Soldiers of 22nd SMB about operation in Kursk: Army must taste victory. Enemy’s land must burn. VIDEO
The 22nd Mechanised Brigade was one of the first to cross the border in the Kursk region in August 2014.
In a new story of "Ukrainian Witness", the soldiers told about the battles on the enemy territory, Censor.NET informs.
The brigade's soldiers are currently working in the Kharkiv region.
"After Kursk, it's much calmer here. When it started there (in Kursk), we were constantly moving around. One day we were in one place, and the next day we were moving further and further..." says Vitalii (Volt), battery commander of the 22nd Brigade.
The Gvozdika unit was constantly moving, sometimes having to change its position twice during the day. Up to 100 shots were fired during the day. Due to this intense work, the soldiers had no more than 3-4 hours of sleep.
Vasyl (Pixel) said that they were initially taken from the Donetsk region to the Sumy region for recuperation.
"We were placed on the border. We were assigned targets and worked on them. Everything was kept in great secrecy. When we were provided with shells, our first thought was that there would be an attack, only from their side. But when it started at night, I was surprised. I had never seen anything like it even in Donetsk. We were working, and other units were working, and we were using grenades, and our aviation... It happened that we hit enemy equipment on the move. And the most pleasant thing was when our infantry came to us and thanked us," the defender said.
Soldier Dmytro (Kent), a senior gunner, said that even in the Donetsk region they did not work as well as in the Kursk region.
The soldier said it was hard in the Kursk region: "We dug everything by hand. There were no forests like ours. Plantations 10-12 metres wide, and that was it. It was very difficult to hide. The only thing that saved us was that it was summer and there was greenery."
For artillery to fire, someone has to give it the coordinates. Roy, the commander of the 22nd Brigade's UAV unit and pilot of the Leleka reconnaissance drone crew, spoke about this aspect of the job.
"We are the eyes of the mechanized brigade, and for us, the operation started long before 6 August. We flew abroad and looked at what was built there and how it was built, where and what was fortified, where the enemy personnel were, how the electronic warfare works, how the fortifications were located, where the equipment was, what the escape routes were, future border crossing routes and so on. Then, when everything started to happen, we accompanied the movement of equipment. We worked with the team from the very beginning to the very end. Our crew withdrew when the team had already left," he says.
The Russians are constantly hunting for pilots, and it happened that a KAB "arrived" at the Leleka airfield. The crew had to quickly change positions.
Roy's crew had a lot of work to do, sometimes making up to 5 flights a day. They had 3-5 hours of sleep at most. For example, the crew spotted an enemy Ka-52 helicopter, which they then worked on. The Ka-52 burned out, and the pilot was killed. Roy and his comrades also successfully aimed artillery at bridges, and reconnoitered Korenevo, where they found the paratroopers' checkpoint. They assessed the engineering structures along which the vehicles were moving and reported on mine sites.
"Heavy artillery, HIMARS, and aviation were used. We are the eyes that look very closely and greedily at what can be targeted by those who bring fire.
Finally, we will watch someone else's land burn, not ours... Soldiers should not be brought up on defeats and retreats. The army must feel the taste of victory. You should have seen the shining faces of the guys when the 22nd Brigade took a hundred prisoners. We could not even imagine that there were so many of them in those rat holes. We had to feel those feelings," he summed up.
