"Millionaires" from "Contract 18–24" and their comrades-in-arms held line for 12 days while fully encircled
Four soldiers of the 3rd Assault Battalion of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade held the line for 12 days under complete encirclement in the village of Razine, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region. It was from here that Russian forces sought to press the offensive toward the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk highway.
Despite the enemy’s numerical superiority, our troops held the line against elements of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army. Over 12 days of defense, they were effectively operating behind enemy lines, about 8 km from their own positions. The only way out was to break through the enemy lines.
In late June 2025, fighters of the Shkval special unit of the 3rd Assault Battalion, 92nd Separate Assault Brigade, took up positions in the settlement of Razine, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region. For a week, they engaged a numerically superior enemy.
On 27 June, young contract servicemen who had joined under the "Contract 18–24" program arrived to reinforce the Shkval personnel. Colloquially known as "millionaires" due to the cash payments, they reached the position on 30 June, when the "Hydra" position, together with all its defenders, was encircled. The group comprised experienced Shkval fighters and the young contract servicemen. Shoulder to shoulder, they held the Hydra position for a long 12 days.
A fighter of the Shkval unit, 3rd Assault Battalion, 92nd Separate Assault Brigade, Bara:
"We were brought in on an APC (armored personnel carrier - ed.), dropped off, and unloaded water, ammo, and rations. We set up a machine-gun observation post and found cover. Things moved fast. The next day after we arrived, two b******s slipped in and mined the road behind us. We went out, cleared the road, and hunted for those two men. Over the radios, we heard orders to take this village at any cost. We observed until noon, the treeline was 350 meters away, we could constantly hear their voices, the way they talked; we kept hammering that way whenever they tried to dash toward us."
Ryzhyi, fighter of the Shkval unit of the 3rd Assault Battalion of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade:
"They started pushing from all sides; there were a lot of them. We understood we wouldn’t hold on our own. If they outflanked us from every direction, we’d have nowhere to go. Over the radio, we agreed among ourselves to report it. As we were transmitting, our commanders had already made the call; other groups were already closing in to reinforce us."
Vest, 3rd Assault Battalion of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade:
"They sent us in as a clearing group, since our positions were there, just to help the guys, to bring in more men. We reached the village and gained a foothold in roughly in its center. Then the commander got through and said there were three more of ours at the far end of the village, as they’d had no comms and had been in contact with the enemy, so they needed help. We moved to the far end of the village, conducting a mop-up, to help them. Once there, we entrenched with them and that became, essentially, our legendary Hydra position."
"On the 30th, as I understand it, we were exposed. When we tried to get on the net, there was no signal because the ‘spider’ was a bit damaged. Bara and I went up the stairs, right to the doorway, trying to connect with just a regular radio. Maybe it would go through, maybe. We were hoping for the best. Then I remember only a flash; my legs went numb and buckled, and I just fell back down the steps into the basement. They dragged me in and administered first aid. The next thing I saw was Bara’s face covered in blood, his arm bandaged; he was wiping his face with wipes while I lay on the cot already bandaged."
Bara: "They tried to take us out with everything they had, FPV drones, heavy calibers, payload drops. They even gassed us. There were six of us. After that incident, only four remained. And we were left alone in the village of Razine. After I was wounded, I still managed to shoot back at the b#stards. On July 3, I took out four in just one hour. Around 9 a.m. I was standing there. Across the street, about forty meters away, I spotted two figures. I peeked out of the window. I pressed against the wall. I see two. That’s it. I see them pulling something out of their bags. I dash across the road. I stepped away from the wall a bit so they don’t spot me. I see a rifle barrel sticking out. They’re heading straight to the well. I peek through the window. Glance. Bang. Two killed. The guys jumped out right away. A shot. What was that? We had only one radio. One man heard it. He understood the plan. That’s all. The guys jumped out. They took perimeter defense. A brother says: I hear voices. I hear a radio. I say: Got it. The mosquito net was still hanging. That was f#cking great, they couldn’t see us. A helmet flickered. They came in, confident, into our yard. I crouched. I killed one straight in the head. Bang. He dropped to his knees. A prayer before death. The other I wounded. He couldn’t see me. Shouting "Friendly!" I ran closer. I saw a slab. I started firing through it. I couldn’t pierce it. I checked later. Six shots to the chest. My comrade hands me a grenade. I throw it. He’s still alive in there. Dust rises from the grenade. Everything covered. I’m invisible. I move in closer. I finished him with a headshot. I dragged their bodies away."
Vest: "In our own yard and garden, there were about 7–8 enemy soldiers lying around. We hid one under roofing sheets so no one would notice that any of ours were still there at all, that something was happening. Some we hid in the kitchen. Others we hid behind a cart in the garden. We tried to mask everything so it looked like we weren’t there at all. We didn’t exist, we were ghosts. You could hear them walking around saying that all the Ukrainians had left, that they had captured the village, that it was all theirs."
How close did you personally see the enemy?
Ryzhyi: "Two meters. That was on the last day, as we were leaving. I heard talking, rustling, something cracking. I heard someone approaching, so I hid and waited for him, let him come closer, because there were so many of them all around. You just had to do it clean. I killed him, wrapped him in his own gear so he wouldn’t be noticed."
Cooper, fighter of the 3rd Assault Battalion of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade:
"It also worked in our favor that they were firing into the air as they searched for each other. I think that’s what let us stay concealed. They paid less attention to the fact that someone was shooting somewhere here in Razine, probably figured someone was just looking for someone, not that our guys were being killed."
