RUSSIA24 — Spetsialnii reportazh
20261011 022700 UTC
349 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:01:30] area, the brutal murder of Russian prisoners of war. The paratroopers had their throats
[00:01:33] cut, and then the whole company of sadists
[00:01:37] watched. Those who were still clinging to life were finished
[00:01:40] off with shots to the head. We Russian soldiers, I'm telling you now for the
[00:01:43] Georgian Legion, we will never
[00:01:47] take Russian soldiers prisoner, just like Kadyrovites, not a single person
[00:01:51] will be taken prisoner. This is the founder of the gang of thugs,
[00:01:54] Mamuka Mamulashvili. He recruited his countrymen into the Georgian National Legion
[00:01:58] in the SSU after Euromaidan. Everything was legal. The then-authorities of
[00:02:02] Georgia officially allowed their citizens to fight on the side of
[00:02:05] Ukraine. For me, this is not new, this is a purely
[00:02:08] idealistic war for us. There are my
[00:02:11] comrades who, in principle, think the same way, and for us, this is our war, not
[00:02:15] a foreign war. Mamulashvili fought since childhood. At 14,
[00:02:19] the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, then the first Chechen war. He openly called
[00:02:22] his national legion the heir of another, also
[00:02:26] Georgian, which existed during the Second World War. Favorites.
[00:02:39] The craving for violence is a family matter. On social media, Mamulashvili found
[00:02:43] a photo from an old issue of the magazine Ogonyok, depicting Kikiai
[00:02:46] Mamulashvili, nicknamed "Caucasian Bandit".
[00:02:49] The caption reads "Great-great-grandson". Kikiai was a thief and terrorist. In
[00:02:53] 1914, he was shot dead during apprehension.
[00:02:56] A part of foreign mercenaries who
[00:02:59] professed openly Russophobic views, it's no secret
[00:03:03] that they were not even going for big money, so to speak.
[00:03:06] It was those who hated Russia and Russians,
[00:03:10] and who went there just to shoot at Russians. It was
[00:03:13] foreign instructors who, since the beginning of the Donbass conflict, prepared
[00:03:17] Ukraine for war. On the side of the war are also regular
[00:03:19] NATO, so-called specialists, well,
[00:03:23] just thugs, military advisors, instructors, technical
[00:03:27] specialists who provide non-consultative assistance. Mossad
[00:03:41] and Shin Bet officers trained the Dnepr battalion. This is
[00:03:44] 100% confirmed information. Moreover, they were involved in
[00:03:47] both combined-arms training, that is, firearms,
[00:03:51] tactical, tactical medicine, roughly speaking, military
[00:03:54] training, and special methods, for example,
[00:03:57] Mossad officers trained
[00:04:00] Dnepr battalion officers in illegal
[00:04:03] interrogation methods, roughly speaking, torture. Over time, the country became a large
[00:04:07] training base for radicals. Even ISIS members envied the number
[00:04:10] of camps with mercenaries. They didn't see me as
[00:04:14] one of their own, someone
[00:04:17] to protect, roughly speaking. If
[00:04:20] there was a very bad situation, "who should we send?"
[00:04:24] "Let's send me, that is, mothers there."
[00:04:27] They even jokingly called us "combat
[00:04:31] piglets," meaning to the slaughter. It's a pity they realize
[00:04:34] these combat piglets too late.
[00:06:48] Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia,
[00:06:51] Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia,
[00:06:55] Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia,
[00:06:59] Russia, 24.
[00:07:27] Torbeyevsky Central in Mordovia, where Ukrainian mercenary, a citizen
[00:07:31] of Georgia, Mamuka Gatsareli, is serving his sentence for the crimes he
[00:07:34] committed, namely the execution of Russian servicemen. He was sentenced
[00:07:37] to life imprisonment. By the way, he is the youngest among the
[00:07:41] prisoners with such a sentence. He is
[00:07:45] 24 years old. He came to Ukraine in March
[00:07:47] 2022. At that time, at the interview in the International
[00:07:51] Legion, he almost got rejected. Allegedly too young,
[00:07:54] short, without combat experience, only contract service in
[00:07:57] Georgia. After that, I decided to join the
[00:08:01] Georgian National Legion under Mamuka Shveli. I
[00:08:04] called him, he explained to me,
[00:08:07] get to Lviv, and I'll pick you up there. I
[00:08:11] got ready, they poured me there, well, I, roughly speaking,
[00:08:15] made it, because a couple of hours later we moved
[00:08:18] from Lviv to Kyiv, then one disappointment after
[00:08:22] another, but there was no turning back. I didn't like
[00:08:26] the situation inside the Georgian Legion, so I decided to leave
[00:08:29] it. What kind of situation? First, at that time, there were very bad
[00:08:32] conditions with equipment, second,
[00:08:35] the relationships. Many people, whom,
[00:08:39] how can I say, it's unclear what they went for. That is, if,
[00:08:42] excuse me, a person says, "I'm going for money, I'm going for an idea, I'm
[00:08:46] going for this, I'm going for that," that's understandable. But someone says, "I'm
[00:08:50] going for an idea, but I wouldn't mind earning some money."
