A veteran of the Chechen war was sent to the SVO and underwent the initiation ceremony into the Cossacks

The company political officer of the volunteer detachment BARS-11 "Kuban" with the call sign Vitalich, who went through the Second Chechen War, decided to become a Cossack after several months of service in the special military operation zone (SVO). He told the reasons for this decision in an interview with a correspondent of "Lenta.ru".

According to the volunteer, before the start of hostilities in Ukraine , he served in the operational units of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs , and even earlier, he took part in a counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya as part of the 14th Special Forces Brigade of the Armed Forces.

"I signed up for BARS-11 as a regular rifleman. I went on assaults like everyone else. Then the command learned that I was a career soldier, and one with combat experience. They appointed me a group commander - consider it a platoon. Then they offered me to become a political officer," Vitalich explained.

According to him, in the detachment he wanted to join the Cossack traditions, which many of his fellow soldiers were the bearers of. Then he decided to verstsya (go through the initiation ceremony into the Cossacks) and join the Cossack way of life forever.

"There is much less 'charterism' in the Cossack units, to put it simply. Here, everyone is a brother - from the commander to the ordinary soldier. I also believe that the Cossacks are the core of the Russian nation. These people have fought for Russia throughout history, just like I am now," concluded the political officer.

Earlier it became known that the great-grandson of one of the closest associates of the anarchist from the Civil War, Nestor Makhno , is fighting in the Russian Cossack detachment named after Pavel Sudoplatov .