When I saw that I had hit T-80, it was enchanting! Better than sex, - former Bradley operator Yevhen Shevchuk
If you search for "Bradley vs T80" online, you will see a video of a spectacular hit by the soldiers of the 47th Brigade, who eliminated a Russian tank on 8 May. The video went round the Internet, and the crew of the vehicle had several more combat victories after that.
Censor.NET spoke to the gunner of this crew, Yevhen Shevchuk (nicknamed Psycho). "My creative combat experience is not very long, but it is very intense," he says. Currently, Shevchuk is a member of the National Guard guarding secret facilities, and before being transferred to the NGU, he had been an infantryman on zero. He suffered a concussion.
IN THE US, THE MILITARY FULLY MASTER BRADLEY IN 6 YEARS. WE HAVE BEEN STUDYING FOR 25 DAYS
- I came to the Solomianskyi district military commissariat on my own in November 2023, a little over a year ago. They looked at me like I was a fucking idiot because I had almost two pieces of armour. My then, and now ex-wife, is a lieutenant colonel in the Armed Forces. Plus, I was working as an engineer at the State Emergency Service. I also had chronic bronchitis and a lot of sores.
- What prompted you to volunteer in the autumn of 2023, a year and a half after the start of the full-scale invasion, rather than in 2022?
- To be honest, I wanted to save my family from disintegration. I have two degrees: an accountant-economist and a civil engineer. I worked for large construction companies as an estimator in Kyiv ("Osnova", "Altis"). After the full-scale invasion began, the construction industry simply died. I started having financial problems, like everyone else. My wife insisted on going to Poland to work, so I went. Everything was fine in Poland, except for the Poles, but that's another story. Three months later, I got injured in a warehouse and returned, but my wife was not happy about it. The general message was: you're not going to go to war anyway, so let's divorce, go back to Lutsk (17 years of marriage). So I decided to prove to myself and to her that I still had some gunpowder in me, and I went to the military enlistment office. I was 46 at the time and not a military man at all, so it was the hardest step for me to go there. But I took this step.
I was walking along thinking: I will go to war, perform a feat, kill H#ylo and return home alive to a happy family - it was a kind of "minimum plan". However, this did not stop the divorce and my plan to prove to my wife that I could do it did not work, but I managed to make a small contribution to the victory.
- The mobilised are sent where people are needed. And usually it is infantry, and brigades that have the image that their command does not take care of people. And you ended up in the 47th Brigade, which was then claimed to be a brigade of high morale and patriotism. How did it happen?
- Please, did I think at the recruitment office that I would become a Bradley gunner in the 47th? Fuck no. It have just happened so that I came to the right military enlistment office at the right time.
- First, you spent a month in the training school, another month at the "Desna" training centre, and then a month in Germany, where you learned to actually drive the Bradley. How would you rate your level of training?
- Before Germany, we were sent to "Desna" to get our IFV-1 gunner operator certificates, because without them I would not have been allowed to train on the Bradley. I still don't understand why this is necessary - it makes no sense. The IFV-1 weighs between 12 and 18 tonnes, depending on the load, while the Bradley weighs between 28 and 35 tonnes. These are completely different types of armament and vehicle safety.
In Germany, we have been studying for 25 days with American instructors, very thoroughly. At the end of the course, we have received certificates that clearly show the nuances of translation, when Americans say one thing and our military translate it literally. In the US, it takes 2 years to learn to drive a Bradley - first to become a mechanic-driver, then, if you wish, to become a gunner for another 2 years, and then another 2 years to become a crew chief. In other words, it takes a person 6 years to master Bradley. We have been training for 25 days.
But our American certificates say that we received a "certificate to teach others". What they meant was someone who has learned and will continue to learn and set an example for others. In Ukrainian, a teacher is an "instructor". Now, after 25 days, I am an instructor, according to the entry in my military ID card, while in fact we were shown the basics, with the prospect of further self-study.
- As far as I know, you got your nickname Psycho in Germany. Tell us why it's so frank.
- I changed two call signs. Duncan was how I was known back in '95 in the informal community of Lutsk, but McLeod didn't stick in the war. And everyone accepted the name Psycho with a bang.