[00:08:54] That's how Gatsarelia came under the wing of the Main Intelligence Directorate, from Kyiv to
[00:08:57] Dnepr, and from there straight to Mariupol. A group of thirteen
[00:09:01] people, Mamuka was the only mercenary among them. The task was
[00:09:04] to escort a helicopter. They landed, he and
[00:09:07] four others took positions in residential areas. But we waited
[00:09:10] out the night, that is, it wasn't an offensive. Just artillery shelling,
[00:09:14] from tanks, in short,
[00:09:17] well, the Grads, the youngest in the group, he was 19,
[00:09:21] he already, that is, thought he could handle it, and he already
[00:09:25] wanted, well, he kind of suggested, let's go, in short, to my father.
[00:09:28] He suggested deserting. Yes, so,
[00:09:31] why didn't they support him? Mmm, how can
[00:09:35] I put it? You can't do that, it's not manly, quiet,
[00:09:38] not manly. The artillery did its job, then our
[00:09:42] infantry went in. Well, I was standing right in position, noticed
[00:09:46] that a group was developing, four people were coming
[00:09:48] towards us. The first person with a heavy
[00:09:52] machine gun, PK RPK, and then these three, they had
[00:09:56] AK-74 weapons. Well, what did I do? I reported
[00:10:00] it on the radio.
[00:10:02] They told me to open fire. I fired three
[00:10:05] short bursts from my automatic rifle, killed three of them,
[00:10:09] one retreated. Well, and how did it feel after? You shot
[00:10:13] them. Honestly, I felt nothing. I, roughly speaking, didn't
[00:10:16] expect to do
[00:10:19] it so coldly. Coldly, cynically, without
[00:10:22] remorse. He felt sorry for himself. I'm a simple soldier,
[00:10:26] soldiers also disappear there, well, that is, they are taken prisoner. It costs me nothing.
[00:10:30] For some reason, they don't need me, and they don't want
[00:10:33] to help me in any way, roughly speaking, or my
[00:10:36] parents. I hoped that Zelensky would not
[00:10:39] deceive me. He surrendered at Azovstal after sitting
[00:10:43] in a bunker with a group of other militants. This moment really
[00:10:46] pissed me off, when I found out that there were almost
[00:10:50] 300 people at Azovstal plant. Why did it
[00:10:53] piss me off? Because there weren't enough
[00:10:57] people at the positions, we had no food, nothing.
[00:11:00] And those who were smart,
[00:11:03] experienced guys, took it upon themselves to stock up
[00:11:07] on food, made themselves comfortable there. They were
[00:11:10] sitting, drinking, well, as without drugs for
[00:11:13] some. Drugs were also there, of course. I don't know much,
[00:11:17] but I heard something about salt there. I didn't
[00:11:19] encounter it myself, but someone went to the bunker
[00:11:23] there, "damn, I'm not gonna sniff you..." He's salting again, drunks
[00:11:27] shooting at each other. He was promised a salary of 20,000
[00:11:30] hryvnias, and if he fought on the front line, a whole 100. Mamuka received
[00:11:34] not a penny. His parents didn't receive money either. So they
[00:11:38] should get something for you? Well, yes, I'm
[00:11:40] a contract soldier, that is, under the same
[00:11:44] conditions as any other AFU soldier.
[00:11:48] But your parents don't receive any payments from Ukraine?
[00:11:51] No, I regret that en masse
[00:11:55] I let down my parents,
[00:11:58] my younger brother, who begged me not
[00:12:02] to go. I asked, that is, write
[00:12:05] from the embassy, go there or something, that is, for them
[00:12:08] to help you, at least with something. The answer,
[00:12:12] "He is not a citizen of Ukraine."
