Military Volunteer Marusya Zvirobiy: We Demand Zelensky Explain to Our Faces What Exactly He Was Afraid Of

Zvirobiy said she has no fear of titles or positions.

In a new episode of the program “Antypody” on the Island TV channel, Ukrainian volunteer, Armed Forces contract soldier and public figure Marusya Zvirobiy spoke about the withdrawal of troops, her attitude toward Zelensky and Poroshenko, and her case over threats against the president.

Did you have any distinctly feminine hobbies at all? Were you interested in fashion, for example?

As a child. 

No, not as a child. Later, as an adult. Like how girls nowadays have some leisure time, they put on heels and go sit somewhere in a restaurant.

Put on makeup. Not that I went to restaurants very often. But I did have a women's group at one point. I somehow didn't really like too many conversations. I don't like it when people talk a lot. So shows where you have to walk around and chatter, I don't like that at all. I need there to be some kind of task. If you're doing some task and also talking, that's a balance in the universe. So if I step away from a task, I can't just walk around and chat for a long time. It's some nonsense.

Do you swear in real life?

Yes, from time to time, like everyone.

What's your favorite swear word?

Yopta.

Which one?

Yopta. If acquaintances or children might be nearby, I filter myself. But in general very little irritates me in ordinary life. You'd have to seriously provoke me. There's also a nuance, when it was forced. Two variants of forced use of profanity. The first variant is in the army, the second is Zelensky.

Why forced?

For two years I was the head of a volunteer training ground. And for one year of those I was the commander of a volunteer battalion. The volunteer movement, nobody pays anyone there, you just organize. Everyone supports one another there. It's like a monastery system, on voluntary principles. And I never had to force people to do anything.

On the contrary, people come with various proposals. Some come and say: we'll bring firewood. Others come: we'll build a bathhouse. And that's how we kind of developed. Then I came to the army on contract, and part of my team, the instructors, were former servicemen who had understood everything in the army, how you have to serve so that it's not a strain on yourself.

And when you set tasks, I had several such people, there was one warrant officer and one sergeant. You set a task and I can already see a moving line of text on the person's forehead. First, he already knows how he'll wriggle out, and second, he already knows whom to shift the blame to so as not to do it. They pissed me off so much. I set tasks, and a week later it turns out the task isn't done. At some point they got to me like that, about a month in.

You're explaining to people that it's teamwork. In the army everything is not like in business at all. In business it's about results, but in the army it's just Brownian motion. The main thing is the visibility of this motion. And about a month later I call a meeting. I dressed everyone down as if it had to be done yesterday. A week's worth of work was completed in two days. So, that means we understand, right? Well, we don't understand in a good way. Okay.

And I just became quite tough in how I talk to people, because it was completely unacceptable for me that we, for example, delayed the deadlines for releasing fighters, or that they didn't pass their exams or tests, or something else. All of that affects things. So since 2016 I can talk in that tough way. It's when people don't understand you. When Homer's language doesn't get through. And it was exactly the same about Zolote. During the withdrawal of troops.

First of all, I was in Zolote in front of Zelensky. And I met with those same “Azov” fighters. And I also met with local grandmothers. Not the ones who were in the frame with him when they spoke to the camera: “Withdraw the troops, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych.” But with those who lived there. And they said absolutely correctly, the only correct thing: “Well, we don't know how it should be done.” What questions are there to grandmothers at all? Who among you is the supreme commander-in-chief?

And they said: “What matters most to us is that they don't shoot at us. If for that everyone needs to leave, well, leave. If it's necessary not to retreat, then don't retreat.” People simply needed for no one to shoot at them.

So everywhere, along the whole line of separation.

Yes, but the work was done. That the other side wouldn't withdraw, we all knew they wouldn't withdraw. Anyone who had been at war knew they wouldn't withdraw. Be rude to the Azov fighters, right there, show how tough you are. Listen, it's not for you, with your four bevels of a haircut, who never fought, to show off your toughness to veterans.

