- Now I understand that my partner and I had signs of a Russian DRG, so the fighters who shouted “Password ?!” from the darkness to us had the right to shoot us without even understanding who we were, because this happened in Bakhmut in March, under the time of fierce fighting for this city, told Volunteer “Team Ex” from Kiev Oksana Volzhina. She is one of the organizers of the Fortress Bakhmut exhibition, which opened at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. - Why did the Ukrainian patrol have the right to open fire without notice? There were very good reasons for this: Russian DRGs (2-3 saboteurs each) tried to sneak into Bakhmut at night, looked for where our fighters spent the night, and if they managed to destroy the sentries, then they stabbed the soldiers with sleeping knives. Unfortunately, there have been such cases. Therefore, the patrols were supposed to open fire on small groups that move around the city at night. So our lives then, as they say, hung in the balance.
“It flashed through my head: “Another moment, and we will shoot each other!”
- What urgent need made you and your partner walk around Bakhmut at night? - I ask Oksana Volzhina.
“We were looking for several local residents, whom I began to find and take away from there.
– How did you find out about them?
- One resident of Bakhmut wrote to my page on Instagram. At that time he left there, but he knew that six elderly people were hiding near Bakhmut’s business card - the plane. They somehow got in touch with this man (as I understood, one of them is his relative). These people asked him to help them evacuate. For five days I persuaded the guys from the 93rd Kholodny Yar brigade to take me from Konstantinovka to Bakhmut. They answered: “You will not go there, because it is very dangerous.” Suddenly, on the last day of my stay in Konstas (Konstantinovka), these fighters received an order to leave for Bakhmut in order to perform a certain task. I say: I will follow you. I’ll get there anyway, with or without you. But it’s better with you.” They saw that there was nothing to be done, so they agreed. They said: “Okay, let’s go together. In Bakhmut, we do our work, and you do yours (they did not have the opportunity to babysit me). Meet at the PCB (I knew where it was). If you lose your car, go there on foot.” My partner left with me in the car. They gave him a machine gun so that he had something to protect me.
We managed to slip into Bakhmut, although it was dangerous and difficult. There, in a certain place, we left our car, because it was almost impossible to go any further - because the ground is littered with a large number of various destroyed structures, which, if you run into them, can easily pierce the wheels. So keep going on foot, and at night. But the enemy still noticed us from the drone and opened mortar fire on the square we were moving along. The houses around were already destroyed. And we were looking for a two-story survivor, but there was no such thing. We reached the concrete slabs where the street ends. And then there are the ruins themselves.
I look at the Google map and begin to understand that not everything is in order with it (this map can miss up to 800 meters), and suddenly a voice from the darkness: “Password ?!” We are with the partner was not seen who was shouting (because these people were probably behind some kind of wall). We knew the password. But the partner made a mistake - he began to speak Russian with them: he exclaimed something like: “What is the password ?!” Then he explained to me: it seemed to him that we ran into orcs. He was generally afraid to go with me, he said that few people wrote to me on Instagram. So, I, unlike him, heard that the question “Password ?!” sounded Ukrainian. I hear people invisible to us pulling the shutters. My partner did the same. It flashed through my head: “Another moment, and we will shoot each other!”. I fell to the ground and exclaimed, “Education!” (that was the password). Out of the darkness came: “What the f*ck (sorry, everyone was on my nerves) education ?!” “State!” I appeal (I’m a psychologist, so even in that situation I didn’t succumb to emotions, I was guided by rational thinking).
In general, those guys should have shot us right away, because it’s not clear to them who we are. I hear them discussing what to do. Then they told us: “Okay, keep moving on!” I replied: “Wait, I have to pick up the grandparents. Just don’t shoot at our backs! “Fine!” the guys agreed. This is how the dialogue came out in complete darkness … I’ll tell you that my partner and I were very lucky. Because, I repeat, the fighters were supposed to shoot us, and then check the documents.
- Did you find the people you came to Bakhmut for?
- Yes, we found it. Here it should be said that we were lucky not only that the fighters did not shoot us in the dark, but also that they stopped us and we did not go further. Then my female intuition worked, I exclaimed: “Okay, we are turning around.” A thought flashed through: “It’s a shame, it was so hard to get there with risk, but the people they came for were not found. They are waiting for us.” I thought about it, but suddenly I saw a surviving house on the left, we had not paid attention to it before, so we passed by. Why didn’t we notice it? For it turned out not to be two-story, as the man told me on instagram, but one-story, but with a high roof. The partner says: “Maybe it’s him?” Because there were no surviving houses nearby. I climbed over the fence, started to pull the door (although this is against the rules, because the door could be mined). The people we were looking for were there. There were five of them, they slept on one big bed. Among them was an almost blind grandfather. I led him, and my partner is my grandmother. We had to walk about 150 meters to the car - in complete darkness, because it was impossible to turn on the flashlight. Underfoot, as in a landfill (building structures, shell casings, broken wires). Carefully, we made our way to the car and then safely took the old people to Konstacha.
