“There was no point in surrendering”: a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier kept a basement in Avdeevka for 41 days

Marta Gichko13:08, 03/24/24

The warrior was preparing for death, because there was no food, and the cannonade around him did not subside either day or night.

The struggle for positions in the area of the city of Avdeevka emphasizes that fighting at the front is increasingly becoming contact. During one of the attacks, the Russians tried to storm a bunker in which two Ukrainian soldiers were trapped under the rubble.

According to a report by The New York Times , the soldiers’ small bunker was in the basement near an abandoned house.

“They surrounded us and started throwing grenades. They shouted: “Surrender – you will live.” There was no point in surrendering, because they would have torn me apart,” said 39-year-old Vladislav Molodykh, call sign “Molot”.

It was around 10 am on December 14th. “Hammer” came out of this basement after 41 terrible days – alone, but alive.

The battle for the basement in Avdeevka was only a small part of one of dozens of clashes that took place at the front. But the battle underscores how difficult it is to both defend and attack in a war that is increasingly being fought in bloody, close-quarters combat, with Ukrainian forces short on ammunition and Russia trying to brutally advance.

A soldier of the 71st Jaeger Brigade of Molodykh told his story from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from frostbite and other injuries.

Attack

Molodykh volunteered to join the army six months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the end of last year he was sent to Avdeevka, where months of fierce fighting continued.

On December 13, “Molot”, along with three other fighters, was placed in a position in an abandoned house in the south of Avdievka, not far from which there was a basement for storing food in the winter. It was in this two-section room without windows and with access to the house only through a narrow tunnel that the soldiers fought a desperate struggle for survival.

Capturing a bunker is a bloody job. Although Russia has stepped up air bombing to destroy Ukrainian fortifications, it needs infantry to storm the positions. In this, Ukrainian defenders have an advantage.

The house where Molodykh was stationed was used as an observation post. There, firing positions were fortified to defeat Russian forces that were moving in their direction.

But when the Hammer arrived, the area had been covered in thick fog for days, allowing Russian troops to approach undetected. They attacked the next morning.

“We repulsed the first assault immediately,” Molodykh said.

After the battle, “Molot” and his brother – 38-year-old Igor Tretyak, call sign “Terminator” – went to the bunker to warm their feet and make tea. Two other warriors raised the alarm.

Around the bunker, grenades exploded and bullets whistled. They were trapped in the basement and attacked by a group of 15-20 invaders. “Hammer” eliminated one attack aircraft; he fell into the bunker tunnel. One of the soldiers was captured by enemies, he begged the Russians to save his life.

Two men in the bunker said they heard one of their comrades outwardly begging for his life after he was captured by Russian soldiers.

“Don’t shoot. I want to live.” But he was simply shot, and I realized that I would not give up,” Tretyak recalled this moment.

Both soldiers near the bunker died in battle on December 14; for the next three days, Molodykh and Tretyak held off the attackers. Private Tretyak, with shrapnel wounds on both legs from grenade explosions and a broken right hand, was reloading his comrade’s magazines.

On the fourth day, the abandoned house was blown up, blocking the entrance to the basement. The warriors were trapped.

The escape

In the cramped bunker – one of the sectors was approximately 3.5 m by 3.5 m, the other was even smaller – the Ukrainian privates had no means of communication with the outside world. The food was also running out.

“We ate once a day. Half a can of canned food or some kind of porridge,” Molodykh said.

Two weeks later, Tretyak decided to run away. He realized that he would die from his wounds and hunger if he stayed.

“I made a decision for myself: either I’ll leave now, or we’ll both die. I even thought that if I go out and get shot there, at least it will be quick, and I won’t die of hunger or thirst,” Tretyak said .

Molodykh decided to stay. Tretiak found a weak spot among several collapsed floor beams. He pushed them aside, cleared the ground and climbed out. Then “Hammer” heard “several machine gun fire” and feared the worst.

“I thought he was killed,” he said.

Molodykh learned that his comrade had survived only three weeks later, when he left the bunker.

Tretiak felt momentarily euphoric, breathing in fresh air for the first time in weeks. He then heard gunfire and ran for cover, dislocating his shoulder. He wandered through the devastated streets of Avdiivka, hoping to find Ukrainian soldiers before the occupiers found him. The warrior pretended to be dead as a drone circled overhead.

When the drone’s buzzing died down, he continued to walk around, looking for food and water in abandoned houses. On the second day he saw a soldier approaching.

“In the first seconds, I didn’t understand who it was. I thought it was Russian, and that’s the end,” Tretyak recalled.

But it was a Ukrainian in a different form, Tretiak was safe.

Alone in the dark

In the Molodykh bunker he was left alone in the dark. The ground around him shook with almost constant explosions. One night he heard Russian troops discussing his fate. He heard discussions about destroying the positions to kill just one man.

The food ran out, “Hammer” pulled his hand out of the hole along which Tretyak was running to collect snow for water. He was preparing for death.

“There was darkness before my eyes. I almost lost consciousness,” he recalled.

Then everything became eerily quiet. For two days he did not hear the Russians. The explosions died down. At 8 a.m. on January 23, he heard someone calling his name.

The rescue

A 21-year-old Ukrainian private with the call sign “Gerich” said the Russians were forced out of the area after a fierce battle. The Ukrainian fighters were informed that one of their comrades might be alive at the position. The Hammer was barely found under the rubble.

Medic Anatoly said that the man who came out was just flesh and bones, mentally exhausted and barely alive. The sergeant was surprised how much one person could withstand.

“His eyes shone with happiness that he was finally reunited with his own,” “Gerich” recalled.

The battle for Avdiivka intensified. Soon after the rescue of Private Young, the city fell. The bunker was captured by the Russians. Tretyak and Molodykh hope that they will be able to return to fighting.