Feat of Artist’s group: Four captured 15

On December 19, four Russian IFVs broke through to the village of Zahryzove in the Kharkiv region and landed two platoons of troops, numbering over 40 people, in the rear of Ukrainian positions. Pavel Holchynko’s assault group, codenamed Artist, from the 78th Separate Airborne Regiment, received orders to clear the settlement of Russian infantry.

Dialogue with a junior sergeant of the 78th SAR, call sign Kabina

- Please describe Artist.

- I would say that he is a cool commander. If he hadn't been in the assault, I might not have stormed. Because I have confidence in him that he is doing everything right. He is a smart guy. He is in his right mind. He will never leave you in a deep sh#t just to leave you. Everything is always planned, everything is always clear. In general, his brain works at the highest level. And we say that he is from another planet altogether. He has had so many injuries, so many surgeries, two months have passed, and he is already in action. Now, in a few days, the task is set, and he is going to storm again. Well, what can I say? This guy makes me want to follow him.

Communication with the chief sergeant of the 1st company, 3rd platoon, 78th SAR, call sign Artist

- How many wounds do you have?

- Six. Firstly, we had a contact in Lysychansk. I had a combat encounter with the enemy. That is, the enemy was coming towards us. I was fighting back with my guys, standing in defence and letting the enemy get a little closer - he threw a grenade at me. I was wounded by a grenade. I hid in a hole, but my legs were cut.

My second injury was during the Kharkiv offensive, when we were liberating Kharkiv region. My lung was pierced from behind, but I was evacuated quickly and everything went well.

Third. I don't remember anymore... I remember it was gas poisoning. Yes, in Klishchiivka. We were holding the defence in Klishchiivka.

Fourth. A mine hit me, and I was blown up... Once I didn't put on my ballistic vest - this square arsehole with a ballistic insert. Once I didn't wear it, I regretted it. So always wear a ballistic vest. All of it. I wear it all the time now. And I got hit, and everything in the world got torn. An 80 mm mortar shell.

Then I was wounded here, in this unit. There was a drop. I had a minor shrapnel wound, so I stayed for 10 days. It was more of a contusion. You can't even count it as an injury.

My last injury was severe. We were moving in a buggy from the execution area. And a FPV hit us. The buggy has lost control, rolled over and I was beaten by arcs - a broken shoulder blade, two bones, and a ruptured aorta. I was treated in time. It's good that the guys who were passing by, the neighbours, took me to the stabilisation point immediately and provided me with the necessary aid in time.

- This is the same buggy that was hit by the FPV. The one I was injured the last time. Yes, I was sitting on this very seat, and when the buggy lost control, it started to spin. And, accordingly, these arcs beat me up a bit, so I had no shrapnel wounds, but I had a car accident. That's why it's important to drive with an EW. Unfortunately, we didn't have any EW, we only had a rifle, but we didn't have time to react.

- How many FPVs have arrived?

- They say there were a lot of them. Three of them were hunting us. Unfortunately, one of them found its target.

The guys completely repaired it and put it back in service. And now it continues to perform certain tasks.

When we formed a defence line and rotated, i.e. our guys took the front line and stood on the defensive, we were tasked to go behind the front line, clean the street and blow up the basements there so that the enemy could not gain a foothold in those streets.

And on 19 December, the f#ggots broke through our first line of defence and rolled into our rear. Our guys were standing just at the junction of Zahryzove-Kruhliakivka, and they drove along this road and dispersed in the village. Well, about a platoon and a half, about forty people, came in. We started working the streets first, and I taught the guys to approach immediately with contact. It was the first outing for the guys in my unit, meaning they hadn't been under fire yet. Only two of us had been under fire before—me and Kot. And so we approached house after house. The enemy must have heard the shots and was getting ready. This house was very big, it was like a van, long. We approached from one yard, I put Pokemon to shoot one flank, he had his own sector. Rex and I approached from the other side. We also started shooting preemptively, which allowed us to get close to the house. We huddled in the corners, then two more of our fighters rolled up and took up positions at a distance. We had to break the plastic windows so we could throw grenades.

How did we realise that the enemy was there? When two of our fighters - Harnyi and Liokha - were approaching, the enemy, and Rex and I were already under the wall in their house, the enemy started shooting through the windows at them. They went low, immediately fell down, fired back, and we realised that there was someone in the house. They started throwing grenades, and after the third or fourth grenade, they started to establish voice contact with us, i.e. shouting that we were surrendering.

I gave them an order to take off their armour and helmets and leave their weapons in place. Three men came out and came out through the window we controlled. And why they didn't even have time to move their defences, because Kot and I ran around from the garden to the other side of the house and threw grenades from that side and made shots. And we said that you were surrounded. But in reality, we were just manoeuvring - throwing from here and there. When we heard that they were giving up, we asked them to come out through the window where our people were most concentrated. They went out through the window. I asked if there was anyone in the house. They did not answer this question.

So, I jumped into the house in a frenzy and started working. I shot through every room. I had to do a sweep.