- This is probably not the only case when your life in the war hung in the balance?
- Unfortunately, not the only one. For example, last winter, not far from the Bakhmutka River, along which the front line then passed, the following story happened: I was informed that a three-year-old boy with his mother was in one of the houses near that river. We found them, and when we were taken out of there, a Russian sniper fired at us. It was convenient for him to do this: the monster was on the opposite bank on a hill, and we were in a lowland.
- How did you manage to escape from the sniper’s balls?
- Honestly I do not know. I didn’t even notice that they were shooting at us. I was wearing armor, a helmet. I hugged the child and carried him. And the fighter was carrying suitcases with things that the boy’s mother decided to take with her. The fighter told us that a sniper was shooting at us.
“In Kyiv, I dreamed about what I saw with my own eyes when I once again arrived in Bakhmut”
- How does nervous strain affect you during such trips to the front?
- When I return home to Kiev to my three children, in my dreams I continue to take someone out of Bakhmut, I can’t sleep normally until the psyche calms down (this takes about a week). To support my body, I take vitamins and minerals.
By the way, I accidentally see some of what I dream about in Kyiv with my own eyes when I return to the east.
- That is, prophetic dreams?
- Yes, prophetic. For example, I dreamed of burning Bakhmut - how high-rise buildings were burning. On my last visit there (it was at the beginning of last week), I saw this apocalyptic picture. I then walked through the city destroyed by the Reichs on foot, and on the way I was able to take only a few photographs, because it was extremely dangerous to stop. When I went to the KSP to ask for directions, the guys looked at me, almost at a ghost: a woman walking alone along Bakhmut is something incredible.
I got to the next KSP, which was then located in a nine-story building. It should be said here that I had an agreement with the guys who were in Konstantinovka: I pick up civilians in Bakhmut (there were ten of them), I bring them to the KSP. Then the guys leave Konstantinovka to me on a KAMAZ truck, on which a large armored capsule is mounted, and we take these 10 locals out in it. The guys arrived in that car to the right point in Bakhmut, wrote to me on the phone: “You have an hour to bring people here.” As soon as I received this message, the enemy began to shell this place with artillery. The guys immediately wrote to me: “And don’t think about going out.” I knew it without them. The shelling lasted for four hours! I didn’t even have a chance to go out, I’m sorry. I tell the boys at the KSP: “I need to go to the toilet!” They gave me a bucket. When, finally, the shelling ended, I went outside and saw what was in a dream - burning nine-story buildings. These houses formed a square, and all of it was on fire.
Unfortunately, due to shelling, KAMAZ with an armored capsule turned into a pile of iron. I had to take people out (I managed to find them) on an ordinary army truck with a canvas awning. It was very dangerous, because the road is shot through by the enemy. Luckily, we made it through safely. But still, the fighters merged because, in fact, because of me, they lost that armored capsule.
This story clearly demonstrates how many people risk their lives, how much effort they have to make, spend material resources (because the machines had to work for the military) to evacuate the locals who managed to stay in Bakhmut until the city turns into a complete hell. In my opinion, all the locals should have been forcibly removed from Bakhmut long ago, because fighting in a city where there are civilians is much more difficult than when they are not there.
P.S.. Part of the exhibits of the Fortress Bakhmut exhibition will be sold at an auction scheduled for June 9th. The proceeds will be used to purchase the Aist drone for the soldiers of the 93rd Kholodny Yar brigade. Among the lots are a wall clock signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, souvenirs made from the wreckage of a Russian plane shot down from a high-rise building window in Bakhmut, stamps signed by boxer Alexander Usik.
Previously, a painful story, once again demonstrating the humanity of our servicemen, was shared by journalist from Bakhmut Betty Goncharova.
Caption photo: When Oksana was rescuing this three-year-old boy, a Russian sniper opened fire on them (photo from Oksana Volzhina’s Facebook page)
Source: Fakty
I am currently working as a news website author at Daily News Hack. I mostly cover trending news and have been doing so for quite some time now. I have always had a keen interest in current affairs and the world around me, which is what led me to my current job.
