Ukrainian fighter went in alone to clear tree line near Siversk and capture six Russian assault troopers
A soldier from the 4th National Guard Brigade "Rubizh," "Syla Svobody" (Power of Freedom) Battalion, tells the story of his own heroic act — an incredible wartime episode captured by a drone.
Hi, my name is Denys. I’m a reconnaissance scout with the 4th Battalion, "Syla Svobody," of the "Rubizh" Brigade.
Can you tell us how the day of the battle began for you — the day when you carried out a counterattack on your own? How did it all start?
Well, actually, it started two days earlier. Here’s how it went: five vehicles were moving — three of them turned right and went off somewhere, and two drove straight through our engineering defenses. I don’t know how, but they managed to get through the mines — they were lucky, I’d say. These two UAZ vehicles drove through the engineering defenses, crossed the infantry lines in the open field, and got to our position. There was an issue with communications — the enemy was actively using electronic warfare. By the time we reestablished comms, one of the UAZs was already parked near our dugout.
Let me clarify: those five vehicles, were they all UAZ trucks?
Yes.
Did they storm with a convoy of UAZs?
Yeah. I guess they’d coordinated something among themselves, and their commanders once again just threw them under the bus. Two UAZs went straight ahead, and three turned off and fled. Must’ve been some recon guys, I figure.
One of them got hit — drove right into the open field and burned up about 200–300 meters from us. Another one made it all the way to our dugout. We had comms issues at the time. I was just about to run out with the machine gun when they opened fire on us. Our guys from the neighboring position were already engaging the UAZ, so we had to hold back — we didn’t want to jump out and get shot by friendly fire.
They ran around a bit, and our guys hit them with small arms fire. I’ve got to say — they did a solid job, pretty accurate. The rest of that group scattered into the tree line from those two UAZs. Some were taken out by drones, some by us. By the way, the dugout they’d been hiding in, I threw two grenades in there that day. And I finished one off later — threw another grenade forward, with adjustments from a drone, since I didn’t have a clear line of sight.
There was a "Rubizh" drone above you, and your comrades from the brigade were adjusting your fire?
Yes, directly. There’s no freelancing out there. You follow orders, that’s it. Walking around on your own — well, that’s basically suicide.
And that was the end of their UAZ assault. The funniest part — that night, our guys came over and actually took those UAZs.
The assault was over. About an hour passed, all clear in the air. They asked me to go check on that UAZ — see if it still ran, what had happened to it. It wasn’t parked right next to us, so we didn’t have a good reference point. I went over and grabbed two rifles from it.
Those assault troops — total rookies — left two rifles behind. I noticed there were shotgun shells for a pump-action shotgun in there too. The ammo load was still inside. They’d left all their gear in the UAZ. The tires looked okay — didn’t seem deflated. The whole dashboard was torn apart. They asked me to check if the ignition key was there, but there was no ignition at all. The entire dashboard had been torn apart. There was a machine gun mounted on top of the UAZ. They just chucked it in and ran.
Was there a machine gun mounted on the UAZ? Were they firing from it?
They’ve been building them like jihad-mobiles — only their own version. So, our guys came over at night and took the UAZ — along with the ammo, everything, even valuable documents.
Do you know where that UAZ is now?
At the moment, no — I don’t know where it is.
It's incredible.
I grabbed those two rifles — and one of them had a name on it, a call sign — a sticker with the guy’s tag right on the weapon. Picked up some extra ammo, looked over that clunky vehicle, and that was it for the day. The next day was relatively quiet. Their infantry positions up front—those guys in ghillie suits—tried their usual night kamikaze raids. I don’t know, real daredevils. Every night, they hit us; walk through any tree line and you’ll find their bodies all over, yet they keep coming. Still, that day went by without much trouble.
So, it’s the second day after the UAZ assault. We’re sitting there at lunch, sipping coffee, taking a breather between stretches of our engineering defenses, when we hear something scraping. Someone moved past, and dirt started trickling down over the dugout.
Someone walked right over your dugout? You’re sitting out there on the zero line, and someone just walks by in silence — in broad daylight?