[00:12:15] That's all. Speaking of embassies, it was diplomats
[00:12:18] who recruited and enlisted Gatsarelia, that's how he ended up in
[00:12:21] Ukraine. The first thing I did was visit the ambassador.
[00:12:26] Of Ukraine in Georgia, in Tbilisi or wherever, in Tbilisi,
[00:12:29] yes, I talked to the consul there, he explained to me
[00:12:33] what to do, gave me, well, the phone number
[00:12:36] of the curator, gave me a letter, like
[00:12:39] permission,
[00:12:42] so that they wouldn't stop me at the border.
[00:12:44] One of the ways for foreign
[00:12:48] mercenaries to join the AFU is to contact the Ukrainian
[00:12:51] embassy or consulate. Specially trained staff, in other
[00:12:55] words, recruiters, will gladly share any information
[00:12:59] and details. Exceptions among them, of course, exist, but there are
[00:13:02] not many of them. One of them, of course, is in Moscow. The Ukrainian embassy in
[00:13:06] Leontievsky Lane has not been working for several years.
[00:13:10] The recruitment of such soldiers of fortune
[00:13:13] by the Kyiv regime abroad has indeed become
[00:13:17] a part of Ukrainian political and military strategy.
[00:13:21] I want to say that, contrary to all norms, including through the websites of embassies,
[00:13:33] consulates general, and permanent missions of Ukraine
[00:13:36] abroad. Russia reacted to this by sending
[00:13:39] appropriate notes of protest and working with the authorities
[00:13:43] of the host country to minimize
[00:13:46] and reduce it to nothing. There are
[00:13:50] exceptions, Austria is one of them. After the scandal in Vienna, the Ukrainian
[00:13:54] embassy removed all appeals to citizens from social media. What can't be said about
[00:13:57] Finland? Instructions for those who want to fight in Ukraine
[00:14:01] are published on the website of the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[00:14:04] The main thing that the country's authorities recommend is to settle all affairs in case
[00:14:08] the return from the battlefield is delayed, or if the mercenary does
[00:14:11] not return at all. At the same time, Finnish officials clarify
[00:14:15] that mercenary activity in the Ukrainian army is not considered a crime, but
[00:14:18] Finland will not help wounded compatriots
[00:14:21] with either evacuation or treatment. The tab for those wishing to join
[00:14:25] the International Legion is published on the front pages of the Ukrainian embassy websites
[00:14:29] in Belgium, Greece, Latvia and
[00:14:31] Lithuania.
[00:14:33] Such atrocities that mercenaries committed on our
[00:14:37] territory, that is, we didn't
[00:14:40] have such a thing. Afghan war veteran Yuri Sukharukov
[00:14:43] says directly: current militants are more terrible than mujahideen.
[00:14:47] Ukrainian invaders razed his native village to the ground. Along with
[00:14:51] them, brigades of mercenaries advanced on the border. The first assault
[00:14:54] group that entered Suzha was mostly mercenaries.
[00:14:58] Mercenaries go in indiscriminately, that is, they throw, they know civilians are sitting there,
[00:15:02] the village is peaceful in the village, they throw grenades
[00:15:05] into all the cellars. Mostly all civilians died,
[00:15:08] there was no discrimination, woman or not woman, they shot everyone
[00:15:12] indiscriminately. In the neighboring village of Kurilovka, Kolya
[00:15:15] Kuznetsov, I know him well, we were friends, he was a resident
[00:15:19] of Kurilovka, already under occupation. He went with a bucket to fetch
[00:15:22] water. He ran
[00:15:25] into mercenaries,
[00:15:27] he had a bucket, he just came to
[00:15:29] the well to get some water, well, they shot
[00:15:33] him in the eye. This is... The investigation has
[00:15:42] received data on the participation in hostilities on the side
[00:15:45] of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as mercenaries of more than
[00:15:48] 16 thousand foreigners. These are citizens
[00:15:52] of seventy states, including the USA, Canada,
[00:15:55] Great Britain, France, and other Western European countries,
[00:15:59] Georgia, Poland, and the Baltics, Latin
[00:16:02] American countries. Many of them are ardent Russophobes,
[00:16:06] and that's what they rely on.