His actions, first of all, were criminal for the state, in my view. Now there are GRAD systems standing there. And now the positions he withdrew from are occupied by the enemy. How are you going to take them back? This utter nonsense when they said, well, if anything, we'll return. How will you return? Go back now.

GRAD systems are already standing there?

Yes. These were the latest reports that in the Zolote area they were moving them in when Putin began bringing all his forces in, that's when they started bringing GRADs in there. And he will not return to those positions now. To get back there, he'll lose a lot of people. I explained to him in military terms what he would be if he decides to withdraw troops from Zolote.

Besides, being rude to veterans, you understand, is being rude to all of us. Who are you anyway? Where did we see you during the war at all? You laughed off a summons in 2014 on camera. Before this scandal, remember, he shoved Poltorak, there was a video of it. He was talking with someone, and Poltorak, who was defense minister back then, he just grabs him and pushes him away with his hands.

There was such a video. I don't understand what happened there. There were different versions.

“Call Bakanov about this damned devil.” He behaved rudely. Afterward they gave him a proper beating after our scuffle. And after our scuffle he doesn't be rude to anyone anymore. They used a completely different tactic. Now he's a poor little thing. So that everyone feels sorry for him. This, by the way, is a good tactic, because the Ukrainian people have always pitied the sickly and the hapless.

And now everyone is saying that this poor guy is being set up by everyone. He's a huge liar, a scumbag, and he will still cause a lot of trouble here, and we'll be cleaning up after him for a long time.

There was a situation in Zolote. All sane people were against troop withdrawal. I said “withdrawal,” but in reality that's a different semantic in Donbas. In Donbas “razvesti” means something else. You say he had no moral right to talk to veterans like that. What exactly pissed you off? The “42 years old, not a loser”?

Absolutely. Not even this moment. Look, a commander, in principle, can be good, bad, any kind. A commander can quarrel with the personnel. That's everywhere with us. As a commander he can quarrel on the spot with the guys.

The question is: why did we all see it? There were only his journalists and only his cameras. Why was it shown to the whole country? For what? For me it was obvious: he decided to show off in front of everyone, to show who's in charge over the veterans.

As far as I remember, a short video was posted first, and then the full video was posted.

No, wait. He went there to make a whole segment. This segment was with those grandmothers, with these Azov fighters, and all of it was being released in the format of preparing for the troop withdrawal. All of it was released from the start. Then everyone reacted to this piece, the whole country reacted.

My editor claims that Azov posted the video first.

Fine, Azov posted the video, so that's why everyone else posted it later?

It doesn't really matter, this is the only remark that his cameras, his channels and so on went there. Fine. The situation with Azov. The same situation a little earlier, about a year before, happened with the same Azov, but with other Azov servicemen who didn't congratulate Poroshenko.

That was right after the Svynarchuk scandal. And they didn't congratulate him as commander-in-chief. Is that normal?

How did he react?

Poroshenko? Didn't react. Swallowed it.

That's exactly what Volodymyr Oleksandrovych should have done too. Although they spoke to him using the formal “you.” They weren't rude to him. It was an ordinary conversation. Moreover, they had voted for him. Because Azov has not been a supporter of Poroshenko for a very long time. In effect he was talking to his own voters. He was rude not only to veterans, he was rude to his own voters.

So this was a reaction to the tone that Zelensky allowed himself toward a specific person.

This was a reaction to the fact that he's showing off about it, that he's showing it on all his TV channels. He's making it public. Azov wouldn't have blown it up like this themselves. But all these materials together with the grandmothers. Information about Azov and about the grandmothers came out at the same time, it's effectively one segment.

The grandmothers shouting “withdraw the troops.” They didn't show grandmothers there, so what kind of grandmothers are these? And a few days later they found those grandmothers who had been photographed next to Zakharchenko. What is this? It's a lie. There's too much lying, too much manipulation. Besides, manipulation on the veterans as well. It was unpleasant for us with Sofia. For me especially.

If we've moved on to criticizing the authorities, could you name the top three miscalculations of these authorities?

Well, they f**k up every single day. They create chaos in the country. Our country is overflowing with internal scandals, created deliberately.

For example.

