Eliminated two occupiers by posing as Russian soldier

YuYu, a fighter from the 425th Separate Assault Regiment "Skelia," near Novotoretske, took out two occupiers by posing as a Russian serviceman. An extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. In an exclusive account, he spoke about his combat path: service in the Marine Corps, time with the Territorial Defense Forces, and a wound sustained near Chasiv Yar. He also described how, keeping his cool, he let two Russian soldiers close to point-blank range before opening fire.

The video everyone saw and talked about, the one where you encounter two Russian soldiers. Where did it happen, and what led up to that encounter?

YY: It was in the locality of Toretske. We moved in there as a small team and ended up in complete encirclement. Given the circumstances, we had a prisoner. During questioning I learned that they’re being brought in as small infantry groups, three to five men, and they have zero communications  with one another, full stop. They don’t know which units are where, number of people, call signs, or commanders. But they’re all convinced it’s only friendly forces in that area. Armed with that information, I decided to remove all identifying marks, unit patches, tape. Since we had no adjacent friendly units there, there was no risk of friendly fire, and that mostly did the trick. When I stepped out on task to link up with a group, there are stretches along the route where communications drop, I was told where the group was, and I had to move to meet them, to link up with the support group. Reinforcements, that is.

We moved in, took up positions, and needed to expand the perimeter. As I stepped onto the road, two enemy soldiers peeked out at me from the roadside. It was immediately clear that engaging them would be a losing proposition: they were under cover, I was exposed on the road, and there were two of them. So I quickly figured I’d see if I could pass myself off as one of theirs. I said, "Hey," and realized they were hiding from the UAV that was guiding me. They asked, "Where are you headed?" I said, "Up there." They asked, "Which way will you go?" I said, "Along the road, across the destroyed bridge." They said, "No way,UAVs are hitting there." "What UAV is that?" I said, "Mine; it’s guiding me." They said, "We’ve been crawling through the reeds here, moving along the road, through the marsh." I said, "To hell with that," and kept going.

I’d already covered about half the way when I glanced back and saw they’d started following me. Again, engaging them out on the road would have been tactically unfavorable. There were two of them, and just one of me. So I decided to make it to a T-junction. I turned to them and said, "Got a smoke, guys?" They said, "Yeah, but let’s get off the open and into the greenery so the drones don’t spot us." I waited a moment for them to come up to me. I said, "Alright, lead on; I’ll grab a smoke. I need to go right." At that point I slipped in behind them, and it worked out so that I had them under control immediately. Again, what made the difference was that when I move out, I don’t use the safety. The rifle is kept ready to fire, with my finger indexed along the receiver, that’s the primary safety. In that situation, if I’d clicked the safety on and off, it could have worked against me. From the very start, the control was lightning-fast, neither of them had time to realize what was happening or even to panic. The second one seemed to flinch, but didn’t even manage that. That’s more or less how the situation unfolded.

Tell me what went through your mind when you saw the enemy but, so to speak, had to let them go and move ahead of them.

What were you running through in your head at that moment?

YY: Kinda worked. A split-second thought: "Perfect. I’ll catch the right moment". Since they’d already taken me for one of theirs, they weren’t expecting any trick from me. That played to my advantage, I could lure them into a house, sit down for a smoke, or, as it happened, follow them into the greenery and ask them for cigarettes. It was already working in my favor; I could engage with them somehow. Letting them go on their way while I went on mine never crossed my mind.

No, that thought didn’t occur to me. I had to make a decision, set up a position that was advantageous for me so I could come out on top of the situation.

Who was the enemy? Was it clear who they were—what kind of Russian soldiers?

YY: As I understand it, they were drone operators, because they had antennas taped to their rucksacks, those drone cables. They were heading up to a rise, since the village itself sits in a low spot where comms drop out. So I figure they were drone guys. I didn’t search them, because I didn’t know where their firing positions were, if someone had eyes on me, I didn’t want to step out onto open ground and risk coming under fire.

Before 2022, before February 24, did you have any military experience?

YY:Yes. Starting in 2018 I served a three-year contract with the Marine Corps. That meant ATO duty, all those trench-line positional tasks. I took part in the Sea Breeze 2018 exercises, 12 NATO countries came in, and we had a week of survival training.

In 2022, when the full-scale invasion began, what happened next—where did you go to serve?

YY: By 6 a.m. I was already at the enlistment office. They gathered everyone in the assembly hall, told us to wait, took down our details and by evening they came in and said there were no weapons, go home, if anything they’d call. But how do you go home when the enemy is already approaching people’s homes? On the morning of the 25th, friends told me that on Obolon in Kyiv, near the Epicenter, they were handing out weapons, throwing them off KamAZ trucks. "Go there, tell them about your experience, this and that, and you’ll get in, I think it’ll work out." I went, got a weapon, and we moved to the 14th Line in Pushcha. Russian infantry had scattered through the woods from the Hostomel airfield. We held the line there, and later moved to Donetsk region, Chasiv Yar, the Lysychansk oil refinery, Vovcheyarivka. I was wounded by mortar fire, spinal fracture and after that I joined the Skala unit on contract.

The approach here is tough. People probably think that after joining the Armed Forces they can sit it out, won’t happen. Even when I’m recruiting, I never say it will be easy. It will be hard, it wears you down, but it shows you what combat will be like. It becomes a habit and it delivers results.

Our motto: here, ordinary people become unbreakable.

You’ve got prior military service, Marine Corps, then Territorial Defense, the full-scale war. Now you’re with the Skala Regiment, so you can compare things, starting with supply and training standards.

Thanks to the commander, we don’t have to kit ourselves out; there’s no need to seek out volunteers or through relatives and we don’t get sidetracked from training and performing our military service properly. Everything is provided, fully and completely. Discipline is very, very strict, we keep a sober community. When I trained with other units, you could just put your feet up, say "I don’t want to," and nobody would bother you. They’d tell you it’s your problem and you’ll figure it out in combat if you don’t feel like doing something. That doesn’t fly here. The approach is the same for everyone, there’s only "it must be done."

We invite everyone willing to join the 425th Separate Assault Regiment Skala. We offer proper, high-quality provision, solid training, and dignified treatment for every service member at every level, from private to officer.