"We were digging our positions when "Lancet" hit, and in moment excavator was burning like candle, And they started to finish us off with SPGs." Who and how makes dugouts and trenches for our soldiers
Well, the guy who was operating the bucket survived, although he was wounded. A year ago, almost two million was raised for this excavator for the engineer platoon of the 3rd Battalion of the 72nd Brigade. The machine has done a lot of work, dug dozens of dugouts and trenches, saving the lives of our infantry. And then it "died" while performing another task. The guys were left without a faithful assistant, and now they are digging positions with shovels and picks at night.
"ALMOST TWO MILLION HRYVNIAS WERE RAISED IN... AN HOUR AND A HALF"
A year ago, the guys of the engineer and sapper platoon of the 3rd Battalion of the 72nd Brigade had an idea to raise money for an excavator. Because their old Soviet tractor YMZ-6 BOREX 2102 dug worse than they could with their hands. And a modern machine was really needed near Vuhledar. An excavator takes an hour to dig in the Donbas soil, while the guys need several days. The platoon's fighters were convinced of this when they were given an excavator from a neighboring unit to "reinforce" them. But it did a tiny part of what they needed. Because it is needed to dig caponiers to hide armored vehicles, dugouts, positions, trenches and to have a way to get to those dugouts and hide from shelling. The closer to the front line, the better it is to move as deep in the ground as possible.
"We understand that almost two million hryvnias is a huge amount," the unit commander told me a year ago. "We have already started raising money among our own - relatives and friends. I estimate that we will raise it in a year. But we are going to move towards our dream. Will you support our idea?"
How could I not support them? Especially since I have known the unit for a long time, and I talk about their work from time to time - what I can tell so far. The guys work constantly, inventing various "surprises" for the enemy. And they dig as much as necessary without sparing themselves.
"If the necessary amount is collected when we have driven the Russians off our land and there is no need to build positions, we will bury the enemy in the ground. This is also an important job," the battalion commander supported his subordinates.
The guys' desire was so great that we could not stand aside. And they managed to involve one of the most powerful bloggers with a huge audience of subscribers. Ihor Lachenkov posted an appeal to support the fundraising for the excavator in his telegram channel, and it was closed in an hour and a half! The entire amount was raised not in a day, but in less than even half a day.
That day, I was in the East and was driving from Kramatorsk towards Kurakhove, near which we met the guys who could not believe their luck. But the amount raised so quickly made them feel responsible for every penny. They chose the excavator very carefully. When they bought it, they carried out a full special maintenance in Ukraine, did the necessary things - it was good that they had money left over for this. And last fall, the excavator, bought by all of us, was pushing the impenetrable Donbas soil, tangled with acacia roots, like a skilled surgeon's scalpel.
Soon the first repair was needed, then the second, during which the guys replaced the bucket with a wider one. And every time they reported on everything the machine was doing.
In the winter, there was a hit near the working excavator. It smashed the door, but fortunately, no one was injured, and the damage was quickly repaired. The sappers made excuses as if it was their fault that the Russians had come to our land and were trying to destroy everything here, including our excavator. We even announced a fundraising campaign for that repair upon hit and again helped the guys so that they would not only pay for maintenance out of their own pockets. Whenever they received help from strangers, they were as happy as children, feeling the support of the whole country. And so they would again invent something for the enemy, sit down at the levers of the excavator and dig as hard as they could. In secret, I will say that this machine of ours managed to dig even the second line of defense in the area of responsibility of not only the 72nd Brigade but also the neighboring ones. For some reason, this work was not visible at the state level. At least where this unit is located. And it is necessary to think about it in advance because the enemy is pressing and assaulting almost continuously. So the guys were thinking.
And then the enemy Lancet hit, a powerful drone with such high explosive power that it was almost impossible to escape. That's why the first thing I asked when the platoon commander told me in a very mournful voice that the excavator had burned down: "What about the guys?" Fortunately, both of them are alive. Ivan, who was just digging with a bucket, has a cut and burned face, his hands are bruised by debris... He and his partner are already in hospitals. But, like small children, they were almost crying for the excavator, which had burned to ashes. My words that he was killed on a combat mission, that it was iron and, most importantly, that they were alive, did not calm them down. And the photo from the planting, where our excavator was left, looks like a horror movie. It is impossible to take the machine away from there, and why risk it and try to do so if it is now a pile of burnt scrap. Expensive, but already scrap.
The only thing that Volodymyr, who was actually servicing the excavator, saved from the cab was a laminated 50 hryvnias - one of the first donations from 13-year-old Anton, who was taken by his parents from the already occupied Yasynuvata in 2014 and, after heavy shelling of Vasylkiv, where the family now lives, to Ireland, where the boy is studying. When he came back for vacation last summer, he sent 50 hryvnias to buy an excavator.
