A Hard Road
October 8, 2023. I remember this day well. First, it was Lawyer’s Day — my professional holiday. One of them. At that time I still remembered well what it meant to be a lawyer. Second, I was supposed to go out to a position. I had been preparing for this departure since early morning. It rained all day, so the road was bound to be difficult. Most likely we would have to walk a large part of the way through the mud in full gear, with weapons and ammo, also loaded with water, food and fuel for the generator.
The main thing was to get past the slope near Ivanivske. Oh, how I feared that slope! And I wasn’t the only one. It was very steep and long. Sliding into the ditch was easy. Descending it on foot in the rain was a dubious pleasure. Worse still was climbing up. But that was only half the trouble. The awful thing was that it was easily visible from the nine-story buildings of Bakhmut, where enemy ATGMs were positioned. Usually in pickups we would fly past that slope as fast as possible. So I braced myself for fatigue, aching muscles, and rehearsing all the curse words I knew while we covered that stretch. But I was preparing in vain. We still drove to the position by vehicle. Although there was less good about that than in a rainy walk on foot.
Our plan was that while it was raining visibility would be poor and drones wouldn’t be able to fly because of the weather. So our movement would be harder to spot. We took a different road. Yes, it had more asphalt and less waterlogged dirt. The catch was that we had to travel the section of the Bakhmut highway that was even more sighted in than the slope. That road remained a kind of no man’s land but was well covered by the Russians. Still, the weather conditions were on our side.
Riding with me were Sheva — commander of the machine-gun platoon — and Calvados — the senior sergeant of the anti-tank platoon. Behind the wheel was Baron — in the good sense, a completely unhinged driver. He was the one who drove me on my first combat sortie. Back then I was amazed at how he managed to drive so easily through the mud. With a pro like him, I felt more or less calm. On the way we stopped by Cobra. She was our company’s combat medic. A medic, not a feminized form of the word — she constantly emphasized that because she didn’t much like feminatives. We didn’t argue; we didn’t care. Cobra gave us a set of cold medicines — after all, it was autumn, the season for illnesses. Worry showed on Cobra’s face. That I really didn’t like.
On the road Calvados and I talked about motorcycles to distract ourselves. I was still considering whether to buy a bike. Calvados already had one. I also asked him why he had a GoPro on his helmet. He said he wanted to shoot some interesting footage. As we began to approach the most dangerous stretch of road, the rain stopped and visibility improved, but by then it was too late to turn back. So we cautiously drove around burned-out vehicles. The ground was littered with shell fragments. Ahead was Bakhmut. At one point we saw a wrecked truck whose trailer still had many packs of sweet water — Fanta. A man in military gear was collecting water by the trailer. His being there was very unexpected. At first I didn’t understand what he was doing. But, damn, looting is looting. I didn’t think sweet water could be such a valuable resource. Although maybe he was just a fan of that drink…
We had just passed that truck when an ATGM struck in front of our vehicle. It’s hard to say how far from us it landed, but it was close. Very close. If we had been driving a little faster, it would have hit us. That’s how we were all utterly stunned, but no one panicked. Baron began maneuvering vigorously among the burned-out vehicles. Sheva shouted, “Drive, go, drive the fuck out of here!” Baron answered, “Shut the fuck up, I know what I’m doing!” And we couldn’t go any faster because the rear left tire had been punctured by a fragment. So Baron had to do everything possible to make sure the ATGM operator couldn’t acquire us a second time. Fortunately, it worked and we drove out of sight.
Riding on adrenaline, that’s how we reached the position. Almost to the position. We still needed to hide the vehicle so we could change the tire. We found the nearest garage and parked. Calvados stayed with Baron to help, and Sheva and I headed to the destination point. Fortunately it wasn’t far. After the repair we had to pick up the rest of the teams. I stayed with Calvados to guard our SPG. The wait was not boring. We listened as FPVs began to fly. It turned out Calvados had forgotten to turn on the GoPro, so our whole adventure wasn’t filmed. Ah, a pity. I would have loved to watch all that footage. Even the shots showing my frightened face. Especially the ones showing my frightened face. Calvados is a good conversationalist. He keeps stressing that he’s quite the panicker. Although when we were being shot at, he kept calm. At least he didn’t show fear. He also told how he had to spend three days dug in without taking off his body armor because the shelling didn’t stop. I observed that he didn’t look like a panicker. Calvados replied that he was also pretty much a don’t-give-a-damn type. In any case, he’s a sharp anti-tank specialist and previously was an assault trooper who cares about people’s fate. He’s also an admirer of Les Podervyansky’s work. We bonded over our shared fondness for that author.
The rest of the days we spent preparing for an assault. I was zeroing our fire support weapons. Ammo was brought up and we looked for new advantageous positions. Something serious was being prepared. Serious enough that the assault was postponed by a day. Then a few more times. The bastards were also preparing for an offensive on the Avdiivka direction.
Two and a half years have passed since then. I had many outings of varying difficulty. But I will never forget this trip. Unfortunately, during one of those outings an enemy “Molniya” hit Baron’s vehicle. In principle, he shouldn’t have gone out. But my current company’s vehicle fleet had almost run out over the past six months. So they asked my original fire-support company to provide a vehicle and a driver. Baron went to ferry pilots. Because of transport problems, he and the others who were lucky enough to receive only concussions could not be evacuated. We had to ask 1 ОШБ «Да Вінчі» for help so they could carry out an evacuation on a Bradley. That’s how Baron ended up riding with the “three-hundreds” and the “two-hundreds” — the wounded and the killed. Baron now faces a long rehabilitation. Due to his injuries, his foot was amputated. The other leg was shattered.
Збір на транспорт для літунів Айдару
Ну привіт. Я Чернець із Айдару і ви щойно прочитали історію з мого щоденника. Нам би якось замінити той тазік, про який ви щойно прочитали. Буду вдячний, якщо допоможете закрити збір. Alex Chernetsky
