Returned from abroad to fight. Ivan (35).
The 35-year-old Ivan found the start of the full-scale war abroad. A few years later, he decided to return to Ukraine and join the army.
“When I crossed the border, I told the border guards that I wanted to fight. I planned to go home, and from there go to TRC on my own. But it turned out that the TRC employees came right after me. Everything went smoothly — no one bothered anyone,” he recalls.
The military medical commission decided that Ivan was healthy [fit to service]. Then he was sent to the Lviv region, where he underwent basic combined-arms training for a little over a month. After the basic military exercises, representatives of "Skelya" arrived at the training ground and selected some of the soldiers. Thatʼs how the group ended up in the unit — they were taken to the training ground. There they were met by armed men and a drone in the sky.
Later, representatives of different units began to come to the training ground and select soldiers. The first to recruit people was the fire support company. Ivan says that the selection was very strict: from his group after the basic military training, only six people were selected there. He also ended up in another unit.
“Different instructors worked with us. I ended up in good hands. It was different in other units. I saw how people were mocked. Those who refused to do something were sometimes handcuffed and then sent ʼto zeroʼ without training,” says Ivan.
Ivan was not subjected to physical violence. The punishments were different.
"Once the head of the training ground arrived in a bad mood, went into our tent, and we had food sent by our relatives. At the training ground, according to his rules, you couldnʼt eat in the tents, only in the dining room. We were taken to the dining room, where we were ordered to eat three portions. After that, we were sent to an obstacle course to run ten laps. Many were nauseous, people were vomiting. Nearby, they were shooting and throwing training grenades," he says.
Ivan prepared for his first combat mission for about two months. Then he was sent to the Pokrovsk direction, where he was wounded. After treatment and rehabilitation, he was selected for another job — an instructor. Then Ivan met “Zheka” (the head of the training ground) and "Patriot" (the senior instructor).
"The first time I saw people being beaten was when I became an instructor. There were posts around the perimeter of the training ground. Once, one of those on duty either fell asleep or something. After that, ʼZhekaʼ gathered the guards and ordered to punish the guilty. They didnʼt even figure out who it was, they just chose people at random. The guys didnʼt want to do it, but it was an order. If you refuse, you will end up in their place yourself," says Ivan.
The then head of one of the "Skelya" training grounds was Yevhen Harkusha ("Zheka"), whom Ivan talks about.
Ivan saw how the soldiers were sent “to the pit”, where Russian prisoners of war were also held.
“Everyone [there] lived together, worked and shared food,” he recalls.
Once he himself beat a man.
“We had Brazilians. One of them refused to follow the order. Then the instructor with the pseudonym ʼKaryʼ gathered the instructors and said: ʼGo, explain to him how it works.’ We went and beat him,” Ivan says.
If a “pencilman” — as in “Skelya” a soldier was called — ran away, they didn’t just punish him. If someone was responsible for him, that person could be beaten in public. Ivan says that during his time as an instructor, he knew of five cases of suicide among soldiers.
“Deaths from pneumonia are not true. I had pneumonia, I was treated. Soldiers who needed it were taken to the doctors. If someone died, it was because of the beatings,” he says. Sometimes those who tried to escape were blown up by mines. Sometimes nails were attached to grenades with tape to increase the number of fragments and the radius of damage.
Ivan caught the inspections that were conducted last year it “Skelya”. According to him, when inspectors came to the training ground, the head of the training ground “Zheka” would leave, and a person with the pseudonym “Filin” would be brought in instead.
“At the meeting, they told us: ʼToday you are calling him ʼZhekaʼ. That is, as far as I understand, he was introduced as the head of the training ground,” Ivan clarifies. During such inspections, none of the military personnel would tell what was actually happening at the training ground.
Ivan decided to go AWOL when he was appointed to be responsible for training the new arrivals. He had over 100 people under his command.
“At one of the meetings, ʼZhekaʼ said that everyone had to go through a 14-day assault training course. If we don’t do what’s required, they’ll ask us questions. I realised that I wouldn’t be able to manage with it,” he says. That same day, he decided to leave the training ground, he got permission to go into the city and never returned. Since then, Ivan has been in AWOL.
After escaping, he wanted to transfer to another unit. As an option, he considered one of the famous assault brigades. However, when they found out that he served in “Skelya”, they refused.
“They said that if I showed up now, they would immediately come for me and take me back. They advised me to go home and wait until something changes. If I am detained now, they will transfer me back to ʼSkelyaʼ. And there they will ʼto zeroʼ. I am sure of it,” he recalls. Now Ivan wants to serve as an instructor or in the UAV unit.
Fought since 2015, volunteered in 2022. Danylo (35).
