Espreso. Global
OPINION

Ukrainian soldier tells how infantry crosses Russian defense line: Playing with death around the clock

25 August, 2023 Friday
13:30

Ukrainian fighters cleared out yet another forest strip. And then another and another after that!

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They can hardly be called forest strips anymore. They are just mangled tree trunks sticking out between trenches, communication lines, dugouts, and blocked gaps. The Russian invaders had time to prepare everything carefully. Not just to mine everything around (and then mine it again), but to build a system of engineering barriers. And all this must now be broken down. The infantry has to go through it.

Every step on their own land, every plantation liberated from the Russians, comes at a great price. But the fighters are stubbornly moving forward. Our “birds” are hovering above. Covering them. Watching over them. And above them are other “birds” looking for artillery

- Point 1200, a mortar fired somewhere in the area! Piton, find the bastard and give me the coordinates!

- Piton roger. We're on it.

- This is Ptakh-1. A tank is firing from the outskirts of the village. Write down the numbers. I'm going to follow it for 10 minutes.

- Ptakh, I'm Ternopil, roger. We are aiming...

This is how it goes all the time. A round-the-clock game with death. Russian aviation disperses 500-kilogram KABs like mere grains. No one is surprised anymore. In retaliation, the occupiers are met with the ferocious bite of HIMARS. One white line in the sky. The second. Third... Sixth. Seventh... They are working in full force.

One can only imagine the results of their filigree work. The air shudders from the artillery duel. The heat. Sweat. Blood. Death. Everything is mixed here, under the Ukrainian sun. Among the forest strips, fields, and... birds singing while everything is quiet for a few minutes and the soldiers of the assault units, platoons, and companies are catching their breath before the next assault, the next fortified plantation. Everything that has happened an hour ago repeats again. Mortars, chirping, mines all around, but you have to go forward, no matter what, you have to go forward! And the guys do, advancing meter by meter across their land.

- I go out to the breastwork to pick up the drone, and there is a wild boar.

- What do you mean, a boar?

- A literal boar... Ten meters away from me. I saw it through a thermal imager. Almost sh*t bricks.

- Who, a boar?

- Me! (Laughs).

- How did it survive there?

- Who knows... Somehow!

Source.

About the author. Oleksiy Petrov, an Anti-terrorist operation veteran, blogger.

The editorial staff does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.

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