We were unlucky enough to see four phosphorus bombs dropped. It wasn't near us, but even in broad daylight at a distance it looked like welding flash. The sky was raining light wrapped in billowing white smoke. Why unlucky? It was coming down on someone and there was nothing could be done to help.
With this as a back drop, Zelenapolea became a large camp with several thousand from these groups coming in to rest.
Journalists were being actively hunted by the junta, and I have done everything I can to let the world know what this animalistic ideology was doing. We kept a low profile.The army told a town official every time a new group came in. They gave us a heads up every time a new punisher group arrived. During this period we were only getting a couple hours sleep a night. Bombing and artillery were close by in towns all around us at all hours, sometimes shaking the window glass. Most of the attacks started in the pre-dawn hours when people were sleeping.
A few days before the militia from Rovenki attacked Zelenapolea, the regular Ukrainian army left. The officer in charge told town officials that a punisher crew was coming to cleanse the town and they had two days to get all the children out. A real effort was made to do that. The next day a national guard commander remarked that as harsh as we thought they were, within days the town would be begging them for protection from what was coming.
The next day we went to the small open air market in town to pick up a few things. That's when I noticed Mark Paslawsky. The Donbas battalion had arrived the afternoon before. He walked up to groups of people and stood back listening. He approached the group of people we were talking to and noticed me. I just stood quietly. With my features I am obviously not Ukrainian. I stand out like an Italian.
Paslawsky noticed me and just stood staring. That was why I noticed him. He stood out even more than me locally. His stance and attitude gave him away as a foreigner and I thought he must have been one of the Ukrainian emigre mercenaries we were expecting.
Most properties in Ukraine are walled in and have gates. Later that afternoon I looked through the gates because my dogs were barking. There he was. Paslawsky sat in a car in front of my house, staring at my gate for over ten minutes. I watched him for five minutes, memorizing his face and waiting.
Donbas battalions go through towns killing people to make examples, and this is what Mark Paslawsky was a part of.
I wondered if the punishers were told I was an American writer. It is against the law to write anything against the junta. It's gotten to the point that even Ukrainian reporters complain that all they are allowed to write is hand-fed propaganda.
I was getting articles out the entire time Pravy Sektor was here. It was more a matter of when they would find out, and not if. At worst we were hoping that our passports would cause enough of a problem to keep us and the town safe. Now we know that all it would have done was make us a bigger example. It was an act of God that kept our town safe this whole time.
The next morning the camp at Zelenapolea was decimated. The Donbas battalion did the other thing they are famous for: they ran. The Donbas battalion doesn't fight unless they are cornered. I never saw Paslawsky again until the report of his death.
Why I take no joy in the death of this Nazi
This American Nazi who was eulogized, wrapped in an American flag as a hero and lover of Bruce Springsteen, should not have died like he did. A Nazi that commits mass murder, and especially an American Nazi like Paslawsky, needs to be made to squirm in court for crimes against humanity. Bandera murdered over 500,000 people in WWII and never answered for one of them. The Bandera today are being lauded for murder.
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