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31.07.25 20:03 12 780 18

For three years, we’ve been unable to prove that we sustained severe injuries while defending Motherland – AFU volunteer fighters

The volunteer fighters were severely wounded near the village of Novozvanivka in Luhansk region before they had a chance to be officially enrolled in a unit. Since then, they have been unable to obtain documents confirming that the injuries occurred on the front line. Yet after treatment and recovery, the men returned to the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and continue to defend the Motherland.

In the photo: A group that inflicted heavy losses on the enemy and became invisible to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the foreground is Mykola. Standing near the vehicle are Ivan, call sign Bosiak, and Volodymyr, call sign Hans (far right).

The men I’m speaking with are outraged and nearly disheartened. And their frustration is absolutely justified, because when the state needed protection in the first days of the full-scale invasion, they answered the call and defended Kyiv without demanding written orders or official assignment to a specific unit. These volunteer fighters, who had already seen combat in the ATO/JFO zone since 2014, understood their experience would be needed again. But when they sustained severe wounds in the combat zone, state agencies and military units stepped aside. Even hearing this is painful. These fighters were ready to lay down their lives for Ukraine and for each of us. And now they are forced to prove it, so far, in vain. I hope that public attention to this disgraceful situation will help resolve all related issues and recognize this group of volunteers as defenders of the country. Such recognition would set a precedent for other equally devoted citizen-warriors like them.

"HOW DID I WALK WITH A BROKEN LEG? IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, YOU HAVE TO WALK!"

The three men, Mykola, Ivan, and Volodymyr, have known each other since the days of the ATO/JFO. All of them are ATO veterans. In March 2022, they fought in Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel alongside an SSU officer named Oleksandr, callsign Monk, who is prepared to officially testify to their cooperation. All three had once served in the volunteer unit "Myrotvorets." Near Kyiv, they reunited with a former comrade from that time who had since joined the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU). He offered to take them under his command. However, as long as Russian forces remained near Kyiv, the men decided not to change anything; they chose to fight the enemy right where they were. On April 1, immediately after the enemy retreated from the capital, this group of volunteers deployed toward Chuhuiv under the command of the DIU. The liaison they were assigned to turned out to be less than eager to work with them. But the seasoned fighters didn’t sit idle; they established cooperation with the 92nd Brigade, which was actively and effectively fighting in that direction.

- "We worked with the 92nd Brigade for some time around Kharkiv, in the towns of Chuhuiv, Malynivka, and Balakliia", Mykola recounts. "Volodymyr, callsign Hans, who was with us, previously served in the 24th Brigade. He learned that they were being pushed out of Popasna. They had lost many snipers. And he is a sniper himself. So, we decided to go help that brigade. We stayed in contact with the brigade reconnaissance commander. Before changing our assignment, we called our acquaintance in Kyiv at the DIU, explained that the liaison he assigned wasn’t giving us any tasks, and he gave the green light for us to move to the 24th Brigade. To be clear, we had no official documents, even when we went to the Kharkiv region under his orders. No combat orders, no formal identification of who we were. We were only issued cover documents, officer IDs for each of us. We weren’t given weapons, and we weren’t registered anywhere… Back then, there was no time to even think about that."

The men spent several days in Bakhmut, conducted reconnaissance, and then moved to the 9th company holding positions in the forest belt near the railway tracks. This was at the exit from Popasna in the direction of Bakhmut.

- "At 6:00 a.m. on 12 May 2022, our group, accompanied by the 24th Brigade’s chief of reconnaissance, reached the 9th Company’s positions near the village of Novozvanivka, Luhansk region. Our task was to link up with the company’s personnel and repel attacks by regular Russian Armed Forces troops and Wagner PMC fighters. At 05:00 on 13 May, the Russians launched their assault", Mykola continues. "Hans and I moved to the outermost strongpoint. Wagner fighters were pushing toward it, and Hans took out three of them. We held that position until about 2:00 p.m. During that time, everything imaginable was raining down on the treeline where the unit sat: a gunship struck, a jet, a "Grad" was unleashed, some unidentified rockets were fired, and a tank kept firing at us. They even laughed at me there, I’m a trained tanker, a graduate of the Kyiv armor school. Something kept hitting us again and again. I told Volodia, callsign Hans, "Take out that RPG gunner already." He replied, "What RPG? That’s a tank firing." Only then did I see a tank up on the hill, firing directly at us.