The boys decided to laminate the "children's" money and keep it as a talisman. So Volodymyr managed to take it. "I hope they will go to the next excavator," the man says.
"WHEN I WAS PULLING VANIA, I TURNED MY HEAD AND SAW THAT THE PLANTING WAS LEFT WITHOUT LEAVES WHERE THERE WAS HIT."
-"That day, in the area of Bohoiavlenka, we were digging reserve positions," says Ivan. "It was four kilometres from the enemy. We started at 4 am and at 9.20 a.m. we were fired.
-"Did you actually dig?
-"Yes, I was sitting at the excavator control panel. And Volodymyr was monitoring the situation around him.
-"I had binoculars," Volodymyr adds, "to watch the sky and see if anything was flying, so that I could at least have time to hide in the trench we dug.
- And did you see that Lancet flying?
-"That's the thing, I didn`t. I had just gone down into the trench to measure its depth - whether it was the right size. We dug a trench in the planting that diverges in different directions," Volodymyr shows the pictures. - "We had 15 positions ready. We connected them with a trench. From the edge, from the field, we pulled 250 metres to connect everything. And I was checking how everything was done, whether we were moving correctly. And then there was an attack from nowhere.
-"Yeah," Ivan adds, "we didn't even hear anything flying. It was very unexpected and instantaneous.
-"The lancet hit the cockpit from above," Volodymyr continues, " it hit it and a cumulative jet went straight into the computer. It caught fire. Vania was thrown out of the tractor. I tried to extinguish the machine, but they started to finish us off with something heavy - self-propelled guns or something. Hit was at the road, about 20 meters from the excavator, and I was thrown back again into the trench. It caught fire. There was no point in extinguishing it. There was another fighter with us. He and I pulled Vania into the trench. We put a tourniquet on his arm because he was bleeding. He was cut all over with glass.
-"We also had a car with us - it was parked a little further away," Ivan continues. I didn't realize what happened to me at first. When they pulled my arm through the turnstile, it started to hurt.
- And the burned face?
-For some reason, my ears hurt a lot. When they pulled all the glass out of my ears in Kurakhove, it only became very painful.
-How long did you wait until you could run to the car to leave?
-"There were four arrivals," says Volodymyr. - "And it was so difficult that I remember it so well: the planting was so dense that our excavator was not visible from the other side. A sea of leaves. When I was pulling Vania, I turned my head and saw that the tractor was on fire, and there were no leaves on the trees in the area where the hit was. None at all!
-Did you realize at once that the tractor was destroyed?
-When it broke out, yes. It burned like a candle. It was plastic. It was good that it was a cumulative charge. If it had been a fragmentation charge, Ivan would not have had a chance...
- Ivan, where did you learn to drive an excavator?
-I learned it here, in the army.
-"I trained him on YMZ at first, on that old tractor," Volodymyr adds. - "But it doesn't dig. "I tried to dig with it the other day, but it only picked up black soil, and it doesn't bite deeper.
- Is it easy to learn how to operate an excavator?
-"Not really," Ivan says, "but in civilian life, I worked on a loader - there's only one lever. I worked in the agricultural industry. I loaded grain, whatever was needed.
-"You see, to operate an excavator in war, you have to think about how to approach, which side to dig from, where to make a dugout and where to make a trench. There are a lot of nuances," explains Volodymyr.
- "Did you know how?" I ask Volodymyr.
-Well... 20 years ago, I worked on a collective farm with an excavator. I loaded and dug with it. And then they needed such a specialist. So I sat down at the levers and remembered... My hands remember what to do and how to do it. But it's not just about pulling levers. I teach Ivan all the time what to do and how to do it, how to plan.
Video editing - Oleksandr Kryshtal
...The guys didn't really believe that they would be able to raise such a huge amount of money for the second time and buy an excavator again. But this machine is needed not only for them but for all of us. Because it helps save the lives of the soldiers of the 72nd legendary brigade, which has been on one of the hottest spots in the world for two years now - Vuhledar. For a month and a half since the excavator's "death", the guys have been digging manually with picks and shovels. Just imagine for a second how hard it is to dig into the ground to make human-sized passages. And they do it every night. And they do it at great risk to their lives and their health.
...A couple of weeks ago, Ihor Lachenkov once again supported the excavator fundraiser. And his subscribers made a miracle again, raising two and a half million hryvnias. So the engineers already have 2 million 600 thousand. But during this time, the cost of machines has increased. Now there is a vehicle that fits, but it costs 3 million. The fighters opened an additional jar for 300 thousand, which we are publishing with a huge request to support the fundraising so that the excavator that suits the guys will not be bought by someone else.
For a JCB excavator Fee for JCB
Goal: ₴3 000 000
Link to the jar https://send.monobank.ua/jar/8S7Y6MBoht
Jar card number 5375 4112 2187 8890
Violetta Kirtoka, Censor.NET