Any at all. From the “ship pines” to the personnel of that “green force,” the single-majority. Did they fire anyone? Someone raped someone, then called a prostitute.

He's a single-member district deputy, as far as I remember, how are you going to fire him?

Did Zelensky reprimand him?

I don't know.

That's his personnel. Gordon makes a remark: “What do you think you're doing?” Who was he shouting at, Tyshchenko? “You're letting down my president.” That's creating a picture: the tsar is good, and the boyars are bad. That's a Putin-style scheme altogether. Putin also started out as a simple guy who wants good things for the country. But this one stumbled, and everyone immediately tipped their hats to him, these aggressive outbursts of his.

Let's watch the video we found on Facebook, which is a bit strange. This is a video from user Vladyslav Teremchuk, and he claims that the video is from 2015. My question: is it you?

In 2014. In 2015 I had already given birth to a child, I had hair like this. This video is from 2014. It's after the Maidan. It's just the beginning of the war. And this is that gimmick, when we tried to talk with the Donbas people about something. This video is from around mid-summer or the start of summer. When I was under information pressure, that's when they dropped him too.

Was this already after Ilovaisk?

It was after the Maidan. My page got taken down yesterday, maybe I'll find it somewhere, I have photos from exactly the start of summer where I look like this. First of all, it's a piece of video, the full video was also at the Reznichenko metro station, two fighters from Donbas were also taking part. Some journalist suggested we address the residents of Donbas, speak in Russian, because I no longer spoke Russian, I had completely shut down at the Maidan, and address them and explain that we are not their enemies.

That was the rhetoric at the Maidan as well. Remember, there was a huge banner hanging on the Maidan that said “Understand, we're fed up.” Because the Russian attack began then, those first bots that we massively encountered on the internet then, those were the first fakes about executed boys, all of that which is flooding our information space, and we were trying to explain something else to the people of Donbas.

By 2015 nobody was explaining anything to anybody anymore. If we could still address them at the start of the war, it was because we cared that they believed all those fakes. And in the full video, find the full video and watch it, there were questions for all of us participants, about how we relate to fascism, for example. And all of us, both the fighters who were filmed and gave interviews, and Reznichenko, and me, said that, of course, we're negative about it.

In 2015 Reznichenko said he was negative about fascism?

Yes. Reznichenko was already serving in 2014.

Back then he was just such an ultra-right, and he later became an LGBT activist.

Ultra-right doesn't necessarily mean he's a fascist.

I understand, but he's a smart person, an educated person.

In the same version, same hairstyle, same T-shirt, at the same time, I was giving another interview at my own training ground. That was already Marusya's training ground.

Listen, don't you feel that you're somehow repeating those narratives that were coming from the other side: “Someone up top,” “Ukrainian authorities aren't trusted”?

Yes. Most people stayed stuck in that mindset.

And were you sincerely convinced that Ukrainian authorities weren't trusted? After all, they elected a president.

Wait. We had, first of all, proof of this. Because in the SBU, in the Interior Ministry, especially in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, remember how many stories there were about guys. When the General Staff gives you a route for a special operation, and at such and such a time, it's written where you have to be, an ambush will already be waiting for you. That happened very often.

So this is the SBU. You're saying “Ukrainian authorities aren't trusted.”

That's why they weren't trusted. Why did people come to me at all, why was the training ground organized in the first place? Because in the armed forces, if military training is good, it's purely the initiative of a decent commander on the spot. Training was systematically weak, and guys very often looked for military training for themselves on their own before they went to serve. And that's exactly why thousands of people came to us.

Marusya, look, there was already the Zelenopillia, already the shootings of the Luhansk border guards, the Luhansk airport.

Where I'm giving this interview, none of that had happened yet.

Zelenopillia happened, I think, in May. I mean that in the video you say that someone up top quarreled, that we need to negotiate.

I sincerely believed what I was saying. When you go on contract, you start to see everything a little differently. If I had stayed there, in that place, at that training ground, but also lived to this year, and now I have something to compare that authority, which seemed treacherous to us, with this authority. Do you understand how many people learned to shoot at my training ground? Who would give me that now, are you kidding. That's a terrorism charge.