When we left the military defended post, we saw that our vehicle was destroyed. An 82mm mortar shell landed nearby and shredded everything, including the engine. I called the sniper platoon commander to arrange our evacuation. They were just bringing five of their soldiers to that position as replacements. The new troops were delivered, and we were evacuated.

In the photo: Ivan, callsign Bosiak

During the battles in the Kyiv region, we found Faustpatrons, and the guys from the 72nd gave us NLAWs. We took all of this with us. Everything was brought to the position. When we were heading to the pickup truck that came for us, we carried the gear with us. We loaded it, and the three of us sat in the back seat. Up front were a serviceman from the 24th Brigade and the driver.

After we left the position, most likely a Krasnopol round struck the front right side of the vehicle. Krasnopol is a Russian 155mm guided artillery munition. It was a direct hit. The vehicle was blown apart, only the rear seat remained. I remember a huge fireball right before my eyes", recalls Mykola. "Ivan, callsign Bosiak, was thrown about 30 meters outside. Hans fell onto the rear seat. Later, he recalled: "I felt like I was flying. I felt so good. Then I heard Ivan’s voice: 'Hans, you’re alive.' And I felt so good. And I thought, ‘Ivan, you pissed me off in that life, and now you won’t let me rest in this one.’"

..The men from the 24th Brigade died instantly. How did we survive? We still don’t understand. Probably a miracle.

They believe something else was finishing us off back then because there were explosions nearby, but no sounds of mortar rounds landing. Maybe the enemy was using payload drops from Mavic drones.

The 58th Brigade was stationed next to the 24th in that area. When the vehicle was hit, Ivan, callsign Bosiak, hid his comrade Volodymyr, callsign Hans, in the bushes so the enemy wouldn’t see him, then went to the 58th’s positions for help.

- "I was moving along the road toward Bakhmut", Mykola continues. "I hoped to meet someone from our units. I set out at 4:00 PM and met the brigade reconnaissance chief around 8:00 PM. Bosiak was evacuated by a group from the 58th Brigade, while Hans and I were taken out by the 24th. Hans couldn’t walk; he was the most severely injured among us. The 24th went back to the site where the vehicle was left, found him, and took him away. We were moved from hospital to hospital until our friends arranged for us to be admitted to the Central Military Hospital in Kyiv."

In the photo: Mykola after receiving first aid

All the men were severely wounded. Hans had both legs shattered. Bosiak also suffered a fracture.

- "How did you get to the 58th Brigade with a broken leg?" — I asked Ivan.

- "When you want to live, you just keep walking", the man replied. "I knew I had to head toward where the explosions were because that meant our fighters were nearby. So that’s where I went. In the end, the soldiers of the 58th Brigade found me."

In the photo: How the volunteer fighters looked the day after being wounded and on the day it happened

The men show photos from the hospital taken the day after their injuries. They all look terrible, severe fractures, burned faces, and hands. But after treatment, two of them returned to defending the country.

- "In October 2022, I joined the 114th Territorial Defense Brigade", Mykola says. "Bosiak officially enlisted in the Armed Forces in 2023. He managed to serve in Chasiv Yar, Kherson region, and on the Zaporizhzhia front. And Hans is retired. He was already a pensioner then, but couldn’t stay home when the country and his comrades needed protection and help."

"WE WENT TO FIGHT AS VOLUNTEER FIGHTERS IN 2014, WITHOUT WAITING FOR DRAFT NOTICES"

During treatment, the question arose as to which unit these men belonged to. The "comrade from the DIU" immediately disowned the volunteer group and never once visited them in the hospital.

- "We need to get official certificates confirming our injuries," says Mykola. - "There are two types: one states "injuries sustained while performing military service," and the other "wounded while defending the Motherland." If we have the second type, we can claim compensation for the wounds and receive a disability group. Also, we can continue treatment in military medical facilities, because my health is not improving, it’s only getting worse. Apparently, there’s a solid mass in my brain, I recently had a CT scan…"

When I ask how long the men have been trying to get their documents, Bosiak says he doesn’t believe anything will come of it. But Mykola is more optimistic and you can tell right away he’s persistent. Their friend Oleksandr, callsign Monk, is ready to testify about their cooperation and considers the situation deeply unfair.

