They rescued their comrades from captivity, then broke out of encirclement together: feat of infantrymen from National Guard of Ukraine’s "Kara-Dag" Brigade
This is a story about those we could have lost. About the soldiers who rescued their comrades from captivity and then found themselves encircled. About the courage of our Cossacks, who did not surrender even when there was no chance.
Synytsia, remote pilot: We were assigned a new area of responsibility. We arrived at the positions, started setting up the antennas, and preparing to work.
Our infantry were due to move into the positions by evening. Before that, we began laying mines along all approaches to our position so the enemy couldn’t get through.
Moriachok, infantryman:
At night, we received orders to move to new positions.
We set out at night and, at dawn, moved into the greenery. We unloaded ammo and water and started preparing the new positions, digging in to be ready to fight.
Rudyi, Aystar: In the morning, around 6 a.m., I took over the shift. The outgoing operator reported that everything had gone well. No enemy movement had been detected, but we lost communications overnight with our adjacent position, most likely due to EW. They were having issues because they sat slightly higher than our position.
Synytsia: At 6:30, Aistar got in touch and reported that one of our positions, Kubik, hadn’t responded since the night. We launched to run additional reconnaissance of that position.
Rudyi: The pilots overflew a section of our adjacent unit’s fortified area and spotted movement there.
Synytsia: During the supplementary reconnaissance, we found the enemy moving through our trenches; they had seized our positions.
Rudyi: Everyone could see it on the drone feed, and we threw everything we had at that spot. Our fires went in, artillery was on point, especially the Mavic drones, straight into their dugout.
The FPV drones flew in with precision into those dugouts and detonated. In short, we chased those bastards all over the fortified area.
Synytsia: Thanks to the intense fire from our artillery, we drove those bastards into the dugout.
One of our FPV drones hit it immediately, and the dugout caught fire. We saw four infantrymen run out.
They ran out and at first, we thought the enemy was going to make a dash at our positions, jump in and storm us.
Synytsia: When we flew closer and zoomed in, we saw they were stripped and their hands were tied. We realized they were our guys who had broken out of captivity, and they started running toward our lines.
Rudyi: We contacted position Lazio and asked the guys there to meet them.
Moriachok: About forty minutes later, we found the first one, badly burned, one of ours.
We led him to the spot where we had unloaded ammo and water, sat him down, and went to look for the second group.
Rudyi: While the infantry were pulling our adjacent unit’s men to the evac point, the company commander "Krym" was already en route to pick them up.
Moriachok: When we moved out for our second group, a drone spotted us.
They opened up on us with mortars. The men escaped captivity wearing only their underwear, badly burned. Moving by bounds, from tree to tree, they hid as they ran, it hurt. You’d take one by the hand and the skin would come off, caked blood everywhere. Hair singed, eyebrows, cheeks, nose, they were severely burned. And the one I was leading kept saying he’d gotten out of captivity; he was burned, but alive, he’d made it.
"Just get me through, and if I make it out alive, we’ll drink until we drop, just get me through."
Rudyi: Krym quickly flew in with the Cossacks to the evac point, picked up the wounded, and moved them to a safe area.
Synytsia: After that, we escorted Krym to the safe area and returned to recon the tower. And we saw infantry converging on it from all sides.
Rudyi: Unidentified infantry were massing near the tower; I froze for a couple of seconds. In my head, I’m thinking: they could be ours, maybe the adjacent unit, or maybe the enemy slipped through and is encircling our guys. We immediately tried to reach our positions, but there was no reply.
One of the pilots came up on my net with an idea that would let us figure out who was near the tower.
Synytsia: So we came up with this: write notes, put them in plastic bottles, and drop them from a Mavic so it would be clear who they were and what was happening and so they’d know what to do next.
Rudyi: When the pilot was carrying the second note to the infantry near the tower, Moriachok came up on the net and reported they’d had to fall back to the tower because they’d come under assault.
So they were under heavy fire across a full 180 degrees.
Moriachok: From all remaining positions, we withdrew to the radio tower, took a small dugout there, and set up all-around defence. Over the radio we were told to hold, reinforcements were on the way.
Rudyi: Our Cossacks established all-round defense and returned fire.
They were taking fire from the greenery, but without visual, the pilots started hunting those bastards with drone-dropped munitions to mark them for artillery and kill them.
Synytsia: And we flew out for further reconnaissance to determine from which side our guys were being engaged.
Rudyi: Thanks to the pilot’s vigilance, we spotted the enemy coming down from Komyshivka toward the tower and our guys.
