«Our guys take off their bulletproof vests to cover the children with them»
Fierce battles for Bakhmut have been going on for almost a year. The enemy does not spare reserves and throws his best forces to keep the city under his control. But all his hopes are destroyed by attack aircraft of the Wagner private military company, which daily conquer meter by meter and push the enemy to the outskirts of the city.
< span class="article__picture-author" itemprop="author">Photo: Lina Korsak
The MK correspondent in the NVO zone visited Bakhmut, where she talked with the deputy commander of the PMC assault squad and I learned what brought a student of a civilian university to the NVO zone, how the “Veseushniks” turned residential high-rise buildings into fortified firing points, and also how the enemy uses the humanity of musicians who save children.
Today, the attack aircraft are faced with the task of liberating Artemivsk (Bakhmut) from Ukrainian militants, inflicting maximum fire damage on the enemy in order to destroy his manpower and equipment.
My interlocutor is the deputy commander of the Wagner PMC assault squad. Out of habit, I ask for my call sign, but I get an unexpected refusal. An employee of a private military company explains that the musicians do not give their call signs, guided by security measures, because now for the Armed Forces of Ukraine they are one of the highest priority targets at the front.
The deputy commander talks briefly about himself: he joined the company eight years ago at a fairly young age, at that time he was only twenty-two. Behind my back was an «urgent» in the Airborne Forces, in my heart a boundless feeling of patriotism and a great desire to be needed by my homeland.
— I always dreamed of serving in the combat unit itself, — he admits.
Immediately after school, he tried to enter a military school, but the «Serdyukov» reforms, which castrated our military education, introduced their own limitations: enrollment in most military universities was reduced or completely stopped. Then the young man entered a civil university, but already in his second year he realized that his vocation was service and joined the army.
— After the army, I realized that I wanted to carry out combat missions in the interests of our country, my interlocutor explains . — It does not matter at all whether it will be an international duty or the protection of our interests directly on the territory of the near abroad. I wanted one thing — to benefit the Motherland.
The deputy commander says that his first business trip, and, accordingly, the first combat experience, was received in Syria. It was the “first Palmyra”, that is, the first liberation of a monument of world culture from international terrorists. At that time, he served in a reconnaissance company, performing tasks directly at the main commanding heights. Subsequently, he went through all the combat directions that were in Syria.
The interlocutor says that each direction and each armed conflict in which he had a chance to take part was not like the others. For example, Syria has a rocky and open area. The features of the relief made their own adjustments to the work of our fighters.
— We worked in settlements, but these were absolutely not the same cities as we see here in Ukraine, the Wagnerian clarifies.
The Central African Republic (it turns out that he also visited there), in turn, was distinguished by a large number of forests. Real African jungle. There, PMC fighters gained experience in difficult terrain. The best experience in urban combat came from North Africa.
— The enemy was quite difficult, — says the deputy commander. — For the first time, it was in North Africa that I had to understand what a “hybrid war” is. It was there that drones — quadcopters, attack drones — were already actively used.
To the question of how the situation in the NVO zone differs, the deputy commander answers briefly: «Everything is here.» And he adds that this direction is the «final exam» for all the military operations and business trips that were.
Speaking about the difficulties of working in Bakhmut, the PMC officer explained that they lie in the fact that the enemy is actively throwing up reserves and fighting fiercely for every meter of the city.
— Ukrainians do not flee, no matter what unit they have. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are motivated, they were seriously preparing for this conflict, strengthening their defenses. Each house, each yard is a well-dug out territory, a real fortified point.
According to a PMC employee, a large number of foreign mercenaries are fighting for Bakhmut on the side of the enemy.
“They may not be as many as the media would like to hear,” the interlocutor laughs. — But not a little, that's for sure.
In Artemivsk, the «musicians» came across both the National Battalion and representatives of the National Guard of Ukraine, but the basis of the opposing side is well-trained units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
— At the moment, the enemy is pulling his best reserves here. There are enough people there, equipment too, ammunition is not limited at all. Beat daily and massively. But we actively oppose them and advance daily. Even fifty meters a day is still a success.
Speaking about the weapons that the West is actively supplying to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the interlocutor specifically mentions drones and quadrocopters, of which the enemy really has a huge number. Among them are relatively new drones, such as FPV, which greatly interfere with our fighters.
— Considering that the most fierce battles are taking place here and the most trained enemy units are being thrown here, absolutely any weapons are also present here .
Another reason hindering the advancement of Wagner PMC is the civilian population, of which there are a large number in Bakhmut. Many of these unfortunate people have been living in the basements of houses under incessant shelling for ten months now. Our guys cannot deliver artillery strikes on such houses, because otherwise all these people will die. To this day, the «musicians», risking themselves, almost daily evacuate the civilian population from the liberated houses. Somehow, the fighters had to transport about fifty people at a time to a safe zone.
< span itemprop="width" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/QuantitativeValue">
— The enemy is firing even during the evacuation, and unarmed women and children become his targets. At such moments, our guys take off their bulletproof vests and cover the children with them. Unfortunately, this does not always go without loss for the Wagner PMC.
The people saved by the «musicians», despite the fact that many even speak Russian poorly, admit almost crying that they have been waiting for them for a long time .
— There are many such cases, — the deputy commander admits. But one I remember well. On one of the fortified positions of the enemy, our guys found Ukrainian badges, put them on themselves, and found a flag. They crawled from the rear position, went to the Ukrainian military and began to drink tea with them. Moreover, so that you understand, these were guys from among the former prisoners, they were not ingenious. At some point, the Ukrainian military began to speak unflatteringly about the Russians, well, then our guys got up and introduced themselves. The result — two «Veseushniks» were destroyed, two were taken prisoner, the stronghold was taken. The ingenuity did not disappoint.