I get to a certain room where there were still f#ggots. Rex tells me: "There are still f#ggots in the house. I quickly roll back, jump out the window and start trying to establish a dialogue with them.

I said, 'Come out, your men have surrendered, you will come out too and you will be alive, I promise you. They still had hostages, that is, two of our Ukrainians who lived in that village and thought that this grief would not reach them. And they took them hostage.

- Civilians?

- Yes, civilians. They tied them up and held them hostage.

They voiced it, and I don't know what to do at all.

- How did it happen? What did they say?

- They said that we have hostages, we have two civilians - and they don't present anything. I said, I don't care, if you don't start coming out in five minutes, I'll shoot a disposable into the room. And you will all lie there. I say that I cannot be completely sure that there are hostages in there. Maybe you are lying to me. And because of this situation, I had to untie their elder, send him to talk to them. Because there are probably people there, and we can't act like the Russians. So he went on to negotiate. And when he came out, he said they were ready to surrender. I shouted to them to start coming out one by one, without armour, without helmets, without weapons, with their hands in front. And when they started to come out, we were stunned... by the number of people who came out. Yes, 8 more people came out. No, not 8, seven. I mean, we didn't even think that there could be such a group.

- What was the total number?

- 11 POWs and one 200th.

- And what about the civilians?

- The civilians came out too. We told them that they should not live in the place of hostilities, that there already were clashes. They packed their things and left.

- How many of your fighters took part in this assault?

- We had a group of five people. The group consisted of one machine gunner, three riflemen and a group commander. After we took 11 people prisoner on 19 December, we had to keep working to knock out all the others who were scattered around the village of Zahryzove. In order to restore the logistics and so that we could replace our soldiers. In total, it turned out that we took about 15 prisoners. And, accordingly, we killed 35 people. There were different means, we used different ways of doing it. Not necessarily by direct contact.

We used direct contact to detect the enemy, roll back on command, and our unmanned aerial vehicles worked. Either fpvs or drops.

Dialogue with a junior sergeant of the 78th SAR, call sign Kabina

- I joined the commander on 27 December. And my first outing was on New Year's Day.

I have one story. We called it Operation "Stealth" with the commander. We had to go unnoticed and detect the enemy. We received an order for a sweep. And according to interception, at the end of the street, as if there was an officer there, we got excited. Oh, great, now we'll get some trophies. We walk on and reach a certain checkpoint. We reached the middle of the street and sat down for a smoke. The commander says, "I'll go and have a look. I said, "I'll come with you, so you're not alone. We go beyond the edge of the house. There's a landing between the yards, dense. The f#ggish drones were flying in the air, so we didn't go along the road to avoid being burned, we went through this plantation. It was so thick, it was still winter, it was cold. We crawled through this landing, slowly hiding from these drones. We enter this yard like this. And when you enter the yard, there is a house. And to the right of the house there is a cellar. The windows in the house were all sealed. We thought it was when our neighbours were there, our other troops. We went into the yard. The commander approaches the cellar, I follow him, and opens the door a little. And there was a bang-bang-bang sound. I told the commander: "Commander, we've agreed, Operation 'Stealth': we go in quietly, without a shot, why are you shooting? He: "It's not me!" I open the door and start fire. And then the carousel starts, like in a matrix. They start shooting from every window. We hear the 'MG' starting to work. Bullets are whistling. We also start working on the windows to end the fire. - "Well, Will we roll back?" - Yes, we will. We flew through that landing, which I could barely get through, in three seconds.

We are already standing where our checkpoint was. I start to fire... I see the commander also comes up and shoots back. We went to the house where we had been. I go in and there are four guns pointed at me: "Phew, Kabina, it's you. We almost killed you". Our guys thought we might have stayed there. But it was the f#ggots who came.

We are in this house. The faggots start storming us. We shoot back. Then drones start flying, drops. The mortar starts working. The first exit. I hear it fell in the garden. I asked the commander: what are we going to do. He says: We accept the fight. I hear the second one coming out nearby. The third exit. The glass shatters.

I said, Commander, let's roll back. He says, how can we roll back? There were basements there. And then we'll call our birds to pin them down a bit. And then, I said, we'll decide something. He says, Come out. I went out first. And I was already so good at shooting that I could hold an AK rifle with one hand. And just to shoot in this way. So I came out and started to fire. And all the guys followed me. Phew, we rolled back.

And then our drones trapped them in this house. We didn't know they were already in our house.

We were told they were in the basement. Go on clearing it. We go out, go to the basement. And they had already entered our house, our checkpoint. And they locked themselves in. And we didn't know.

And the contact begins again. I ended up standing like this - the windows. The commander and the guys are in the barn, firing. I said, "Commander, we have to do something. Yes, let's do it! We start shooting. Bullets are flying. As a result, our FPV opened the door for us. It hit the wall. Of course, we went in, cleared the house and that was it.

- How many enemies were there?

