🇺🇦#BarAtWar
Andriy Fortunenko, a squadron of armored lawyers
“I am not scared, I feel worried. When we think about tomorrow, if there is no Kyiv, then there will be no legal profession, it will not be necessary at all. It is worrying how the economy will work, what our market will be like, how we will survive. Three weeks have passed, it’s not so terrible, people still have some money, but if it lasts six months, that’s another story”.
Interview by Dima Gadomsky. Translation by Olga Panchenko and Conal Campbell. Photographs by Maria Matiashova.
If you want to help Andruy and all Ukrainian lawyers to defend our country, please donate us at INDIEGOGO.
Where are we and what are you doing here?
We are in a secret tactical place, our unit of combat lawyers interacts with the territorial defense but in fact, is a separate volunteer unit, legalized somewhat differently. From the very beginning, when the fighting began to approach Kyiv, the task was to take control of this area in Pechersk, adjacent to the government quarter.
Plus — to catch petty criminals.
Have you caught someone?
We’ve been catching some morons so far. Well, yesterday, for example, three guys were stopped in a taxi, they did not understand where they were going. We put them on the ground, and tried to clarify — and found out that they were looking for a drug cache. They say, just don’t beat us, “they have already kicked the shit out of us on March 8”. Well, they went according to their data to look for a drug cache in the woods; one of ours with a machine gun followed them; this drug dealer asked — “Guys, are you going to kill me here?” It’s fun. And it turned out that the drug cache was buried under the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bogomolets street, in general, complete madness. Well, we handle these morons a little and let them go. And the others, there were three groups in all, we handed them over to the authorities.
Is your family safe now?
Yes, in Bila Tserkva (a city not far from Kyiv). Yes, there was shelling, once they fired on a residential house, but mostly on the area where the military unit was located. But in general, it is a safe place, we decided that it makes no sense to go further to Western Ukraine.
How do you feel, you are in your place now?
There is always a possibility that the unit to which we belong will be given another task — to guard something elsewhere, and then we will be there.
And, in a broader sense. How much time do you give yourself for such military actions? Do you think about how you will return to work? Do you think about clients?
It depends on the days. Today, for example, I plan to visit the office. I’m the only one who’s been in that office for the last two weeks — I’ve been there twice.
Was Yura Niechayev supposed to be there?
(Yura Niechayev, partner at AVELLUM delivers food to aged people. We will publish his interview tomorrow).
Maybe, I haven’t met him there. I do not leave work completely when we are on duty at night. There is a shorter period of duty. It is not always possible to pay attention to client affairs, but a team in Avellum continues to work on client projects. In addition, we have several cross-border projects, and because of the fighting, they do not stop, they go on, people work. As for the company itself, the work is going on. There is coordination because there are a number of colleagues and clients from abroad who asked how things were and offered to help with money. We raised a considerable amount for the needs of certain departments. And, the icing on the cake, we are not saying the names yet, but the list of sanctions included one person, the head of a large Russian corporation. We were told that his family registered a yacht somewhere in Europe. And we turned to colleagues from the United Kingdom and said, guys, if you want to help us pro bono, look for this yacht. And the guys were looking for five days, then came back with a folder of documents, we turned to colleagues in another country, and said — if you want to help, see what you can do.
So you have you sunk the ship!?
No, we have not. But that day, as it turned out, our “opponents” received permission from the port authorities at the state level to withdraw the yacht from the port. But our colleagues came to the local administration, showed the sanctions list, the documents on the yacht, and blocked its exit at the local level, and only then revoked the permit at the state level.
Did you take military training?
Yes, I was trained as a reserve lieutenant in the reserve-officer training department. The first thing I did when I took my family to Bila Tserkva — was I went to the military registration and enlistment office, and I was told — Dude, go away, there are already so many people here.
Well, I passed the military department like everyone else. We lawyers were trained as communicators. But come on, if everyone were such communicators as me, we would be f*cked up.
After the military enlistment office of Bila Tserkva, I went to the territorial defense unit of Bila Tserkva, I was also told to go away, then I contacted my colleagues, and on the third day, I came here. And also, I had some military training in 2014, when there were a bunch of training camps around Kyiv from different battalions, we were still getting some basics in the summer, and plus I had some shooting practice. Although it was more about self-defense weapons, pistols, and so on, there is still a basic understanding. This is not the first time I have held a Kalashnikov rifle in my hands, I have the basic knowledge.
What did you do on February 24, when the war began?