Danylo is 35 years old and has been fighting intermittently since 2015. With the outbreak of a full-scale war, he returned to the army and joined the unit where his comrades served. After two years of service, he was wounded. During treatment, he was taken out of state, which meant significantly lower payments. After being discharged from the hospital, Danylo was supposed to return to the unit, receive a referral for rehabilitation, and undergo a military service.
"When I arrived back at the unit, they didnʼt give me a referral for an examination. I just sat in the unit for a while, even though there was shelling all around. If I had been wounded, my relatives wouldnʼt have received any payments," he says.
Danylo says he tried to resolve this problem with the leadership, but in the end he went AWOL. While he was looking for an opportunity to return to service in another unit, he was sent to one of the reserve units. Later, representatives of "Skelya" arrived there and took him with them.
"I didnʼt know what kind of unit it was. I arrived there, they immediately took our phones away, and started chasing us. And then I saw what was happening there," Danylo says.
Danylo himself was never beaten, but in the second week of training, one of his company soldiers committed suicide. Danylo says he found a cartridge for his Kalashnikov, loaded the weapon, and shot himself in the chin. This is not the only case of suicide he knows of.
Danylo briefly describes the conditions at the training ground: sometimes the soldiers didn’t even have time to eat properly. About 400 people came for lunch, and there was only one food distribution. Because of the long line, almost the entire hour allotted for lunch was spent waiting.
After that, everyone had to gather near the tents to line up and return to classes. If any of the soldiers were absent, everyone was punished: they could be forced to stand in line until the absentees returned.
“Because of this, many didn’t go to lunch at all, because they understood: then you won’t have time, and everyone will be punished because of you,” says Danylo.
This is what the "strip" that Danylo is talking about looks like. The video shows smoke rising as it passes through the strip.
Another punishment was the so-called “strip”. The soldiers were forced to crawl through a swamp under barbed wire, and during this, the instructors fired from machine guns next to their heads.
“They shot literally 20 centimeters from a person, under the ears. Not everyone could stand it,” says Danylo. Sometimes commanders were also punished in this way. If the range chief didn’t like something about the commander’s work, he could be sent to this “strip” along with other commanders.
“There were trenches, a swamp, they threw smoke at them and started chasing them. One of them got so sick that the medics pumped him out — he was inhaling smoke,” the man adds.
To leave the landfill, you had to get permission from the head of the landfill "Zheka". Anyone who left without it was sent to the pit.
Danylo says that for a long time he spent his own money on the needs of the service.
“Every month it was tens of thousands of hryvnias. I was constantly moving between different regions on official business, refueling the car at my own expense. Back then, I still had enough, because I received combat pay,” he says. Later, he began to be involved in recruiting work. He paid for fuel, housing, for everything himself.
Danylo says he immediately warned the command. If he was transferred to this job without combat pay, he would not be able to cover the costs on his own.
“They told me that everything would be formalized according to the documents as if I would continue to receive combat pay. The main thing is to do my job, and they promised to resolve the rest of the issues,” he adds.
Danylo worked in this mode for several months, and when he finally received his military pay, a significant part of the money went to fuel and car repairs.
"The next day they wrote to me and told me to transfer a certain amount of money. Then I thought — okay, you can borrow it once and give it back. But next month it will be the same. I will get into debt again. And if I say that I donʼt have the money, they will beat me and send me to the assault. I realized that I canʼt take it anymore. I turned around then and left," the man says.
After that, Danylo tried to return to service in another unit more than once. However, when they found out that he had gone AWOL from “Skelya”, they refused.
“At first they told me: ʼYes, it’s OK, nothing to worry about’. When I said that I was from ʼSkelyaʼ, the answer was different: ʼNo, then it’s not OK’.”
A volunteer in 2014, returned from abroad to fight in 2022. Serhiy (35).
Serhiy is 35 years old. He volunteered for the war from the very beginning — in 2014. He served until 2017, after which he resigned and worked in the civilian sector. In February 2022, he was abroad and planned to stay there.
However, after February 24, he decided to return and join the army. He says that he tried to be in time for the battles for Kyiv, his hometown. In early March, Serhiy was already in Kyiv, where he went to the military registration and enlistment office. He took part in the battles for Kyiv region, and later fought in the Bakhmut and Vuhledar directions.
In the spring of 2025, the volunteer unit in which Serhiy served was disbanded. According to him, the soldiers who remained in the unit were transferred to "Skelya". He noticed problems in the regiment in the first hours after his arrival. Despite his officer rank and combat experience, he was sent to undergo the basic military exercises along with other newcomers.
