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One of the drivers was hit, but the wound turned out to be non-fatal. Attackers, positioned on a large berm nearby, were utilizing machineguns and assault rifles. Despite these factors, "Azov" refused to give ground. Soon enough, one attacker was killed, and militants were routed

During the annexation of Crimea, Girkin was put in charge of the โCrimean Self-Defenceโ, an auxiliary militia of local collaborationists. Under the auspices of the โSelf-Defenceโ he also commanded a group of professional โgreen menโ.



One of the units that suffered the heaviest losses during the retreat was the 93rd Brigade in fighting near Chervonosilske. Among the dead was Pvt. Ihor Vlasov from Ternivka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. He was mobilized in the spring, previously participating in the Maidan. 

Ukrainian forces had been in heavy fighting for months, most of the units were heavily battered, what fresh reserves there were were lightly armed and hardly trained. The best troops were not on the border, but fighting to encircle Donetsk and Luhansk.
https://twitter.com/OKhudetska/status/1852057174043972019

Right when the bloodshed seemed to stop, Russia and it's proxies invaded. Andrii tried signing up to about 10 different units to fight, but none took him because of his age. 

Even Gubarev's guys were shocked by this unceremonious death threat to a random local whom they were supposedly liberating. These fucking idiots really had no idea what sort of hell they had just helped unleash onto their home region.
Ruslan documented his time there, and his photographs give us a small insight into the unyielding defence of the airport, under constant bombardment in cold collapsing ruins, fighting off unending attacks by Russian paramilitaries and regular Russian army forces.

It is also around this time that members of the Russian Orthodox Army kidnapped two Deacons of a local Pentecostal church, V. Velychko and V. Bradarskyy as well as their sons 30 year old Ruvim and 24 year old Albert. They were taken to the vicinity of Mt. Karachun and shot.
Outside of Ukraine the annexation of Crimea is remembered as a quick event, with Moscow seizing the peninsula in a flash. This paints an incorrect picture. The annexation was a month-long standoff that saw Russia extensively employ collaborationists and non-state actors.
Starting in July, Ukrainian forces were on the offensive throughout the Donbas. Near Luhansk, the besieged Ukrainian garrison at the Luhansk Airport was relieved as Ukrainian forces surrounded the city to the west, north and south.
On March 1st, amid the ongoing annexation of Crimea, Russian nationalist protests erupt simultaneously in much of the south-east, including regional capitals such as Kharkiv and Donetsk. In Mariupol the crowd breaks into the City Council, but loses interest by day's end.
โ Beginning on the 6th, aggressive separatist mobs started taking over administrative buildings throughout the east. "People's Republics" were declared in Donetsk and Kharkiv, though the Kharkiv one was swiftly neutralized on the 8th.https://twitter.com/doctoradmiral/status/1777463053979643995
๐๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ถ๐น ๐ต๐๐ต
On the 6th, a growing separatist crowd gathered near the Oblast Administration Building. At around 21:00, the crowd started clashing with police and eventually broke into the building.https://twitter.com/doctoradmiral/status/1777068058265190527?t=Of1vMk42TOVi5iq07HGMqw&s=19
https://twitter.com/doctoradmiral/status/1764380904141603291?t=84IfHLt4jf5BfmByBzl0hw&s=19
March 4th, 2014 https://twitter.com/doctoradmiral/status/1764616421705691217?t=bMS3eCrPqHDy15SpuZJM4g&s=19
https://twitter.com/doctoradmiral/status/1764616450780672016?t=gF9-fN0IrmgSxSUPDcSO-A&s=19
Oleksandr Sobol, an activist from Donetsk, recounts: "When the Euromaidan happened, not many people showed up here. You have to understand, this isn't Kyiv. It's hard to gather people together here. But on March 5th, we saw that it really was possible."