I did not believe until the last that it would happen. But on the evening of the 23rd, when I returned home late, I had a bad feeling. Then in the morning, I woke up to something that slammed loudly, laughed to myself that the level of anxiety was too high, climbed into my smartphone to look at the time, and there was Putin’s message, “special operation”, and so on. I quietly went downstairs, I thought that now the panickers would surround the ATMs, so we had to go down, withdraw cash, and in an hour, there was a queue of a hundred people. I calmly gathered myself, went to the office, shredded various confidential documents lying around the office because it was unclear what would happen to Kyiv. Calm preparations, although there was already shelling in Kyiv. It was a shock, but in general, everything was somehow calm.
And when did you first get scared?
It was scary, alarming, when, apparently, the equipment first came to Obolon, MT-LB [Russian armored tracked vehicles] and a few more cars, broke through. Then it was very similar to the blitzkrieg, people began to say that we were losing Kyiv. Then it was really terrifying that we were losing the capital.
And what scares now?
Not that it scares, but I feel worried. When we think about tomorrow, if there is no Kyiv, then there will be no legal profession, it will not be necessary at all. It is worrying how the economy will work, what our market will be like, how we will survive. Three weeks have passed, it’s not so terrible, people still have some money, but if it lasts six months, that’s another story.
What about fear? When I watched war movies, I was always scared that I would live in a war. But now I have no fear. Do you have any explanation for why there is no fear?
I thought about it, I had two very calm thoughts about it. I live near the South Bridge, and when there were mines and heavy equipment the next day, I realized that I live in a not very favorable place. And if the bridge is blown up, I’m cut off from the Right Bank of the Dnipro river. So I moved to the right, took my family with me, transferred them to Bila Tserkva, where I spent the day. And when I returned to Kyiv later, I realized that I was very calm, that I was returning to where I needed to be, where I should be instead of sitting in Bila Tserkva and reading the news. And from that, there I feel peace. I lived nearby for five years, in an old house on Mechnikova Street. This has been my district for the last five years. I drank coffee here, went to the office, and only moved to the left bank for a few months. And a little time passes — and I’m already guarding these places with a machine gun.
So, what did you come up with in your thoughts? Maybe this war is not so terrible? Am I just f*cking crazy and have no fear?
The answer “f*cking crazy” I always leave as a last resort, as an extraordinary option. Well, apparently, this is the stage of acceptance. We had the stage of denial before the war. I did not have a stage of panic or anger. There are two answers: either this is a calm attitude to stress because we can not prevent these events, but now we can influence these events, well, that’s how I am in this place now. Or that we are probably not in such positions as Kharkiv or Mariupol. All units have now been informed that a breakthrough to Kyiv is possible, everyone is on fire, and they have strengthened their posts and everything possible. In this area, everyone knows what to do and what others will do if there is a breakthrough to the center, and what all of us have to do is to stick to the plan. Today Pozniaky region of Kyiv has been shelled. A couple of days ago, the missile was shot down over Lukyanivka district, it is a bit further, but it is not Mariupol in the south-east of Ukraine. We do not have that threshold of sensitivity yet.
For what stake and why are you here?
The first answer and the most honest — for the sake of Kyiv. I have been living here for 17 years. When I go from the left bank to the right, and I see this panorama of the city — I understand that I will not leave Kyiv. There is a feeling that this is my place.
What is the most valuable thing you have with you now?
Apparently, a machine gun. I have it, and that’s all. How the guys got these machines before my arrival is a separate story. The most valuable thing is to be warm at night when it is minus eight, this is the most valuable.
Do you have dreams?
Nothing like that has changed. We do not have field conditions. We are not in a tent near Hostomel. There is a roof over our head, relatively comfortable conditions. This is not a house or even a student dormitory, but you can adapt. I still have some abstract dreams.
What do you want to say to the following colleagues we will write interviews with? It will be either Dima Saranchuk from VKP [Vasil Kisil & Partners] or Lilia Sekelyk.
Probably, just hello, and see you soon. And I want to convey and wish to everyone that there is little value in the emotional swings that we are all on now. Do your job, and wish everything ends with the right result.
What is the right result for you?
Formally, I think there will be an amicable agreement, the only question is when. And the right result — I think this is not the last war with Russia, that it will be two stages, as with Chechnya. I even raised my knowledge of history, and now it looks pretty similar to the League of Nations, as Germany left in 1933, as it is now with the PACE. And the issue was not resolved with it, and it went on. I look at the obsessives there, they all talk there, and about the Baltics, and in general. It seems to me that if the issue of Crimea and Donbas is not resolved now, it will happen again in five years. Again, they will have stories about biological laboratories in Mariupol, fighting bats near Kharkiv, and they will come here again. And people from the West will look and say — well, we don’t want to invest here, their neighbors are f*cked up, and it’s really risky.
If you want to help Andruy and all Ukrainian lawyers to defend our country, please donate us at INDIEGOGO.
