Right Sector commander taken captive

Givi Nets a Big Fish

By Yurasumy 

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk for FortRuss

Commander of the 93rd “Zhitomir” Brigade, Oleg Mikats, taken prisoner at the airport. 

At first he was described as a battalion commander. But it’s not so. Oleg Mikats is the commander of the 93rd Brigade. He was the third on the Right Sector party list during the recent Rada elections [he is shown in illustration above in the top row, second from the left]. So I wish to congratulate Novorossia fighters on their good catch. And I hope they realize what a big fish they caught. 

Right Sector Party list

The Ukrainian exterminators were captured during an attempt to break through to the airport. Poroshenko’s advisor Biryukov tried to explain yet another defeat (“Damn you, you Russian bastards!”). But the advisor either did not know or failed to mention that one of the prisoners turned out to be Oleg Mikats, the commanding officer of the 93rd Brigade who took part in the well known meeting with Motorola and Kupol. I hope everyone understands that brigade commanders do not lead “tens of soldiers” (as Biryukov claimed) into an attack (a Ukrainian brigade has a full personnel strength of 3,000 soldiers). Is that so hard to understand? So what kind of advice is he giving Poroshenko? And what’s the value of a brigade commander who took his troops straight into captivity.

The story gets even worse for the exterminators: this was a real assault, with tanks and everything. And they failed yet again. It failed spectacularly, with the capture of a brigade commander, one of 11 in active service. 

Background: Oleg Mikhailovich Mikats (born 23 October 1975, Novograd-Volynskiy, USSR)—Ukrainian exterminator, Ukrainian Armed Forces colonel, commander of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade. Participant of the war on the Donbass. Became known as one of the commanders of the assault on the Donetsk Airport.


Givi took in the Ukrainian Nazis and looked their commander in the eye, asking him a few direct questions. Motorola, who was supposed to have been killed several times, only asked him “So, you took your people straight to the slaughterhouse?”. 

“Today for the first time in my life was felt open shame for a Ukrainian serviceman. The commander of the 93rd Brigade Oleg Mikats publically threatened me and a colleague from foreign media with a physical assault. With tens of witnesses, he told me that if he sees us one more time (he was referring to all journalists) in the village of Peski, he will personally shoot us” wrote the Ukrainian journalist Trubachev. 

Now he can feel shame for a second time. 

Translator's Note: It does appear possible that the entire 93rd Brigade was destroyed or at least decimated in the battle, though it is unlikely the unit was at full strength of 3,000 soldiers or that it had its full complement of vehicles and artillery. Ukrainian brigades are usually little more than battalions, comparable to individual Novorossia battalions in terms of numerical strength though certainly not fighting ability or determination. Mikats' capture suggests he, a rising star in the Right Sector, tried to prove his organization would succeed where the regular military had failed. Imagine the hero's welcome he'd have gotten in Kiev had he succeeded in retaking the Donetsk Airport. Though one should not assume his political career is over--the Right Sector will not hesitate to pin all blame for yet another military disaster on both the military leadership and the civilian one, up to and including the commander-in-chief Poroshenko.