In Germany, we were trained as gunner operators, but there was one day when we all had to ride a Bradley in the driver's seat. There is an automatic transmission there, which is actually a steering wheel and two pedals. They explained to me: don't touch the speed, take the handbrake off, put on a helmet and go; the instructor and the interpreter will be riding in the tower.
It's worth a flashback. I am 47 years old and it so happened that I have never driven a car. I have done many things in my life - from chief accountant and head of the tender department to nightclub security guard and barista - and I cannot do this. However, I understand the physics of the process.
So I started running. "Slipper on the floor" and forward and forward... It was such a thrill. A dirt road in a German pine forest. It's morning. I'm driving with the sunroof open, the wind is nice. In short, "a dream, not a job". I let off the gas before the turns and follow the signs. There is no sound in the helmet-phone, so I think I'm driving normally. Because of the car's weight and dimensions, I don't feel the speed. I come to a fork in the road and stop carefully, because I don't know where to go next. I look out of the hatch and see two dazed bodies on the tower - hoarse, with tousled hair and bulging eyes. It turns out that the helmet was not fully attached, so I did not hear their screams. And they were screaming because I was driving at 65 km per hour with a vehicle's technical speed of 70 km per hour. According to the internal rules of the training ground, I was supposed to drive no more than 15 km per hour, but they didn't tell me that. Apparently, it was assumed that I should have known that anyway.
According to the Bradley design, you can go down from the tower to me. They said that I was driving so fast that they were afraid to come down. And then I told them that this was my first driving experience in general, and the instructor's eyes bulged even more.
The next day I wanted to tell this story to our another interpreter. I started talking, and she looked at me in surprise: "Oh yeah? So you're the same Psycho who drove our Vova (the interpreter) around?". It turns out that everyone have already known this story.
KATSAPS HAVE LEARNT TO TARGET BRADLEY'S ONLY WEAK POINT
- What are your first impressions at Zero?
- My first combat mission took place on 6 April, and my first impressions were that it was a reliable and powerful vehicle. I was shooting, not really knowing what I was aiming at. I hit it and it was on fire, it was beautiful! It was some kind of Katsap MT-LB with a barbecue, I was told later. Then I start kicking faggots, and it's all so impressive! Only later did I realise that I could have been killed, but you don't think about that when you're shooting. Then I also burned down an APC, hit a tank.
- Tell us about that famous battle with the tank on 8 May.
- When we went on a mission, our bird accompanied us and showed us the direction. It told us: there is a tank ahead, shoot. The principle of operation of the Bradley TOW ATGM is that the vehicle must stop to fire. When we attack, I have to guide it visually and with the manipulator until it hits. The funny thing is that this was my first TOW shot with the Bradley. Before that, I had only shot on simulators in Germany.
It was a very long time, it seems to me that it was flying for eternity (the distance is 1.5 km, not 400 m, as someone said on YouTube). But when I saw that I had hit it, and I aimed under the tower, it was an incredibly enchanting feeling! Better than sex. So we shot back, drove away, arrived at the bend, and our guys were already saying: "You are YouTube stars".
- Infantry often sees the enemy live visually, while the gunner mostly hears, if there is a result?
- I have never identified Katsaps as people. I was doing my job and duty, that's all. I had no emotions about it.
- What about a bonus for a destroyed tank? The 47th Brigade should have given them.
- The crew was given a monetary reward for the tank, but I received it only on paper. I had another financial reward for the liquidation of other equipment, but it was also not paid.
- What tasks did you receive most of the time?
- Bradley is not only engaged in hitting the equipment, but also in the withdrawal and delivery of infantry, evacuation of the wounded and bodies of the dead. Basically, this is 80% of all tasks, the rest is the actual battle. We worked for 3 days and rested for 3 days - from April to June.
In June, we started running out of Bradleys and by the middle of the month we had no more in our company. The Katsaps learned how to hit them, so it was a shame.
- Is this the only reason?
- The Bradley is so structurally well made and protected that there are few elements of the body that can be penetrated. And the Katsaps found one such place. We have three 200 gunners because of such hits. This is a sad truth.