"We were trained by those who have been in the army much less than us. The conditions are bad, but we didnʼt come to something like live in a five-star hotel either. The most important thing is the attitude towards people. And this is a disaster. You could be beaten for nothing, like just ʼfor preventionʼ or to ʼcheer upʼ,” he says.
Serhiy says he witnessed a brutal beating of a soldier he knew personally.
“In a few minutes, they ʼworkedʼ with him so hard that I didn’t recognize him. Everything that was inside him just came out,” he recalls. There were other episodes when a person’s face could have been smashed. Serhiy was hit like that once, but he says that in “Skelya” it’s not considered a beating.
Serhiy says he witnessed two suicides among the military.
“A man shot himself in the toilet. Everyone knew about it, but they ordered to say that he survived. In the morning he shot himself, and in the evening he was already reported as being on a tour of duty,” he says. Serhiy adds that he has seen cases of beatings of people who had no problems with discipline or addictions.
“You could get it for anything. For example, for a slightly dirty weapon that the person was actually cleaning,” he says.
Serhiy says that he had been planning to escape since the training ground. However, he decided to give himself time and see how the unit would perform in the work. After the combat missions, he realized that the problems went beyond the training ground. Serhiy spent more than half a year in “Skelya” and had two combat missions.
“The first battles took place very quickly. The losses were so numerous that the unit fought for about two weeks. Orders were given by people who either were not there or were on combat missions even very little,” the man says.
Serhiy says that after what he saw in the unit — at the training ground, in the headquarters, and in battle — he decided to run away. Before that, he made several attempts to transfer, but all unsuccessfully. One night, they suddenly decided to transfer him to another battalion, he had to immediately leave for a new place of deployment. Then he finally made up his mind, he got into the car and simply drove in a different direction.
“After AWOL, ʼSkelyaʼ is looking for you on their own. I knew their methods, and I knew how to hide.”
Serhiy does not refuse to serve.
“I want to continue fighting in a combat position. I did not come to Ukraine to sit in Kyiv. They were happy to take me to other units because of my skills, but for a long time I could not get anywhere because ʼSkelyaʼ was throwing spanners in the works,” he sums up. Serhiy says that now he finally has hope that he will be able to transfer.
Volunteer of 2022. Went AWOL for the second time in "Skelya". Viktor (47).
Viktor is 47 years old, he joined the army as a volunteer in 2022, and a year later he went AWOL. According to him, this happened after a conflict with the commander due to family circumstances. For this he received a sentence and served his sentence in a colony. From there he returned to contract service, in "Skelya". At the training ground, Viktor constantly witnessed the cruel treatment of recruits.
As punishment, he said, people could be placed in containers used to transport goods. They held both military units and Russian prisoners.
“There was a leader there. He liked to shoot with a military weapon right next to people. Once, when a person was being held in a container, he opened fire. After that, medics arrived, and then someone was taken from there,” says Viktor.
Viktor also volunteered to give the call signs of commanders and instructors who, according to him, were distinguished by their cruelty. Like others, he mentions “Zheka”, as well as “Patriot”, “Kary”, “Rosomakha”, “Chechen”, “Pushka”, and “Jordan”.
Viktor also recalls how a foreign instructor with the call sign "Bob" fired a combat weapon during training, when the soldiers were practicing passing through trenches. One of the bullets ricocheted and wounded the soldier in the leg.
"It was lucky that the sole was hard, the bullet didnʼt go far. He was treated and returned. But the fact is that the person was injured because the instructor just wanted to," Viktor says.
While in "Skelya", Viktor went AWOL. The first time was because he had a fight with the commander. However, he returned and ended up among the "penalties".
“They wanted to beat me, but one of the deputy commanders said not to touch me, because I came alone. But they locked me in a container for 24 hours," the man recalls.
The next day, Viktor was sent on a combat mission. During this sortie, he says, he and several other soldiers were not dropped off at the designated location due to the threat of FPV drones. The group remained at the landing site, where they hid from the drones throughout the day.
“I was the only one with combat experience, so I told the guys what to do so that they wouldn’t find us. As a result, everyone returned alive,” he adds.
Viktor says that he had back problems and had been asking the command for a long time to be taken to the hospital for an examination. In the end, he succeeded. The doctor said that he needed an operation. Immediately after that, he was sent on another combat mission, as he says "for a clean-up". He also adds that it was called "punishment" for something he did not commit. Viktor was able to prove that he was not guilty, so he was not sent on this mission. The comrade who was sent then did not return. In the end, Viktor realized that he would not be able to be treated in "Skelya", and decided to go AWOL.
Viktor, like the others, says he wants to continue serving. He has now been approved for transfer to another unit, but officially he is still a member of "Skelya".