Yeah, right in the middle of the day. Around one or two in the afternoon. It was strange, because we were in a spot where the drones were doing their shift change — one replacing another. Anytime you stepped outside, you’d ask ten times: "Is the sky clear?" Because both enemy UAVs and ours were swapping out right over our sector. Then the dirt started trickling down again. Alright, maybe a mouse running around — standard program, nothing special.
And we hear it: Neighbours, are you here?
And that kind of threw us off a bit
In Russian, right? And you’re sitting there with a coffee in your hand, yeah, buddy?
Pretty funny. Yeah, we’re just sitting there, drinking coffee. Then we hear him calling someone and he says a call sign. I can’t remember the call sign now, but he said it out loud. I look over at the rifle we had propped up in the corner — the one from the UAZ — and I see the exact same call sign on it. I’m like, "Oh, shit, we’re screwed." We froze up a little. My buddy pulled himself together quicker than I did. He shouted back at them in Ukrainian, "What’s your call sign?" And they started fumbling: "Guys, we’re on your side!" My buddy didn’t think twice — he’s unloading rounds through the ceiling.
They realized we weren’t exactly their friends: "Are you guys f**king crazy?" - and ran off.
We contacted our command right away: "We’ve got a bit of a situation here — an occupier is wandering around looking for his buddy." They checked the drone feed — tracks were clearly visible in the snow — leading straight to their neighboring position. Really close. Turned out we’d been living side by side with those monkeys for two whole days. And they hadn’t made a sound — because we were just going about our daily business right next to them.
Why’d you end up doing the clearing yourself?
Well, first of all — someone had to. Those neighbors were getting in the way a bit... They told me: "They ran off that way. You’ve been over there — toss a couple of grenades in." I said, "No problem." Loaded up my pouches with grenades — and off I went.
How did you decide to go in there alone — to clear out an enemy group without knowing how many of them were inside?
On sheer will, I just went in and started chucking grenades.
One side of their position was buried in, so I fired a few shots, tossed a grenade, and sprinted to the opposite side. They got distracted by what was happening over there, and I used that to move to the other entrance and start hitting them from different angles. I tried to make it seem like there were multiple attackers — like both entrances were under control — so they’d feel boxed in. I know what it means to come under fire, to feel a munition drop right on your head — so I threw eight grenades into the entrances. The goal was to hit them psychologically — break their morale.
Taking them prisoner wasn’t the objective. They had to be neutralized.
So tell me, how did you get them to surrender? Did you yell something? Did they say anything? How did that moment play out?
Well, according to their version — they offered to surrender.Took them about five or six times to actually hear me. I was straight-up yelling at them: "Surrender, you b#stards! Come on!" But I think they just couldn’t hear it. By the fifth or sixth time — they finally did.
So they finally heard you on the fifth or sixth shout?
Right. I yelled that only after a grenade was already sailing their way. I’d tossed eight grenades in total and dumped about five magazine cases at them, hitting every angle I could. Then I shouted, "Surrender, you b#stards!" I was actually heading back for a reload—figured I’d grab five more grenades; we’d stockpiled plenty beforehand. I’d barely taken a step when I heard: "We surrender." I’m thinking, What do you mean, surrender? Are you even still alive in there? Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. So I ask, "How many of you?" He says, "Six of us." And my heart dropped again—same feeling as when they were wandering around looking for their neighboring units. Six of them? How is that even possible?
I finally managed to get through to command — barely. The first thing that crossed my mind was: Where are we going to put them? We were barely squeezing in there ourselves. Ammo was stacked everywhere. There was just no physical space to hold them. I never had the thought of finishing them off or anything like that. POWs are POWs — you have to take them. So I started playing it through in my head — Where do we even stash them? I passed the info on to command — told them how many POWs I had. They took some time too, figuring out what we should do next.
I figured: Fine—let them come out two at a time, backs to me. The first pair steps out. Funniest part? I’d been yelling at them in Russian, and they answered me in Ukrainian—yelling something about "the Poles." No idea, some new fairy tale of theirs about Polish troops fighting here.
What were they yelling to you about the Poles?
They were shouting back, "We thought you were Poles!" Said they'd been told a whole Polish regiment had arrived in the area. I was thinking — a regiment? Wow, that’s some scale. So the first pair came out. Then the second pair. Then the third. The last two said they were wounded. From what I gathered, those wounds weren’t from me — they’d gotten hit earlier. The last one was limping a bit. Biggest guy of the bunch — real assault trooper type.