- Did you lose your crew's vehicle in the battle?
- We came under fire a couple of times. The FPVs were coming in crookedly. But if I had gone with our guys on a mission in which our Bradley was destroyed, I probably wouldn't be giving interview now. The Bradley crew consists of three people: a commander, a gunner and a driver. However, there have been many times when two people have been able to cope. That day, we had to withdraw infantry. The commander ordered me to stay on the bend. And during the mission, they were hit by a ATGM right in the gunner's seat, the commander told me about it later. The driver was hit and got shrapnel wounds, but the rest of them survived and were evacuated by another Bradley.
- The 47th Brigade was well-publicised and provided with Western equipment thanks to its public formation. Therefore, when our Western partners saw this equipment burning and being lost in the first battles, they were somewhat shocked. They did not expect the scale of the war. What would you say to them and how would you explain the rapid loss of equipment?
- The active armour around the Bradley itself was crucial - it was really good protection. However, the faggots still learned to target weaknesses, which is why the statistics are so sad. The grills of the time (a welded frame on the tower) did not solve the problem.
- So it's not about the number of vehicles or the lack of artillery or drone support?
- Not in numbers at all. In our direction, Pokrovsk, we were really losing in terms of drones and electronic warfare at the time. Faggot drones were a nightmare for us. We were not so much afraid of artillery as of enemy FPVs.
Secondly, there was a lack of human resources. People fled for the AWOL, there were 200, many 300, some were transferred to other units. In the end, there were not many adequate fighters left.
I WAS THE ONLY ONE FROM MY BRADLEY COMPANY WHO AGREED TO JOIN THE INFANTRY
- How did you end up in the infantry?
- It was only when the Bradley saga finally ended that they started wooing us to join the infantry. It was a choice: to write a report about refusing to comply with a combat order for health reasons and wait for the military medical commission (and then be discharged or transferred to the Rambat); to go to the AWOL; or to join the infantry. Only I agreed to join the infantry. When I returned from the zero, I told my company commander that there would be another exit, because I was simply not fit because of health. And I was not trained to be a stormtrooper at all.
The story of the infantrymen that I had actually seen was six people of about pre-retirement age. They have just come from training. In the morning, they are told that they will train for another week before being sent to zero. In the afternoon, they are told that they will go to the training ground and train for two hours. In the evening, they are told to be ready at midnight, because they are going to zero ALREADY. Four days later, one out of six men returns, lightly wounded. These are the statistics of the infantry in the 47th Brigade in the summer of 2024.
- It's a well-known story that when artillerymen run out of shells, UAV operators run out of drones, tankers or Bradley men run out of vehicles, they are all agitated to join the infantry. Many of them refuse. Why did you agree?
- Well, I am a soldier. I was ready for a "feat"! It was already the period when we were being pushed out of Novopokrovsk by the army. We went there as infantry holding the line. But almost immediately we came under mortar fire from a 120-mm.
We arrive at the landing in the evening. We are ordered: "Dig in". And the soil there is such that if you dig 40-60 cm with a sapper's shovel, then there is unbreakable ground that needs to be blown up or dynamited with dynamite bombs or excavators. And then we heard our fathers, the commanders, on the radio: "Guys, have you dug in? Now dig fox holes". And we are just fu#king crazy. A "fox hole" is a niche parallel to the trench, about a metre deep. We had barely dug 60 cm. And here we are, lying in these 60 centimetres with our faces in the ground, and we hear an enemy gunner drone hovering over us. Then the drone flew away and about 20 metres away, a 120mm mine arrived. After 30 seconds, the same drone hovers over us. Now the 120th mine comes closer. And this is repeated 5 times, we are already covered by the ground. I told the machine gunner: "The sixth time will definitely be ours". We had to regroup from there.
- The experience of the infantry is incomparable. Did you have a feeling that you were somewhere between worlds?
- There is a lot of mysticism and illogic in war. If I had seen such a moment in a film before, I would have thought that either the scriptwriter and director were idiots or the actors were unskilled.