Do you have a UBD?

Yes.

Did you take part in combat?

Not really. I had my own tasks. It's like medics or air reconnaissance. My task was always supply. But that's also rotation on the front line. On equal terms absolutely, taking the guys to combat positions.

Did you shoot at the enemy?

No, that's not my task.

What's the state of your criminal cases now? When were you last at the SBI, when were you summoned?

The SBI has already finished. The SBI has already wiped the sweat off its brow and washed its hands of me and transferred the case to court, now the hearings are going on. And they will continue. The next one is May 20 in Lviv.

What are you charged with, in a nutshell?

In a nutshell they dropped two articles. One is for overthrowing the constitutional order and another one. They left the threats against the president. And now we're asking him to come and explain exactly what he was scared of. The nuance of the case he opened is that no president, first of all, would sign as a victim. He signed as a victim. It says: Zelensky Volodymyr Oleksandrovych, and the signature of Volodymyr Oleksandrovych.

Above that is a whole text about two women he doesn't know threatening him, he considers this threats, he suffered. This is a letter that's in our court case. It's even been made public. Besides, a couple of some other crazy grandmothers: we saw on the internet that they were threatening our president, and they fainted. And they filed statements against us.

We now demand that this misunderstanding explain to our faces exactly what he was scared of in this video. Why was he scared? Is everyone at home at all, afraid of streams on the internet? There were searches, they didn't find anything that I could have used to blow him up, which was what the talk was about, an explosion. Weapons were seized and already returned. There are no more questions about the weapons.

He doesn't want to come to court. Why don't you want to? Come on, the guy said, go ahead and bring the case to its end. We ask that he look at this creature, let it tell us to our faces why it got scared.

Do you really think it's normal to address any president in such a tone?

I have no fear of ranks, positions.

Absolutely, I don't see these authorities at all, I don't notice them. But people say that we have institutions that we have to respect.

You won't believe it, but when I was coming here, I somehow thought you'd ask me exactly this question. I believe that all Ukrainians have the right to babble whatever they want. And the institution of the presidency can only be undermined by the president himself with his deeds. Going somewhere to disgrace the country can do that. Undermine the authority of that institution.

Negotiating somewhere, seeking peace in Putin's eyes also undermines the authority of the country Putin attacked. Such stupid steps are what undermine the institution of the presidency. And so, should Ukrainians silently endure everything it does to this state? I don't think they should endure in silence.

You understand that different Ukrainians perceive the president's screw-ups differently. There were questions related to Svynarchuk, say, this case. There were, as Azov voiced at the front to Poroshenko then. And then, I remember, that same Yura Biryukov, they said it was outrageous, you can't do that, this is the commander-in-chief and so on.

Listen, that's a question for Biryukov. And you're asking me.

No. I'm telling you, Azov acted properly, if they believed the president was involved in corruption, did they have the right to act like that?

How?

Well, how, just to give a damn about him when he came to them.

Listen, that's their business. Everyone does what they want in our country. As far as I remember, the Azov fighters fought under Poroshenko. And even if he didn't like their behavior, they were at the front, and they had the opportunity to grow a regiment, fight, and exist as a volunteer battalion. Likewise showing all this, you understand.

They're not at the front, they're not fighting now?

I don't know right now.

Biletsky was with me, he said they were at the front.

Well, some of them are definitely at the front. But it's not positioned that way. The volunteer movement shouted at all, it forced people to reckon with it, Poroshenko noted it. At the beginning they had the “cynical Banderites.” He still worked with us. We could quarrel, we could not greet each other, we criticized him, but we were all at the front, you understand.

And now this green scum isn't on our side of the barricades. And it constantly shows it, its prosecutors constantly say this to us. They don't just talk to the court or the defendants. They talk to the whole country about their attitude.

And it was Zelensky who started it, when he went there, was rude and released this video, and that's how he made clear who will be in this country, these rights-demanding Azov people. Rights-demanding Azov people who were drowning for you, for you. They were drowning Poroshenko. Well, that's so stupid it doesn't even fit in your head.