[00:16:44] Another Baltic nationalist, Valdast Bartkevichius, in the Kursk
[00:16:48] region, desecrated the mass grave of Soviet soldiers in Kazachya Loknya,
[00:16:51] destroyed the five-pointed star on the memorial stele, damaged the monument
[00:16:55] at the burial site, all to attract subscribers and money. On
[00:16:58] social media, he announced fundraisers for equipment, recorded tearful
[00:17:02] videos, and asked for donations. And we really need your help, because
[00:17:06] we don't have enough money to raise for four more
[00:17:09] pickups. The story of this Baltic ended differently: in
[00:17:13] 2022, 56-year-old Uldis
[00:17:16] Volmars joined the International Legion. He was wounded in the leg in battle,
[00:17:20] and they couldn't help him in Ukraine. He had to go home, but no miracle
[00:17:24] happened there either. After the operation, gangrene started, his leg
[00:17:27] was amputated, then complications spread to the second one,
[00:17:30] and it was also amputated. In his troubles, Volmars blames
[00:17:33] Ukrainian commanders, says that in that battle, they were betrayed.
[00:17:37] We were 300 meters from the Russians, we went to defend
[00:17:41] the water station, but I think someone betrayed us. I
[00:17:44] suspect this because they started bombing us. They bombed for 5
[00:17:47] hours, we couldn't get in or
[00:17:49] out.
[00:17:52] The loss of his legs and the betrayal of his commanders did not stop
[00:17:55] Volmars. In 2025, he returned to Ukraine. In
[00:17:59] Mykolaiv Oblast, he learned to assemble drones and
[00:18:02] control them. He went to the front line. In early June, he
[00:18:05] was eliminated by Russian fighters.
[00:19:07] on the phone, if at the beginning of 2022, there were still relations,
[00:19:11] like "these are our brothers, who came to us for peace
[00:19:14] with us and so on," then later, just put yourself in the shoes of some
[00:19:18] Ukrainian unit commander, he has his own Ukrainian soldiers
[00:19:22] and suddenly he has a attached unit of some
[00:19:25] foreigners, who, by the way, receive a salary several times higher
[00:19:28] than his soldiers, who will he protect more? He will, of course, protect
[00:19:32] his own more, and these foreigners, well, God be with them, who will
[00:19:35] worry about them? A special story: mercenaries from Latin America,
[00:19:39] heirs of Bolivar, adventurers whom hardly
[00:19:43] anyone can be proud of. The second type, which
[00:19:46] is more common, are people from countries
[00:19:49] with lower incomes,
[00:19:52] such as Colombia, Venezuela. These citizens
[00:19:55] come directly for the purpose of obtaining
[00:19:58] easy money, and these people are often
[00:20:02] typical losers who have no...
[00:20:06] served time. One of the most famous
[00:20:50] performers of Russian folk songs, Lidia Ruslanova, son of Iosif
[00:20:53] Stalin, Vasily, hundreds of thieves in law.
[00:20:57] Vladimir Kaplev was told about
[00:21:02] war criminals, Wehrmacht generals, Abwehr
[00:21:06] intelligence officers, Hitler's personal guard. Today, one of the cells
[00:21:09] has a place for a war criminal of our
[00:21:12] days. Lying
[00:21:15] there, watching, as if alive.
[00:21:18] He didn't explain, I only
[00:21:50] finished school, didn't study anywhere else, was involved in agriculture,
[00:21:53] worked as a security guard, for some time was an ambulance driver
[00:21:57] and participated in providing first aid several times. I found out about
[00:22:01] the SVO on TV, went to study social networks, saw an ad,
[00:22:04] paramedics are needed
[00:22:07] in the SOF.
[00:22:10] I saw information on TikTok on how to get to Ukraine, bought
[00:22:14] a ticket to Poland and from there by bus came to Lviv. Such
[00:22:17] a fertile ground for searching, recruiting,
[00:22:21] enlistment, and essentially deceiving
[00:22:24] foreigners to draw them into the mess. Why deceiving? Because
[00:22:28] they are not told where they will be sent. They are simply, so to speak,
[00:22:31] gathered like with a vacuum cleaner,
[00:22:35] including through social networks and messengers. What are they not
[00:22:39] promised? What tempting offers
[00:22:42] are not made? Pablo was promised 20,000 hryvnias a
[00:22:46] month, and on the line of combat contact, 50. But
[00:22:49] as in the case of the Georgian mercenary, something
[00:22:53] went wrong when signing the contract.
[00:22:56] There were about 40 of us, and we sat for 10 days. Every
[00:22:59] day they promised that we would sign the contract soon, but nothing happened.