They crawled out, and I’m standing there thinking — What am I supposed to do with them now? So I lined them up along the road — told them to stand there for a bit. One had a helmet, another had a vest. They looked pretty funny at that point. One of them had the guts to bring along full magazine cases. He had his hands stuffed into his vest like he might’ve had a grenade. I said, "Alright guys, strip. Drop whatever you’ve got." Between the six of them, they had one helmet and one body armor. Pretty ridiculous, but they still took everything off. They also had radios, mobile phones — all on them. I made them dump it all out in the field. There was a ton of info on those phones. Later, they even gave us the passwords.
They told us about their so-called "Trap" plan — how they were supposed to drive right through all our positions and make it about 10 kilometers past the actual line of contact.
They were sent on missions fit for some elite special forces unit —drive a UAZ ten kilometers deep behind our lines.
They were supposed to push through all our positions, reach a village behind us, and… find some old lady.
An old lady?
Yeah, he said, "Red house. That’s where the old lady lives." Solid plan
The world’s second-best army never fails to impress with its planning. Just incredible. So you told them to line up along the road in front of you?
By then, I’d already gotten a message over the radio — they wanted these gentlemen escorted to another position. I told them: "Strip down, ditch everything you don’t need — comms gear, radios — throw it all away." Then I said, "Alright, let’s go. Single file, that way." These guys were seriously military — you could tell. The army’s done a number on them. They barely show up — and they’re already halfway to being KIAs. I say, "Single file." They go, "Yes, single file," Hands on their heads — and off they went.
Didn’t they seem surprised that you were alone? Didn’t they look around for someone else?
No, not at all — they didn’t question anything. I think by that point, they were ready to do whatever it took just to get out of there. I brought them in, and some of our guys from another position started firing into the air to greet us. Guess they thought it might be a sabotage group or something. I got a little spooked myself — I mean, here I am, walking with six POWs, and the guys ahead suddenly start shooting.
What did your commanders say after you brought in six POWs all by yourself — when everyone at the command post had seen the drone feed of you clearing the position solo and marching them to the rear?
From what I gather — they were rooting for me the whole time. They said, "You could’ve gotten yourself killed!" And I’m like — Well, I’m at war. You can get killed here at any step. Wouldn’t have changed anything, really. They said, "Alright, get back to your position. We still need you there." Honestly, that bummed me out a little. Because in the grand scheme of things, they ended up captured — and left the area before I did. I stayed another day on my old position. We even got a little dose of gas to breathe in.
How did your commanders receive you? Did the battalion commander from "Syla Svobody" meet with you? Did you talk?
Of course — in person. First of all, they let me rest. Gave me a day off. I met with the battalion commander, talked with all the deputies. They were pretty shaken up, honestly. They knew it had been a dangerous move. I got a bit of a lecture about that.
What did they say?
"You could’ve been killed. What were you thinking, going in alone? You should’ve come up with a different plan." But the thing is — there was no time to think. The brigade commander himself came in person. He presented me with a medal — from him, personally.
Was Colonel Sнdorin there?
Yes.
Did he come in person?
Yeah, he came in person, talked to me, handed me the medal. From what I know, they’ve also submitted the paperwork for the Order for Courage. When I’ll actually get it — who knows…
The award is well deserved — and everyone understands that.
But the most important thing is that there’s video. You can pull it up on YouTube — it’s there. A memory for life.
How old are you, Denys?
27
And what’s your military background?
Four and a half years. I actually joined the army so they wouldn’t draft me — signed a contract to avoid getting pulled into conscription. I started my military career in the Embassy Brigade. Got my share of combat both with them and now with the "Rubizh" Brigade.
Where are you from?
I am from Zhytomyr.
Who are your parents?
My father is now a soldier in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he was mobilised. He took part in the counter-offensive, now somewhere near Kupiansk. My mother is at home.
Did your father call you? Did you talk after he found out about what you did?
Yeah, he was surprised. Honestly — so was I. I didn’t expect it to turn out like that either.
Marharyta, Oleksandr — your son is a true hero. This is a truly incredible story — and an incredible example of motivation and courage. Thank you, my friend — sincerely!
