Almost All Soldiers NRK Met In Eastern Ukraine A Year Ago Died – NRK Urix – Foreign News & Documentaries

– War is war, says the site leader Viktor Egorov, who believes in Ukrainian victory in the war against Russia in 2023.

• – If you remember Oleg, that bright and happy boy, he was killed in the battles for the Boryevsky town.
• – Bogdan, who slept in the bed above you, disappeared during the fierce fighting this spring, and has been killed or taken prisoner by the Russians.
• – Arthur, who cut wood for the stoves, also died.

It’s a grim summary of the 10-month war, Viktor Gegorov told NRK, as we spoke to him in a convalescent center safely behind the front in Ukraine.

Victor was the leader of the place at the beginning of February He got NRK outside the village of KrymskeIt is operated by the 28th Mechanized Brigade of the Defense Forces of Ukraine. .

a day in the trench

Within a day, Victor and his deputy Artur let us see what was happening along more than 500 kilometers of the front line, or line of contact, as it was officially called at the time, in eastern Ukraine.

– Everything depends on what Putin decides, – said Viktor Egorov at the time. Now we know Victor and we answer this question very well.

NRK was in contact with both Viktor Egorov and his family Since the Russian president on February 24 launched a massive military attack on neighboring Ukraine.

The advanced position outside the village of Krymske eventually had to be abandoned. Slowly, Ukrainian forces were pushed out of large parts of Luhansk Province in the far eastern Donbass region, including the cities of Sevgerodonetsk and Lysitiansk.

Many died every day

The international media often referred to the Ukrainian defense, which reported huge losses to the advancing Russian forces.

But in the end it turned out that the Ukrainian defense also suffered heavy losses. President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted In June, the losses were up to 100 soldiers each day, while 500 were wounded.

And these are not just numbers. And so three of the four soldiers with whom the NRK came into close contact over the course of a day departed outside Krymsky.

During the day that we were with him, Oleg was very worried about whether he should take the vaccine against covid-19 or not.

He was worried about what he had heard about the side effects, but in the end he had to go to the village and the first aid station there, to get the important injection,

Otherwise, Victor would have told him that he might have to leave the front.

By now Oleg is gone, his death confirmed in the heavy fighting that raged in this part of Ukraine in the spring of 2022.

Bogdan’s wedding is canceled

Bogdan told me that he had found a girl in his Zhytomyr house whom he was thinking of marrying, probably already this summer.

He has learned some English, which he would like to practice, and said there was nothing to worry about when he put a Kalashnikov in the pillow where the NRK envoys were supposed to sleep.

So now Bogdan is gone, at best in captivity with the Russian troops, says Victor. He knows nothing more about Artur, his second-in-command, than that he is dead.

– I myself was on the front line both in Donbass and in Kherson, – says Viktor Gigorov, not wanting to make himself a hero.

He had some minor injuries, but he didn’t think that was something to talk about.

He fought in several front divisions

He is now two months late for the front having had his teeth reduced to four bad ones, caused by the unhealthy diet and the water in the trench.

Novatushkivsk, Sevgerodonetsk, Lysytrogensk. These are the places and cities that Viktor Egorov and his squad fought to defend and then finally had to abandon during the Russian offensive in this region until the summer of 2022.

Later he fought south at the town of Popasna. Also this fall he spent a period at the front in Kherson in the south,

But now it was a matter of arranging the teeth. He was treated at the Yuzhnokransk Nuclear Power PlantNot far from Abuzynka’s hometown.

So finally it was possible to see more of his wife Valentina, his three daughters Irina, Victoria and Elizaveta and his grandson Aaron.

Their two sons, Given and Dennis, were both in the military when war broke out. Given succeeds, however, they haven’t heard from Denise since March.

He will find Dennis’ grave

– We don’t know how things went with Denis, says Viktor Egorov. I know that he agreed to cover his comrades who tried to flee from the superior forces of the Russians and that he was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage, 2nd degree.

This happened when, already in March, the advancing Russian forces succeeded in surrounding Mariupol, an important port city in the south of Donetsk province.

– There is a woman in the city of Pokrovsk who, using DNA analyzes, is trying to find out something about him, whether he is dead or not.

– We also work through international organizations. We think he is buried somewhere near Mariupol. Perhaps we will have to wait for a final answer until we liberate the city, says Viktor Gigorov.

Victory 2023?

And he has no doubt that Ukraine will win this war. He saw firsthand the bad morale of many Russian soldiers, who did so

– They were told that they would be greeted with cheers in Ukraine and that in a few days it would be over.

Now they have seen firsthand the resilience of us Ukrainians.

Says Viktor Egorov, a 50-year-old Ukrainian soldier who believes Ukraine will decide Europe’s biggest war since 1945, in 2023.