Mozgovoy, the “Ghost” Brigade, and Donbas

Mozgovoy at a rally in the Donbas, 2014: “Ukraine, Russia, Belarus – Holy Rus”

Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the rail union RMT, continues to receive a lot of flak – especially whenever there is a strike on London Underground – for his meeting with, and subsequent words of praise for, Alexei Mozgovoy in 2015.

Mozgovoy was the commander of the separatist “Ghost” Brigade in Alchevsk (Donbas, Eastern Ukraine) which he ruled over as a kind of personal fiefdom. Dempsey met him there in May 2015.

After Mozgovoy’s murder a fortnight later, Dempsey wrote a glowing obituary about him in the Morning Star: “A charismatic anti-fascist militia leader. … He declared his allegiance to the cause of building a people’s and socialist Novorossiya. … Towards (Mozgovoy’s) precious goal his comrades will continue their late commander’s struggle.”

Dempsey has never distanced himself from that assessment of Mozgovoy.

Andrei Kozlov’s The Real ‘Ghost’ of the Donbas: The Life and Fate of the Commander of the ‘Ghost’ Brigade: Hero of Novorossiya Alexei Mozgovoy, published in Moscow last year, provides some useful insights into the anti-fascism and socialist aspirations attributed to Mozgovoy by Dempsey.

Like Dempsey, Kozlov is a great admirer of Mozgovoy. But he differs from Dempsey in his political characterisation of Mozgovoy:

“A commander. An individual with a capital “i”. A man. A leader. A friend. … A defender of the Russian language, of Russian culture, of the military-historical traditions of Russia and the Soviet Union.”

Kozlov is better placed to assess Mozgovoy than was Dempsey. He was the head of the Ghost Brigade’s counter-intelligence service between November 2014 and May 2015, before returning to his legal practice in Moscow.

His book is anecdotal rather than a product of academic research. Its contents fail to live up to the pretentions of its title. It is adulatory, even hagiographic, rather than critical. Even so, it has a certain value.

The reader learns, for example, that in his earlier years Mozgovoy, a Ukrainian by birth, had been a member of Young Guard, a kind of Soviet-nostalgic youth wing of the pro-Russian and pro-oligarch Party of the Regions which was run by one of its MPs (Arsen Klinchaev).

Mozgovoy was working in Russia at the time of the Maidan. Before heading off to the Donbas, Kozlov writes, “a meeting took place in the Russian State Duma on 10th April (2014) at which Mozgovoy met with Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Sergei Mironov, leaders of the LDPR and ‘Just Russia’ parties. In his own words, he succeeded in securing their moral support.”

Zhirinovsky was a far-right ultra-nationalist demagogue. Mironov is a corrupt pro-Putin Russian nationalist, subject to western sanctions for financing of pro-separatist armed groups in Ukraine.

Like Klinchaev, strange allies for “an anti-fascist militia leader”.

On returning to the Donbas, Mozgovoy initially took over the leadership of Young Guard. Although Kozlov omits to mention it, banners at the rallies at which Mozgovoy spoke at that time called for the unification of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus into “Holy Rus” (with no mention of Dempsey’s hallucination of “a people’s and socialist Novorossiya”).

By the time Kozlov first encounters Mozgovoy, the latter had created his Ghost Brigade and taken control of Alchevsk. Intentionally or unintentionally, Kozlov’s description of Mozgovoy’s office and physical appearance sums up the latter’s politics:

“On the table there were several icons, and next to them there gleamed a scattering of revolver ammunition. … My memory tried to recall the name of one of the White generals [who fought against the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war] who resembled this man sitting at the table.”

On learning that his latest volunteer is a solicitor by profession, Mozgovoy gives him the job of sorting out the mess left behind by his staging of a “people’s court” a few weeks earlier.

The “people’s court” had allowed the two hundred or so attendees to vote on the penalties to be imposed on two alleged rapists. It was probably the only time anyone in Mozgovoy-controlled Alchevsk had a chance to vote on anything. The vote was: Execute one; send the other to the front lines.

Mozgovoy had also used the event as a forum to explain his views on the role of women.

Troubled by subsequent criticisms of his “people’s court”, Mozgovoy gives Kozlov the job of writing a justification of the trial. The latter obediently produces a document explaining that the “people’s court” was perfectly consistent with Articles 6, 10 and 11 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Kozlov even suggests that more “people’s courts” should be held: “Ideally, there should be another two or three such trials. Repetition of the procedure is a sign that the trial has been conducted properly and rights observed.” Wisely, Mozgovoy did not take up the suggestion.

Muscovites might also want to think twice about engaging Kozlov as their solicitor.

