Photo: frame from an archival video of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
A 31-year-old Russian paratrooper with the call sign «Babka», who was wounded near Bakhmut (Artemovsk) and spent some time in a trench with an equally wounded Ukrainian soldier, told how he managed to survive.
By According to «Babka», he and a group of comrades moved out to occupy the enemy dugout. They were guided by a drone. However, on the way, the enemy began to cover them with mines. “The mine has arrived, I immediately feel my back, all this, my buttocks, I feel it flowing,” he said in an interview with the Mash telegram channel.
The Russian paratrooper added that he could no longer go back and decided to stay. In the morning I realized that the blood was no longer flowing. At the same time, he discovered that there was neither a commander nor a radio operator nearby, but there was a wounded Ukrainian soldier whose knee was broken.
The Ukrainian soldier did not speak Russian, and the Russian paratrooper understood him only when he cursed at his own people for abandoning him and shooting at him. They had no water and only salted food. When it snowed, they ate it. On the third day, the Ukrainian soldier died and “Granny” there was only one left.
As it turned out, Russian soldiers tried to evacuate the paratrooper, but it was difficult to reach this place. On the tenth day, guys from another regiment came to take the dugout and found “Babka”. They left him some water, and then returned with an evacuation group and carried the paratrooper on a stretcher through the swamp for more than two hours under fire. Then they met an evacuation group from the «Babki» unit, and they already transported him to the hospital. On December 25, the paratrooper was transferred to Moscow for treatment.