https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/c585086a-3c8f-49c0-96f1-941e8d8b5746 On 1 March 2014, the covert operation to occupy Donbas began. A flood of Russian "tourists" arrived, pretending to be locals and demanding to join Russia. This was recorded in many cities - including Luhansk, filmed here. Despite direct orders from their FSB curators not to reveal their presence in Ukraine, many of them were stupid enough to film themselves. On 4 March 2014, Russian flags were hung all over Luhansk. Russian propaganda immediately called it "Luhansk residents want to join Russia". But one group of these "activists" couldn’t resist and recorded an archival video for themselves. One of them is Ivan Syrovatsky, a Russian citizen from Voronezh Oblast. It is exactly him on the video saying he came to Luhansk with Belykov. Interestingly, he served in the 137th Regiment (Ryazan) in 2013 and was discharged from the Russian army just shortly before these events. Many of the Russians who took part in the Donbas events at that time had only recently been active-duty Russian servicemen which is how the Russian army covertly amassed in Ukraine prior to Igor Girkin's group arrival on 12-13 April. Next is Sergey Belykov, a Russian citizen, also from Voronezh Oblast. He is the one who filmed this exact video. And it is him that Syrovatsky was referring to when he said they came to Luhansk together. Interestingly, as of August 2014 Sergey Belykov was an active serviceman in the 331st Regiment (Kostroma, Russia). This is the very same regiment that fought against Ukraine in Donbas in August 2014. At that time, near Ilovaisk, Ukrainian forces captured 10 soldiers from this unit. Sat, 16 May 2026 11:56:20 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-512x512.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/c585086a-3c8f-49c0-96f1-941e8d8b5746 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.