Kozlov makes much of Mozgovoy’s success in reducing crime rates in Alchevsk, especially in relation to drug-dealing: “As soon as the Ghost Brigade arrived in Alchevsk, it launched a particularly merciless war on drugs. By the end of the first month of raids several drugs laboratories had been destroyed.” Illicit stills met the same fate.

Hoping to be able to cut a deal with Mozgovoy, the local drugs barons ask for a meeting with him. Kozlov describes the meeting:

“… Mozgovoy made a counter-suggestion. Within 24 hours there would no longer be any drugs-dealing. Anyone caught would have only themselves to blame. Dealers would be executed by a firing squad. Users would be given therapy in the form of digging trenches (at the front).”

Mozgovoy did not take kindly to the veiled threats of violence triggered by his counter-suggestion:

“Mozgovoy pulled out the safety pin from a grenade and gripped it in his hand. With his other hand he pulled out his Stechkin automatic revolver. He shot the person making the threats in the leg. And left. After having warned them that in fifteen minutes a Shmel flame-thrower, and possibly not just one, would be used on the building.”

There were some odd characters in the ranks of Mozgovoy’s “anti-fascist” militia. Kozlov describes a scene in which Mozgovoy inspects some new recruits to the brigade. They tell him:

“We carry out military activities and agitation. We are Communists! We are Russian Communists! We are for the interests of the Russian people! For Russian ideas! We came here to fight against the Zionist threat. Against the Jewish conspiracy and the attacks on the Slavs.”

Mozgovoy responds by pointing out that Communists are meant to be internationalists. Less positively, he expounds on his own understanding of Zionism:

“A lot has been written about Zionism. I’ve read it. But what is Zionism? It is greed, the craving for unfounded and unjust power, and the desire to live at the expense of others. To accumulate wealth for oneself at the expense of the sweat of others, at the expense of the blood of others.”

Despite the book’s length (332 pages), Kozlov curiously finds no space for the many other colourful characters who were to be found in Mozgovoy’s brigade.

Such as Alexander Kostin, a co-founder of the Ghost Brigade and one of its commanders. Kostin went on to create a brigade of his own. As he explained in an interview with “The Line of the Russian People” (“For Russian Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nation”) in late 2014:

“I helped set up the Ghost Brigade and was one of its commanders. Then a new battalion was set up, “August” – the August Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and Mother of God Brigade. It emerged spontaneously, in a “eureka!” moment, when my daughters were being baptised in church.”

(And fair enough. Is there a parent who has not said to themselves at the baptism of their child: “Hmmm, I think I’ll set up a Russian-imperial militia”?)

A sense of tragedy pervades Kozlov’s book. Mozgovy is portrayed as an epic yet lonely figure, “doomed to defeat”, as Kozlov puts it, by the strength of the forces ranged against the plucky militia commander.

But no tragedy is complete without unrequited love. In this case, in the person of the Ghost Brigade’s press secretary, Anna Samelyuk.

Samelyuk’s former husband is fighting in the far-right Ukrainian-nationalist Azov Battalion. (Easy to see why that marriage broke down.) In the dismal surroundings of Alchevsk, romance flourishes between Samelyuk and Mozgovoy. Kozlov writes:

“Such relationships are born only in extreme circumstances. Only when both (lovers) understand that each day could be their last. And nonetheless … they remain together, following one another into wars, into intrigues, and into death. Together.”

“What I need,” Samelyuk touchingly tells a Ghost Brigade member, “is a live husband, not a dead hero.” Alas, fate had decreed otherwise. But, adding a touch of Romeo and Juliet to the tragedy, Samelyuk is killed in the same ambush as Mozgovoy. So, even into death they were – together.

Kozlov ends his book with a reference to Putin’s description of Mozgovoy, in his 2023 announcement of the annexation of four Eastern Ukrainian regions into the Russia, as “a genuine hero, not just of Novorossiya but also of Russia”.

On the other hand, Kozlov omits any mention of the campaign to defend Mozgovoy undertaken by the Russian Nazi Alexander Zhuchkovsky, leader of the Russian Imperial Movement and explicit advocate of the elimination of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

In 2018 a court in Luhansk sentenced the above-mentioned Alexander Kostin to fourteen years in prison for armed robbery and murder. Mozgovy had been Kostin's accomplice in the crime. But, writes Zhuchkovsy, this was really a show-trial to destroy the reputation of the first-generation paramilitary leaders: “A blow against Mozgovoy is a blow against all militia.”

Kozlov’s book does not really contain any fresh revelations about Mozgovoy. It merely confirms his status as a fitting hero for pro-genocide Russian-imperialist politicians and Nazis. What remains a mystery is why a trade union General Secretary feels comfortable standing alongside of them.