[00:23:03] Among us were those who had been waiting for 2 months. We had bad conditions,
[00:23:06] they might not feed us. Those who had their own money bought
[00:23:10] food themselves. Some, who got tired of waiting, returned
[00:23:13] home. I had no money, I couldn't go anywhere.
[00:23:17] From Uzhgorod, Boris was offered to move to Sumy
[00:23:21] Oblast, supposedly for better conditions. Pablo agreed, signed
[00:23:24] a contract there and began serving in the 47th Brigade of the AFU. Ukrainian
[00:23:28] military assured that minimal knowledge of first aid
[00:23:31] is sufficient. After signing the contract, the mercenaries were sent to
[00:23:34] a training center.
[00:23:37] Training lasted only 2 days. We were given helmets, armor, weapons, but
[00:23:41] were not really taught anything. No training was conducted.
[00:23:44] When the front needs it,
[00:23:48] the number of days spent on training this
[00:23:52] mercenary decreases dramatically. That is, if
[00:23:55] there is a general course for a young soldier, which usually takes
[00:23:58] 2 weeks, the most averaged minimum that is currently applied
[00:24:02] in Ukraine to mercenaries is 2 weeks.
[00:24:06] When the front's need for
[00:24:09] human resources is very
[00:24:12] high, then this period is reduced to
[00:24:15] a week. What can you teach a person in
[00:24:18] a week, who has no combat experience? In January 2025,
[00:24:22] an order was received to evacuate the wounded from the combat zone.
[00:24:25] Pablo, with other mercenaries from Chile and Colombia, under the supervision of Ukrainian
[00:24:29] militants, loaded into a BMP Bradley and drove towards the Kursk
[00:24:33] region.
[00:24:36] They took our phones, they didn't show us a map and didn't tell us we were going to the territory
[00:24:39] of the Russian Federation. They told me to pull out the wounded. Almost
[00:24:43] immediately, the group came under fire, several were wounded, Pablo himself
[00:24:46] was concussed. The mercenaries were immediately abandoned. moment
[00:27:33] when unmanned aviation began to play a colossal
[00:27:36] role, Latin American mercenaries go to Ukraine
[00:27:39] not on their own, but many go there
[00:27:43] by order, figuratively speaking,
[00:27:45] of drug cartels, yes, these are Colombian, these are
[00:27:49] Mexican cartels, these are Peruvian, Ecuadorian drug
[00:27:53] structures that send their citizens to
[00:27:56] Ukraine with the task of gaining combat experience in modern
[00:28:00] warfare, including combat experience. The use
[00:28:03] of drones. And now Mexican cartels are sticking
[00:28:06] Ukrainian flags on their cars. This is a distinctive sign, a signal
[00:28:10] to everyone. The group's fighters fought in the ranks of the AFU, gained combat
[00:28:14] experience, and are ready to kill. That's why recruitment websites for
[00:28:17] foreigners are filled with bright videos and photos with
[00:28:21] happy faces of mercenaries. Regular marketing, these
[00:28:24] are the realities. Beautiful pictures are placed, and
[00:28:27] guys, uh, well, in tactical
[00:28:31] uniform, in beautifully equipped, with
[00:28:34] beautiful body armor with huge
[00:28:38] rifles, which creates in
[00:28:41] the average person a desire to try their luck,
[00:28:45] to try their fortune in this conflict, which we
[00:28:48] see when this topic attracts
[00:28:52] a large number of people who have generally not previously participated, who have
[00:28:56] no education, no skills
[00:28:59] or abilities acquired during
[00:29:02] compulsory service in their own states. All this
[00:29:06] against the backdrop of blatant chaos and talk of corruption among the mercenaries themselves.
[00:29:10] In the same Georgian Legion, scandals regularly erupt
[00:29:13] around commanders appropriating donations and laundering subscribers'
[00:29:17] money. A separate topic is payments to the families of the fallen.
[00:29:20] If the Kyiv regime, even in relation to its own citizens, does not
[00:29:24] keep its promises, despite everything, do you
[00:29:28] think they will be polite to those
[00:29:31] whom...
[00:30:02] forges signatures in Spanish and gets his kickback for it. That's
[00:30:06] what it turns out to be: behind pretty slogans about freedom, struggle,
[00:30:09] and brotherhood, there's just ordinary accounting. Trading human
[00:30:12] lives, especially other people's, as we found out, is very
[00:30:15] profitable. The main question is who earns how much from this
[00:30:19] war. It seems that this best explains
[00:30:22] what is happening on the other side
[00:30:24] of the front.