„Tausende Menschen starben in Krynyky. Das ist ein kolossaler Misserfolg, eine Tragödie und die Hölle“, sagte der Held der Ukraine, Serhii „Wolyna“ Wolynskyj, über Mariupol, die russische Gefangenschaft, die Operation in Krynyky und die Zukunft des Marinekorps

**Translation:**

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Serhii Volynskyi, better known to Ukrainians by his call sign “Volyna,” is one of those officers whose personal story is inseparably woven into the history of this war.

Crimea, Mariupol, “Azovstal,” captivity — these are not merely geography and dates, but successive stages of Ukrainian resistance and Ukrainian tragedy, lived through by him together with his brothers-in-arms.

In 2014, he was a young officer in Kerch, when the state was losing Crimea and the military chain of command was collapsing. In 2022, he was the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade, who held the defense of Mariupol and led fighters through a city that had already become a trap, fully aware of the price of every decision.

This interview is not only a recollection of the past, but an attempt to call things by their proper names. About betrayal of the oath and the silence of commanders, about decisions that cost hundreds and thousands of lives, about systemic failures of the state in its treatment of the Marine Corps — from 2014 to the present day.

Volynskyi speaks about Mariupol without pathos and without legends, but with the painful precision of someone who saw how morale collapsed and how, at the same time, resilience and brotherhood were born under inhuman conditions.

This is also a conversation about responsibility — military, political, moral. About captivity as a separate hell that not everyone emerges from, and about Krynky as a tragedy that still has not been named a tragedy at the state level.

And about why, without an honest conversation about defeats, we are doomed to repeat them.

This is also the first full-length interview of the legendary commander, a Marine Corps major, since his release from captivity. And a promise he gave to the author in 2022.

[Watch the full version](https://youtu.be/wu6_x1AIiwQ) of the conversation on the YouTube channel of “Ukrainska Pravda.”

# Out of a battalion of 300 people, only 20 made it from Crimea to the mainland

**— I first heard about you in 2014. You were serving in Kerch — that is my hometown. And that was exactly when the Russian invasion began. Can you recall those events?**

— We can start with the fact that your family fed us when we were isolated (at the military unit — UP).

After graduating from the Lviv National Army Academy, I was assigned to the 501st Coastal Defense Battalion in Kerch, which later became a Marine Corps battalion.

I recall those times very emotionally, because these circumstances had a strong impact on me as a young officer. We trusted our commander and expected some decisions from him at the time. But we heard no decisions at all, and in general he stayed to serve in the Russian Federation.

Fewer than three dozen people left the military unit and returned to Ukraine. All the rest betrayed the oath and remained in the Russian Federation.

**— How did their lives turn out?**

— Some of them we eliminated, and some — one hundred percent — continue to serve.

**— What were the moods among the brothers-in-arms who later betrayed the oath?**

— At the first stage, I think everyone was ready to carry out their tasks. Then, when there was isolation, there was no clear leadership and no orders, the entire military vertical and discipline began to collapse.

I remember when the commander of the military unit, Saienko, brought the first Russian general onto the territory of the military unit, I barricaded myself together with my subordinates in the officers’ briefing room, blocked the door with a safe, threw a chain-link bed net over the windows, and demanded that he expel the Russian general. We achieved that.

After that, we simply left the military unit with weapons and went underground, roughly speaking, until the evacuation was organized.

**— When did it become clear to you that, in principle, we had lost Crimea?**

— When the missiles started moving across the crossing, it became clear. That was before the “referendum.”

When we were leaving, for about 5–7 days there was a constant rumble. Everyone understood what was happening there. Then Cossacks appeared, beating servicemen outside the military unit. And when we saw that there was no longer any police, no longer any free movement of civilians around the city, when the city simply became empty — it was clear that something was happening. And this is definitely called war.

**— Do you maintain relations with the servicemen who left Crimea back then?**

— Of course, it’s like a family. For example, Vasyl Kmet was barricaded in that officers’ room together with me. He was tragically killed last year during assault operations, already while serving as the reconnaissance commander of a mechanized brigade.

You see, out of a battalion of 300 people, only 20 of us remained. And that was the kind of skeleton on which the battalion was later rebuilt.

**— What tasks did the state fail to accomplish that should have stimulated, in particular, the creation of a Marine Corps after 2014?**

— There are many things that were not done then and are not done today. The Marine Corps acts as an aggressive force that plugs gaps in certain sections of the front. That’s how it was from 2014, and it seems to me that this is how it continues.

As of today, there is no clear doctrine that the state adheres to in its relations with the Marine Corps. For example, if you take the 140th Marine reconnaissance battalion and the SOF Center, they perform absolutely identical tasks. But an SOF serviceman receives a salary of 40,000, while a reconnaissance battalion serviceman receives 20,000.

Since 2014, all resources, equipment, and weapons were received by the Marine Corps on a residual principle. Probably until 2018, my battalion in particular carried out missions exclusively on “Hummers” that had no armor at all. They had plastic doors, and the only thing that was durable there was the windshield.

**— And what changed after 2018?**

— Equipment began to appear. IFVs, BMP-1, BMP-2, APCs — in small numbers, but they somehow began to appear. That was due to the command.

**— So can it be said that the place of the Marine Corps in Ukraine’s military strategy was not defined at all after 2014?**

— I’m not sure it is defined even now. I don’t know how, as of today, a Marine brigade differs from an air assault brigade or from an infantry brigade. What is the difference?

**— Why is that?**

— We preserved the branch of service itself, but we did not learn how to employ these troops according to their purpose. For example, parachute jumps are still taking place even now. I honestly do not understand on which sections of the front, and what tasks, people who are training to conduct parachute jumps will be performing.

# We painted Zs and Vs on our vehicles and drove through Russian checkpoints to Azovstal

**— Let’s talk about the full-scale invasion. How did February 24, 2022 begin for Serhii Volynskyi?**

— At the battalion command post. At around 4 a.m., air and artillery strikes began.

**— Did you immediately understand the full complexity of the situation the Marine units in Mariupol found themselves in?**

— Probably not. Since 2014, my unit had carried out missions only on the Mariupol axis. All the positions, the city, all communications were familiar and routine to us. And it seemed to us that our experience and combat potential would be sufficient to repel attacks and enemy attempts.

**— Why, in your opinion, did that not happen? What went wrong?**

— I think because of the enemy’s overwhelming forces. And the first thing — we were losing in the air for a very long time. We had absolutely no air defense, and we had no Air Force support.

**— When we spoke with Denys Prokopenko, the commander of the Mariupol garrison, in 2022 — just before he went into captivity — he said that the enemy managed to cover the distance from the Crimean isthmus to Mariupol in four days, essentially by marching. As a result, Mariupol ended up encircled.**

**Let’s talk about the Marine units. How did the Marines try to repel these attacks by Russian forces?**

— How? At the cost of their own lives.

**— That is clear. Can you describe the episode when a large number of Marines ended up at the Illich Iron and Steel Works and for a long time could not move to Azovstal?**

— The breakthrough took place on April 12. Before that, extremely brutal fighting was ongoing. The Marines did not immediately end up at the Illich Plant. Until the very last possible moments, we held the first line, which had been prepared in engineering terms.

On March 1, there was an order from the brigade commander to move closer to the Illich Plant and deploy combat positions and the forward edge there. And in fact, the Marines ended up at the plant only because superior forces pushed them back from the positions they were holding.

For example, if we talk about Volonterivka, the settlement where our battalion held the defense, the Marines held on to every patch of land literally with their teeth, through superhuman efforts. For every ruined building, for every basement, for every meter. It was a very brutal fight.