- Shit, there were six people there. Some of them were pinned down by the wall, because when the door opened, they were in the vestibule. And they stayed there.

Then Bucha got in there, also a fire show, and that was it. That was our "Stealth" operation. They almost killed us with the commander.

Communication with the chief sergeant of the 1st company, 3rd platoon, 78th SAR, call sign Artist

- How many assault missions did your group carry out during those one and a half months?

- We had about 22 sorties over that period. Of those, 15–17 were combat sorties. Meaning there was contact, either prisoners taken, or killed b#stards. Back then, we were operating almost every other day. If we hadn’t moved faster, we would have given the enemy time to gain a foothold and rebuild their defenses. So we had to keep moving almost all day long. Another strong motivation was that our guys were there, they needed to be freed and provided with everything necessary. They were also engaged in fighting and skirmishes, some of them even wounded. One reconnaissance soldier had stayed at his position most of the time with a punctured lung. They patched him up as best they could, but his lung had been shot through. That’s why it was critical to get our guys out of that situation as quickly as possible.

- Where were you until 24 February 2022?

- I am originally from Mariupol. I had three Dobermans. We were breeding puppies, and I was planning to open an animal daycare center. We had big plans. February 24, 2022, caught me just as my friend and I were about to go check out a piece of land where we intended to start working and implement our business plans. That morning, he came to me and said the war had begun. I immediately wanted to join the military. But the dogs, what would I do with them? My wife couldn’t handle them on her own. We had nowhere to live. I had no idea what to do. When the Dnipropetrovsk region came under heavy shelling, I had to evacuate my wife. My parents also left their hometown of Selydove, and my sister went to western Ukraine, to the Ivano-Frankivsk region. I stayed behind with the dogs. And I went to the military enlistment office and said: "Take me in with the dogs."

It’s actually kind of a funny story how I ended up in the army.

I said, "Take me in with the dogs." "Alright, we’ll look for a place." In my personal file, they even wrote down: dogs. I told them, they are trained. A month went by, and they said: "No one takes dogs. We’ll take you, but the dogs would also have to be put on supply. Nobody wants that, everyone has their own dogs. Let’s do it without the dogs." I replied: "Then let me go to my own unit. I served in the 95th during my conscription, they’ll take me there. Just give me a paper so I can freely move through the cities of Ukraine." Back then, at the start of the war, you couldn’t even travel from city to city without being checked at the checkpoints. They gave me the paper, the escort. They gave me the dog. And I set off for that unit. I arrived in Zhytomyr in the evening. I came with the dogs: I was in combat boots, sweatpants, a sports jacket and three Dobermans. I approached the checkpoint of the unit and said: "Guys, I want to speak with my company commander from my conscription service. I need to get inside." And they told me that nobody was around, it was already evening, and I should come back the next morning.

I started looking around Zhytomyr for a motel that would take me in with the dogs. At the second one, a woman spoke with me, and she delayed me with her conversation. As I walked out of that hotel, going down the stairs, suddenly, a bunch of vehicles pulled up, men with rifles: "Hands up!" Muzzles on the dogs. The dogs were put into one vehicle, me into another. They drove me off to the SSU. It was the Zhytomyr Territorial Defense Forces who caught me. No, everything went fine. I wasn’t beaten. The investigator treated me normally. I offered to take a polygraph test. Everything went fine. They had suspected I was walking around passing on positions. That same night, they released me once everything was clarified. I stayed in that hotel until the morning. Then a friend of mine came to get me and decided to take the dogs in, he lives near Berdychiv, while I would serve. I had spoken with the investigator, and he explained to me how difficult it was to put dogs on supply. After all, they are considered a separate combat unit that receives funding. Yes, that’s how it actually works. So nobody was going to take my dogs, they already had plenty of their own.

And that was it, I was free of the dogs. I thought I’d go visit my wife, come back, and then join the fight. I went to see how they had settled in, and then, in Ivano-Frankivsk region, I went to the draft office in one of the towns. I stood in line, back then there were still lines, for real. I literally stood in a line stretching from a store just to get mobilized. They registered me for military service and told me: "Tomorrow you’re going to the 80th." And that was it, the next day I showed up, we got in and left. That’s how I ended up being delayed by a month because of the dogs.

- And how did you end up in the unit you are serving in now?

- It happened after my fifth wound and numerous concussions. I was sent to the Military Medical Commission (MMC). The MMC declared me partially fit, and I stayed at the permanent deployment point in Lviv. That was until representatives of the unit I now serve in arrived. I passed an interview and that’s how I joined them.

We would really appreciate your help in acquiring a proper vehicle that can provide evacuation as well as deliver ammunition and supplies to our guys. It would be much more convenient if it weren’t a makeshift one, but fully ready for combat tasks. We jumped into it and carried out missions right away, without changing a thing and losing no sleep over it. This type of small, maneuverable transport is extremely necessary right now. Of course, it also needs electronic warfare equipment so that our men can move safely and always accomplish their assigned tasks with 100% effectiveness.