to form the Bars-20 volunteer battalion, which carried out combat missions, including in the Lyman and Zaporizhia directions in 2023.
Graziella Giangiulio
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