For example. When we were leaving Novopokrovske and withdrawing our positions... Imagine: I'm walking with a machine gun, because the machine gunner himself is even more injured than me, so he carries two of our machine guns, which are lighter in weight. We go to the landing, we have to walk about a kilometre in broad daylight in a clean field in summer. There is nothing on either side, not even a ditch. Everything kicked in at once: bronchitis, age, fatigue, contusion, plus a machine gun that can't be dropped. My partner rushed forward - wow, I think, this "contusion" is strong. I hear behind me the voices of the f#ckers from the landing where we came from. I feel so bad that I don't even have the strength to look back. Shots start flying in my direction, but they don't hit me. I keep walking. A FPV comes from the right - once, a couple of seconds later - twice. I don't run or even walk fast. I don't fall down, I don't hide, I just keep walking. Suddenly, I hear a drone hovering over me about 20 metres away, and I realise that it's not ours. And I realise that I'm f#cked here. Well, I think, okay. I slowly raise my hand and smile wryly. I think: I'm going to show him the fuck - like "and then I'll sing"... But at the last moment, instead of the fuck, I show him the suite (thumbs up) and stand. The drone hovered for a while longer, then flew away, and there was silence, no more FPVs, no more shots from behind, and my machine gunner was almost invisible.
- Why did you end up showing the suite?
- A soldier has to do everything to survive, and this understanding kicked in at the last moment. In addition, I was wearing a US Marine Corps uniform, where the pixel looks very similar to the Katsap pixel from a distance. At that time, the Ukrainian pixel was not welcomed among the Bradley men of our company, and everyone wore different multicams. All of this must have played a role.
Or another story. In a new position. It's morning. I'm with a machine gun, a machine gunner is 10 metres away, also dug in. And suddenly a shout: "The f#ckers are coming, get out". I didn't understand what was happening, I couldn't see anyone. The machine gunner fired, but missed. Then in my sector, I see an old man of about 60 years old in a Ukrainian Armed Forces pixel, AK in hand, coming from the Katsap side. He was shouting in Russian: "Don't shoot". I do not understand whether he is ours or not. I aim at the old man's head, pull the trigger, and there is silence - the machine gun is not removed from the fuse... but I did not put it on the fuse!!! At the moment when I was taking aim for the second time, something stuck in my mind, as if I had heard that voice somewhere. I shouted "Call sign!" Gagauz shouted back. "I shouted to the guys 'Don't shoot, it's ours! I heard him on the radio when I was fighting on Bradley, he was from another company. I recognised him purely by his voice. And he is a real Gagauz, he speaks Ukrainian very poorly. The grandfather helped us dig trenches in that landing later on. And if it wasn't on the fuse, I would have killed him 100%.
- You refused to go out with the infantry for the second time...
- When I was recruited to woo me to the infantry for the second time, I wrote a report on refusing to perform the military service for health reasons and, while waiting for the military medical commission, I wrote a report on transferring to the National Guard.
- And were you transferred without any problems?
- Yeah, our personnel officer was surprised. Me too, because I didn't believe they would transfer me. But they say 47 have submitted documents to the SBI, I don't know what will happen next, I'm not even interested.
- A trivial but important question. How did you overcome your fear?
- Everyone invents their own methods in different ways - up to the use of certain substances. When we came under mortar fire, I remembered the conversations from the training camp that the first time men go into a stupor or piss themselves, or even worse.... out of fear. And I really laughed at those conversations. I knew intuitively that I would not die here and not from this shelling. I cannot explain it.
- There is also an incredible story when you were almost recognised as either dead or a prisoner. Tell us about it.
- I had a certificate of a rescuer with me, I didn't take any other documents to the position. And I have lost it. A couple of months later, they started calling me, asking me strange questions: whether I was not in captivity, whether I was alive. And it turned out that my documents had surfaced on a Russian website, and from there, our people wrote in a telegram chat that Yevhen Shevchuk had gone missing. I contacted the administrator and she fixed everything.
- People say that such cases mean you will live a long time.
- I don't want a long .... I want it bright and interesting.
Olha Skorokhod, Censor. NET