Vest: "What stuck with me most was when one of them ran out into the field. They’re shouting, ‘There’s a b#stard over there,’ and I still can’t see him. They give me a reference: right side of the gate, right post. I figure if I shoot at 4x magnification, I might hit. I take the first shot toward the target with adjustments and hold-off, without dialing the elevation turret, just by holding off. I see him start moving his arm; he keeps running and shaking it. I think, looks like I hit him, because he’d been running fine, no shaking, and after the shot, he starts shaking his arm. I take a second shot — he drops. I don’t know if I hit him in the legs or somewhere in the body, but he starts crawling, slowly crawling.
I keep watching through the optic and zoom in. I watched for two, maybe three minutes. He stayed there, motionless, as he had been. Looks like the third shot finished him off for good."
And how did you find the other two enemies?
"There were two more. One of them darted left, toward a narrow treeline. He darted that way, just about to get in there, about 800 meters out. I hit him with the second shot. One shot and he dropped and never got back up from there. The third was at the near edge of the treeline at twelve, around 400–450 meters. That’s right in the weapon’s effective range, so I tagged him with the first shot. There wasn’t much more to fire there."
At what point did you personally realize the line of contact was far from you, that you were not just encircled but already in the enemy’s rear?
Bara: "It wasn’t hard to tell we were on our own. I asked how far the nearest friendly position was. They said, ‘Guys, very far.’"
Vest: "On the 30th we lost comms when the ‘spider’ link got cut. We were declared missing due to loss of contact. A couple of days later, we got back on the net. Then the ‘spider’ tore again. What happened to it? I don't know what happened to it. They wrapped it, jumped it with some wires, anything to get a faint signal. On the 5th, we were again listed as missing because comms went down again."
Bara: "By then, we hadn’t come up on comms for more than a day. We couldn’t hear them and they couldn’t hear us. Luckily, we’d managed to record where the caches were. I found one package, there was a phone, a route, a short video. I told the guys, ‘I found one; grab the other, I can’t anymore.’"
Vest: "When we were pulling the critical stuff, where the Kropyva was, we grabbed the package and heard two enemy moving along the road while we were in the greenery. We hustled back with the package, opened it up, got into Kropyva, and saw the route. On that same phone with Kropyva there was a video explaining how the pullback was supposed to work, when, what, how, and so on."
Bara: "I immediately grab the radio. Not the usual kind, but one with a screen, first time I’d ever seen one. I clip it onto the ‘spider.’ Our spider was badly battered, taped up, damaged. And there’s no comms. All our guys’ hopes just collapsed. I sit there, fiddling with the radio. It’s got contacts, channels. I start trying to call, nothing. I start writing messages. Must’ve pressed that button a thousand times. Then the guys call me upstairs, they hear voices, the b#stards pulling in. I hand the radio to Vest: ‘Here, you try.’ And he, all cheerful, sends out an SMS that we’re still alive."
Vest: "They told us they saw the video and were ready to move. Then we got the order: be ready by 12:00, at night. At one in the morning, the command came to move. We bolted out of the basement and slipped quietly along the street past the enemy houses. Made it to the fields, then moved out across them."
How far did you go?
"In total, we covered about eight kilometers. At first, our route was about 5.2, as I remember, to the dismount point where we dug in. We took on water, they’d cached some for us, drank, caught our breath. Then we were told we had to pick up two WIA and move with them to the evac point. The evac point was roughly three kilometers farther. We moved toward it straight down the road, we just wanted to get there faster. We weren’t using the greenery anymore; there wasn’t really any, and we just took the road to the evac point. We reached it, went to ground, and were told an APC would get to us in about an hour to an hour and a half. It did, it reached us and took us out."
Ryzhyi: "It’s a good thing we didn’t leave earlier, didn’t abandon our position when comms went down. Good that we didn’t just head out right away. We waited for the moment when they gave us the route. We returned to the evac; if we’d gone on our own, we’d have taken a slightly wrong route and would’ve walked right into them. It wouldn’t have worked, there was no way out there. Thanks to our commanders."
Approximately how many enemy were killed at your position?
Vest: "Approximately? Right at our position, around eight. Specifically from our position, eight in the yard, that’s just what we counted. There were more in the garden. The ones shouting ‘Water! Help! Drag me back!’ and so on. We don’t know how many of those, because the ‘Baba Yaga’ was working and the mortar was firing. The ones we counted: eight in the yard and three in the field."
How did you join the army?
"I joined under the Contract 18–24 program. I was at work, saw a post about the contract, and thought I should go for it. Since I was 18, I’d been going to the military enlistment office to ask about signing a contract. They kept turning me down because I needed a parent’s signature, at least one parent, and my parents wouldn’t sign, so I couldn’t get in. Then this contract program appeared and I immediately applied to the 92nd. They called me back the next day and sent the address to report to."
Why did you decide to be a marksman?
My father served; he was a sniper. He used to bring home bits of sniper kit. When I was about 13–14, he bought me an air rifle. At first, I shot using iron sights, no optiсs, just shooting the way a kid likes to mess around.
I’d run around with it, too. Then I decided to buy a cheap scope on OLX, just to have a sight. I bought it, and my father showed me how to set it up, how to mount it, how to work with it. I mounted it, and every 20 shots I was tightening it with a screwdriver because it kept losing zero. That way, I learned a bit how to zero a scope. Later, I started to prefer shooting with optics. During Basic Combined Arms Training, I kept pestering everyone: give me an optic. And finally, the specialty came up. In the specialty course, I was shooting with optics, and I was basically happy with it."
Did you join the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the "18–24" program?
Cooper: Yes, I did.
In your view, does this program have advantages? Does it motivate men your age to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
The primary motivation is defending our homeland. That has to come first. The people who had that motivation were the ones who signed up under this program. As for those who joined purely for the bonuses, I don’t know any."
