Assaults are no longer what they used to be. Entering a village and methodically moving from house to house is no longer possible. The sky is “dirty” with drones. Any unnecessary noise — and they start hitting you from all sides.
This is what soldiers of the 141st Separate Mechanized Brigade, Bohdan (“Fizruk”) and Eduard (“Kvadrat”), say from their own experience. For them it is not just adrenaline but hard work that has to be done to clear the land of the enemy.
Watch the lads’ full story in our interview:
Everyone takes a different path to the front. Some come from a rear-echelon unit, deliberately transferring to a combat unit via AWOL (SZCh) because they could not find their place in the rear. Now they have to haul heavy anti-drone suits on their backs.
At the zero line, the assault troops face different kinds of enemy.
“There are times when they seep into villages. The ones who go there are no pushovers — they’re trained, they know their assigned tasks, and they’re hard to fight. But I’ve also had to take prisoner the ones sitting in trenches, hungry and scared. They’re easier, they don’t really want to fight”, says Fizruk.
A rusty rifle and water from empty bottles
The lads recall moments when survival seemed impossible. Once the group was pinned down in a house. The Russians were walking around the yard just a few metres away. Getting out was impossible — they would have taken the building apart at once.
“Murik is groaning, he wants a drink. But they won’t let us out. I collected water drop by drop, draining it from some 50 bottles into a cap, just to wet his lips” – recalls Fizruk
Another harsh story happened during a river crossing. The current was so strong that the assault soldier got his feet stuck between rocks and nearly drowned. He lost his weapon and climbed out onto the enemy bank with only his radio. He had to walk like that for about five kilometres until he found someone’s old rifle in the mud.
“It was all rusted over. But it fired — and that was it, it reloaded just fine. That rifle can lie there for half a year and it will still work like new” – Kvadrat says with a smile
Like in the movies
Anything can happen during assaults. On one mission a soldier was hit by three FPV drones at once — in the knee and the arm. He told his comrades to fall back, while he made his way through a completely black, burnt-out tree line until eight in the evening. Then he had to hide in a sewer for another day. But in the end everyone got out.
The assault troops also recall a situation when the group was pinned down in a house.
“We’d been spotted. They started taking the house apart, the ceiling had already collapsed, we didn’t know where to go. They tell us: wait, we’ll drop smoke now. I go outside and see — the whole village is in smoke. I’d never seen smoke like that, it was like in a film”, — “Kvadrat”.
Thanks to this screen, they were able to withdraw unnoticed while the enemy was taking apart the empty walls. Out there, on the front line, you are scared all the time. But when there is no way out, you simply rely on the person next to you and do your job.
“The feelings you get there, you don’t get anywhere else. When you’re no longer out there, you even kind of miss it. In life you can’t buy that for any amount of money”, — “Fizruk”.