- "We started working on this immediately," Mykola explains. - "We wrote letters to the Defence Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, to the 24th Brigade, and to the 8th Special Forces Regiment, since the cover documents we were given supposedly came from the 8th Regiment. We submitted requests to the Ministry of Defence. Everyone gave the same answer: to conduct an investigation within the unit where we serve. But how can the unit investigate if, at the time of the injury, we were not yet serving there? It’s absurd! We hired a lawyer and prepared a lawsuit aiming to prove that we were on the positions and performing duties to defend the Motherland. But we see the clumsy decisions our courts make...

And yet everyone knows the truth. The 24th Brigade has witnesses who were with us on the positions. The chief of reconnaissance transported us to the positions and evacuated us after we were wounded, he is ready to testify. There are more than enough people who can confirm we were there. But the brigade leadership says, "You are not our servicemen, so we cannot provide a certificate regarding the circumstances of your injury. If there is a court order requiring us to do so, then yes, we will conduct an investigation." They conducted an investigation into the two soldiers who died, but not a word was mentioned about us three, whether military or civilians, who were in the vehicle. Nobody documented that back then...In short, we became hostages of a system where a defender "without papers" is not worthy of official recognition or the right to state protection after being wounded or disabled. It’s deeply disappointing."

- How were your injuries registered in the hospitals?

- "We were given Form 100," Mykola answers. - "We had documents issued by the DIU with us. That’s how we were officially registered. In Bakhmut, doctors pulled those papers from my pocket: I was listed as a lieutenant colonel there, and Hans as a colonel. They were stunned. Based on these documents, we were issued our certificates."

- What military experience did each of you have before 2022?

- "I fought from 2014 to 2017 in the Myrotvorets Battalion," Mykola answers. - "I joined the unit after Ilovaisk. Ivan, call sign Bosiak, also started in 2014 in the Kyiv region and then joined us. Then there was the 25th Battalion "Kyivska Rus" of the 54th Brigade, we fought on the Svitlodarsk bulge. We were discharged in 2018. Volodymyr, call sign Hans, was also in the Kyiv region units, then Myrotvorets, before moving to the 24th Brigade. He was discharged in 2021. We volunteered to fight back in 2014, without waiting for draft notices."

A week before the full-scale invasion, the men agreed among themselves how they would act in case of a Russian advance, where they would meet, and what equipment they would carry.

- "I was previously acquainted with this trio - we had crossed paths during the war," says Oleksandr, an SSU officer. - "On 24 February, I contacted them. The guys decided to stay in Kyiv and repel the enemy here. Starting from the 26th, we were already working on information about alleged sabotage group breakthroughs, remember how many such reports there were at first? There was no one in Kotsiubynske, Sviatoshyn, or Obolon.

In the photo: The volunteer group and Oleksandr (far left), an SSU officer, during the first days of the full-scale invasion in Bucha

I’m from Bucha myself, and my wife stayed at home. On February 28, we decided that we needed to operate right here. In Horenka, we met fighters from the 72nd Brigade. My wife gave me more reliable information than various intelligence sources. She would say, "I see airborne troops, gunships." She counted how many of each there were.

On March 2, we were working near a military unit where a Russian gunship had landed, searching for the enemy. Earlier, we received information that there were 104 units of equipment in Zdvizivka, and the Russians were going door to door asking for food. We decided to go there. According to the map, it wasn’t far, but when you’re loaded down… We slept at my place in Bucha. At dawn, mines started landing, directly on the house. Two strikes. Ivan asks, "Is that aimed at us?"

- "The windows all blew out," Ivan recalls.

- "We had a neighbor with her boy with us. We took them in for the night," Oleksandr continues, "It's a good thing that the neighbor parked her jeep against the wall, and it took the brunt of the blast."

"I thought the next shell would finish us off because they were landing closer and closer," Ivan adds. "But our artillery responded and that saved us."

- "We immediately started leaving the house," says Oleksandr. "That day, I evacuated my wife from Bucha and the neighbor with her son because it was too dangerous to stay. I returned to the guys, and we decided to go hunt the katsaps on March 4. I also recruited guys from the Azov movement."

"THE WAR IS HELD TOGETHER BY GUYS LIKE MYKOLA, IVAN, AND VOVA, THE HARDWORKERS"

- What weapons did you have?

- Assault rifles, a sniper rifle, and RPGs. On the morning of March 5, our group from Horenka entered Bucha. The guys from the 72nd brigade, who we were following, warned us: "Maybe don’t go. Yesterday, your colleagues were here. They entered Hostomel, everyone came out wounded." But before that, we had advanced all the way to the Buchanka River. We searched for the enemy every day starting February 28, having information about Chechens, and initially about Belarusian "Alpha" forces. We checked all this intel, but found no one.