While our artillery and drones were scorching the ground under the occupier’s feet, another enemy group swung around our right flank, closed in on the tower, and close-quarters fighting began.
Moriachok: We had one crate of ammo left, 5.45 for the rifles. A crate of grenades, too. Whoever could keep fighting, and the seriously wounded in the dugout were loading magazines.
We were loading grenades, screwing in the fuzes. Everyone pitched in however they could; everyone fought back and held all-around defence as long as we could. They came up to the concrete fence and started throwing grenades over it into our dugout, and we were throwing them back.
The distance was about 5–7 meters.
Rudyi: Thanks to our FPV pilots, we managed to push the enemy from the tower toward the treeline, where our artillery was already waiting.
Moriachok: As we were dashing across the road, to the right of the greenery, from the direction of Komyshivka, a machine gunner lay in a shallow depression; we got lucky, he had his head down reloading the PKM.
He was busy, and in those seconds while he was changing the belt on the PKM, we sprinted across the road.
Rudyi: Once the artillery finished, the pilots returned to the guys who were supposed to pull back to a safer area. I thought, finally, this nightmare was ending and we could get our men out.
But no.
Synytsia: We returned to escort our infantry who were moving to the evac point, but when we flew in, we didn’t find them there.
Rudyi: Logically, those guys should have been moving down the road toward the dam. The pilots flew those treelines back and forth, but we couldn’t find them, and at the same time, we tried to reach them on comms, Russian EW was doing its work. After some time searching, the pilots reported that enemy mortars had our infantry ranged in. We immediately asked where they were and what landmarks were near them so we could locate them faster.
Moriachok: We got a little lost, took a wrong turn, and walked into ba#stards' positions. We got through on comms and were told: "Stop—there’s b#stards' position 400 meters ahead, and they’re waiting for you."
Synytsia: After a long search, we came up with a way for the guys to identify our drone specifically, because there were a lot of drones in the air at that moment.
We relayed that we would climb and descend with the drone; the motor noise would draw their attention, they’d hear and see us, and step into the open so we could spot them and continue their evacuation.
Moriachok: We saw a drone cycling up and down, but we were in the greenery, there were lots of drones in the air, payload drops were coming in on us, and we were afraid mortars would range in on our position. We were afraid to step into the open, just afraid. But almost all the wounded were in serious condition, so I decided to step out onto open ground.
Rudyi: An infantryman stepped out from the woodline into the open, onto the road. The pilot zoomed in, we saw him and recognized Moriachok. We reported we had eyes on him, that the drone would descend, and that he should follow it.
Moriachok: The drone dropped down; over the radio they said it had us in sight, and our drone slowly started "nodding," because there were so many drones around. We followed the "nodding" drone that was showing us the way, slowly, slowly, through the greenery toward our positions.
Synytsia: During the search, we identified the fastest and safest route to our positions so the guys could then be evacuated from there.
Rudyi: While the pilots were guiding the guys back to our positions, I was trying to reach our adjacent unit, who might have positions along their route.
Moriachok: As we were following our drone, we ran into the remnants of our Fire Support Company. They were on their way to help us break out of the encirclement but didn’t make it, their armor had been burned out. Some were slightly burned, some wounded; those who remained, two small groups, bunched up and moved together behind the drone toward our lines.
Rudyi: It was a stroke of luck, because when I got through to the Liut Brigade’s Aistar team, they said their pilots would wrap up in about half an hour.
I reported that our guys were entering their treeline. They were in very bad shape, and I asked them to render first aid.
Moriachok: After crossing the dam, we jumped into the woodline, but a drone spotted us. They started hitting us with salvos of five mortar rounds; two stretches of the treeline caught fire. We began to scatter and ran into the Liut Brigade, who hauled us into their position and provided first aid.
Rudyi: After a while, Liut’s Aistar came back on the net and offered help evacuating the seriously wounded. Their ATV could drive out and pick them up.
Moriachok: After first aid, Liut evacuated the first group with their own resources. Toward evening, the commander of the Fire Support Company, "Krym," rolled up on armor, took everyone else, and evacuated us to Pokrovsk.
Even with severe wounds, they covered 8 km under enemy fire. They did not break.
UAV pilots did the impossible to pull their comrades out of hell. It was more than a rescue; it was a fight for every life.
Some did not make it off the battlefield. Their names remain in the ranks. Their sacrifice lives in our memory.
We have no right to forget the price at which our freedom is won.
Yevhen Yarema
