Reading the news about the war and effectively watching it in real time, one can partially imagine how dreadful the reality is there. But the key word is “partially”. It’s impossible to fully grasp what’s happening at the front line and how the military lives.
Indeed, just listening to some of the stories from soldiers is horrifying. It’s incredibly painful to try to imagine all the horrors they go through every day in order to secure a bright future for the whole country.
That’s why society needs to know at least a small portion of the horror that’s happening because of the criminal actions of the invaders.
So, continuing our series “Notes from the Front”, today we’ll tell the story of a soldier from the 93rd Brigade, which defends Ukraine on the hottest front lines, especially in Bakhmut.
“On February 28, 2022, on my birthday, I was already at the military enlistment office. Seeing me, my 27-year-old son also wanted to defend the country. But due to his health condition, he was not suitable for service. However, for a long time, he didn’t give up his attempts to get into the Armed Forces of Ukraine and he finally succeeded. Since the end of August, he has been serving in reconnaissance.
In fact, this is my wife’s son, but we have become family to each other. For the first time in 15 years, he called me “Dad” during the full-scale invasion. I was moved to tears at that moment.
When I now recall certain moments from the recent past, sometimes it seems funny. But it’s funny here (referring to civilian life), and it’s scary there. And no matter what anyone says, I haven’t seen a single person who wasn’t afraid. Honestly, those who weren’t afraid began to portray themselves as heroes. But their minds were failing in this way, so they stopped being afraid and died.
When you feel fear, your survival instinct kicks in. When you’re afraid, you see and hear things differently. You can hear where the shell was fired from, where it landed, and you know where to fall and hide. Especially scary when a shell whistles somewhere above you and all that’s left is to pray it doesn’t land in your dugout.
Last summer, unfortunately, a shell didn’t pass by the trench where I was. It happened in Soledar. We were near a spoil tip (artificial mound of waste rock extracted during underground mining), we were positioned, but only two or three people with concussions remained from those who got on the spoil tip.”
It all started when 12 young boys were assigned to me, and I was made their leader. The boys had spent a month and a half at a permanent base location. Honestly, I don’t know what they were taught there. They said they were only taught to shoot a few times, and also how to apply tourniquets. So, during the three days and nights we spent in a school, I taught them at least how to use thermal imaging devices. Then we were taken to a spoil tip. I lasted there for two days and was the fifth to be injured; all 12 of my boys were killed. In fact, the boys were only in the war for a week.
Since the spoil tip is sand, there is nowhere to hide. It was pure luck – whether you’d be hit or not. The Russians were firing at us non-stop. Then my comrades told me that they were shooting from an airplane, shooting directly at the trenches, which even lacked logs. What saved me was that when we entered the spoil tip, I found some logs and placed them with my things at the entrance to the trench.
A rocket hit just half a meter from the entrance. My comrade was sitting behind me, so I shielded him. He only had a concussion and a few small fragments. But overall, I took all the fragments. First thought: “I’m alive!”. At this time, the understanding of what had happened gradually comes, but consciousness is confused. I look around, everything is covered with earth, and I realize that I can’t feel my hands. Then I thought they had been torn off, and I would not make it home. But by pulling them a little, you see that they are under the ground, but covered in blood.
The Russians continued to bombard without a break, so you couldn’t raise your head. The boys applied tourniquets to me, but a bit incorrectly, so I was bleeding. This way I spent about an hour and a half more in the trench until everything subsided. We started looking for an evacuation point, barely got out. I was almost losing consciousness and couldn’t feel my hands at all. The armored vehicle that takes out the wounded was about a kilometer and a half away from us. And here we were walking on completely open ground, where there was nowhere to hide. When we barely reached the point, the comrade said that we were extraordinarily patient and strong.
Overall, the spoil tip was incredibly scary because they were shooting at it with everything possible. I remember the Russians even fired 22 rounds from a tank. Over those days, the spoil tip sank two to three meters, but we still held on.
In total, I had over 20 fragments, they were long removed in different hospitals. But these are not all, currently, I still have four fragments left in me. Because of this, my hands don’t work well. In addition, the effects of the concussion are felt, sometimes there may be excessive irritability. And, of course, every night I have nightmares about the war.
Generally, at the war, we all left our health. For example, a bulletproof vest weighs about 17 kg, plus you have to add other equipment and combat kits, and you have to run. The load is insane, but if you don’t run, you won’t survive.