By March 5, everything was different. As soon as we crossed the bridge, their quadcopters started flying above us. An "Orlan" drone flew very low. We still thought they were our own. At that moment, we heard they began shelling the ATB supermarket in Horenka.

We took cover in the forest, where we met a local who informed us that an enemy tank was stationed near the Lisova Bucha station. Approaching the spot, we realized it was an airborne assault vehicle. We fired several shots from RPG-7 and RPG-22 and hit it. Then a new airborne assault vehicle approached us, and enemy troops jumped out, big, arrogant Muscovites. A firefight broke out. We almost died there. Some of our guys were wounded, one got hit in the ear, another from the Azov unit lost fingers, and was wounded in the buttocks. We had no first aid kits, nothing. We had to retreat to the Buchanka River. Near Novi Irpin’s Lypky, there was a checkpoint. Women there provided aid to our wounded.

If we hadn’t hit that first airborne assault vehicle, the Russians would have advanced along that road. But we forced them to stop and look for another route. Knowing this, we returned to the same road again and knocked out another enemy vehicle... We did what we could.

During that period, we also had a successful fight on the Buchanka River. It happened on March 15. The hardest part was running 1,200 meters from "Canadian Village" to the 8th or 9th line. You’re running across a field while the enemy is throwing mines at you like you’re in a shooting range. From the "Admiral Club," they had a clear view. Still, we managed to sneak up. The Russians had set up an observation post in the skeleton of an unfinished building. One of their soldiers missed us, maybe the sun was on our side, and didn’t see us. Ivan watches: "An idiot’s walking with a mattress."

- "So I carefully set down my rifle and and - bang," Ivan adds.

- "And then the tank started firing at us," Oleksandr continues. - "Later, we even took pictures with an unexploded tank shell. Idiots! After that, no matter what we tried, we couldn’t get closer to the enemy. So we shifted to the Zhytomyr direction. Back then, everything was based on personal initiative and contacts. I was at least getting a salary. But the guys weren’t. They ate whatever they could find. They supplied their own weapons…During that period, between Nehrashi and Yasnohorodka, we found signs of a sniper group. Hopefully, we scared them off."

- "We also went out near Hoholiv," Oleksandr adds. - "Some Azov fighters we knew from Moshchun moved there and called us: "Come over, we need a consult." They were shocked by how much ground we covered on foot to find the enemy and strike effectively.

- "We covered 25 kilometers! And that was while carrying full loads," Oleksandr clarifies. "One day, we measured the distance using a pedometer. But you couldn’t measure our enthusiasm and motivation; those were off the charts."

On March 31, we entered Irpin. That day, I reported to command: "A reconnaissance sortie was conducted into the city of Irpin. Currently, the city is free of occupiers. We moved through the southern outskirts all the way to the village of Zabuchchia. No enemy presence. Two abandoned secret caches were found. We also located and identified two foreign legion fighters. They’re sitting on the outskirts of Irpin, a bit scared. Our group cleared the forest belt from the St. George Church to Zabuchchia. We visually inspected the access roads to Vorzel. No Russian army presence detected." The Russians withdrew calmly. They even took the equipment we had knocked out on the railway tracks with them. We immediately went to search for it. Once we confirmed there were no more enemies there, the guys headed to the Kharkiv region, while I handled tasks assigned by my command. But all March, I didn’t have a single combat order. We operated entirely on our own discretion. I’ll say more: the war is held together by guys like Mykola, Ivan, and Volodymyr, the hard workers.

- "The war has changed a lot," Mykola notes. - " Even in these three years. And what I see disappoints me deeply. Those appointed to positions are godfathers, in-laws, brothers. Many have disabilities, yet in 2022, they were sitting somewhere safe. Most returned to Ukraine in 2023. They work from 9 to 6 and then go home. And people look at you like you’re crazy. You came as a volunteer fighter... For these "big commanders," the war is somewhere far away. That’s not what WE fought for!

- Is it hurtful?

- No, not hurtful. What’s hurtful is that foolish, incompetent people have returned to army leadership, people who put their career and money first and fear being removed from their posts.

Why were we effective in 2022? Because we discussed among ourselves what we were going to do. But once a combat order starts coming down, it goes around everyone, including the Moskals. There were so many intercepted messages warning of attacks or assaults at specific times… Knowing all this, nobody wants to serve under commanders like that.