There is fear, but also determination, among the men fighting the Kremlin’s forces around the eastern city of Bakhmut.
26 September 2023 •
New photographs have revealed the hellish conditions and injuries faced by Ukrainian troops fighting Russian forces around the eastern city of Bakhmut.
The series of images shows soldiers setting out to battle – and wounded survivors afterwards.
The photographs include a glimpse of nervous members of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade preparing to assault enemy positions under the cover of darkness.
Not all of those seen in the image will return from the so-called zero position, the furthest edge of the frontline, from which Moscow’s troops can be seen nearby.
Pictures taken after the assault show a smaller group of injured men returning from the fighting.
One Ukrainian soldier’s head is wrapped in a bloodied bandage. His left eye is swollen shut and his face is muddied, caked in dirt and blood. The soldier’s left hand is also heavily wrapped in gauze.
“Behind every defended landing, every defended dugout and every millimetre of ground is the blood of our people,” wrote photographer Kostya Liberov.
The photographed men were part of a storm group sent to try and dislodge entrenched Russians on the outskirts of Bakhmut, which Ukraine has been vying to recapture after it fell under Moscow’s control in May.
“Those who say they are not afraid are lying. Everyone is scared. Every time it is scary. But we are here,” the troops’ driver told the photographer.
Ukrainian soldiers described their experience as like being dropped off “in the middle of hell,” before coming within 300 metres of their enemy.
Forest ‘is taking our friends away’
The men are fighting from tree line to tree line as they attempt an ambitious double envelopment of Russian forces in the Donetsk region city.
The fighters saw their friends cut down by Russian machine gun fire while moving forward through an apocalyptic, shell-scarred landscape around the outskirts of Bakhmut.
“This forest is taking our friends away,” a Ukrainian codenamed Courier said.
“And when I think about how far we still need to move forward… most likely someday I will be the one to remain lying in the forest, and my friends will just go forward.”
The long stretches of dead forests that took months to battle through were largely ignored in the announcement of the liberation of Andriivka and Klishchiivka, two villages to the south of Bakhmut recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces.
The 3rd Assault Brigade, which is mainly composed of volunteers considered to be some of Ukraine’s most experienced fighters, has been battling in the area almost non-stop since January.
A recent video, shared by the brigade on the Telegram messaging app, showed its members huddled in a trench once occupied by Russian forces.
Artillery and mortar fire can be heard whooshing overhead as the soldiers resupply themselves from their enemy’s leftovers before the next push forward.
It took them three months to capture Andriivka. The village is now nothing more than a pile of bricks and scorched earth, according to those lucky enough to have survived the mission to retake it.
But Fedya, who carried the Ukrainian flag to hoist over the village, insisted the fight was worth it.
“Look at these fields, this forest. Everything grows again,” he said.
For the pain that Ukraine has to endure : God damn RuZZia and its western enablers to hell.
Побыстрей бы украину уничтожили, крысы, нацистские мрази
Comment from :
Scott Driver
I’ve worked at a military hospital next to Washington DC that received and treated America’s wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan, and one of the saddest sights is young men in their 20s with their whole lives ahead of them missing both their arms or legs trying to get around outside their Wounded Warrior complex next to this state of the art Fort Belvoir [joint military command] Community Hospital.
Our troll friends would try to use this fact to try to get the West to back down helping the Ukrainians so that their beloved genocidal dwarf leader and their country can pop the champaign corks in their efforts to try to erase Ukraine and its culture and subjugate Ukrainians to their will.
I’m mentioning the effects of war because the Orcs will do far worse to the Ukrainians if they’re allowed to win, the Ukrainians know this…the World has seen the torture Orcs perpetrated on helpless Ukrainians in Bucha…and as I’ve said earlier, will fight to the last Orclandian.
The Orcs will go home to Mother Russia one way or the other, either in body bags or with their tails between their legs…
Comment from :
Paul Anderson
Ukrainians are fighting so bravely because they know if they lose this war against a depraved, venal Russian leadership and its hordes of bovine, callous, brainwashed meat they will suffer decades of reprisals, torture, genocide and russification until they are sent into battle against the next target, probably Moldova.
A putrid, stinking, rotting kremtroll calling itself “Stephen Jones” has posted the following:
“Kiev’s through, high time to move on.
In war in the end It only matters that one side or the other prevails. It makes no odds which side , nothing really matters and very few things matter at all.
But it’s great to see the NATO defence alliance dissolve into utter irrelevance, basically this war is over bar the poltitical shoulting, and the grave digging.
In basic terms Russia pummeled NATO into the ground. My advice: quit now and preserve whaty dignity we can, btw each of the the wonder weapons are now burning piles of junk. Moscow was correct, Russian soldiers , cannons and ammo, sealed the deal on the west’s fate. Only warmongers death fetishgist or bombmakers would prolong this disaster. Ukraine’s done quite enough,it’s time to kill off the last Nazi Enclave in Europe – Kiev,good riddance to bad rubbish is what the history books will tell. The histoty is always witten by the winner.”
The creature is likely in St Petersburg. There should be a way to locate these maggots and squash them.
The kremtroll received quite a lot of replies. Here are just a few :
Seedhouse Returns Reply to Stephen Jones : “The 3rd Assault Brigade, which is mainly composed of volunteers considered to be some of Ukraine’s most experienced fighters, has been battling in the area almost non-stop since January.” That is why the Russian thugs will never win. Caroline Wood Reply to Seedhouse Returns : And that’s why once they get Putin alive, his end will be hell. Eric Grey Reply to Stephen Jones “Stephen Jones”. Great joke, Ivan! Alexandra Corbett Dekanová Reply to Stephen Jones If you are so happy to see NATO dissolve what are you doing here? Woudn’t you be happier somewhere in Russia? Or are you already there? Brian Corbett Reply to Stephen Jones NATO pummelled? 🤣 NATO hasn’t even turned up. They’ve just let Ukraine have a few of their last-generation weapons. Eric Grey Reply to Alexandra Corbett Dekanová “Stephen Jones” isn’t in the UK. He’s working out of an office in Leningrad.
Jan Kras Reply to Stephen Jones A little too much vodka, comrade. That was the Russian Black Sea HQ that was burning. Seedhouse Returns Reply to Jan Kras Histoty is witten….
In true manner of the methodologies of the filthy Nazi war criminal Joseph Goebbels – accuse others of what you are guilty of – this shit-eating ruskie troll calls us warmongers death fetishgist or bombmakers [sic] while their devil worshiping priests bless weapons and ammunition with “holy” water, even spraying the piss over large military areas, and won’t even blink an eye when beating their own troops to death, leaving their bodies with smashed skulls and splattered brains lying in the blood-soaked dirt for all to see.
Only a dead ruskie is a good ruskie, including such filthy, rotten, ghoul mouthpieces like this shit nugget called “Stephen Jones”.
He gives himself away with his spelling of Kyiv. Not a very bright kremtroll.