Ukrainian soldier Serhii sits\u00a0on\u00a0his\u00a0hospital bed in a public clinic in central Ukraine. There are small\u00a0pieces of\u00a0shrapnel\u00a0embedded in his\u00a0legs that the doctors can\u2019t\u00a0retrieve. Despite the pain, he says \ufeffhe is feeling good. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe that now I\u2019m in the hospital, not in the trench. I did not think I would survive,\u201d says\u00a0the\u00a036-year-old. <\/p>\n
Serhii is an infantryman in the 80th\u00a0Air Assault Galician Brigade. He joined the army soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, leaving Finland where he had been living and working as a handyman for the previous 10 years to enlist. In a nod to his past, he was given the call sign \u201cFin.\u201d <\/p>\n
A\u00a0month ago, on October 27, he\u00a0and his unit were assigned\u00a0a mission \u2013 to hold the trenches on the eastern front line\u00a0on the\u00a0outskirts of Bakhmut. That mission was supposed to last three days but stretched into two weeks after the unit became pinned down by enemy fire. For some of the men it would be the last mission they ever saw. <\/p>\n
The unit had been under constant shelling for several days when a mortar exploded near to the dugout containing Serhii and two other men, cutting the group off just as they were about to move position. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all wounded. I was wounded in both legs and immediately touched them to check whether they were still there,\u201d Serhii recalled. <\/p>\n
The other two soldiers\u00a0<\/strong>had broken legs and jaws. One of them was so shocked that he asked to kill himself, so the\u00a0others\u00a0took his weapon away. When the evacuation team arrived, Serhii insisted they take the other\u00a0men\u00a0first and that he would wait for the next opportunity. <\/p>\n But that opportunity never came. Whenever other units arrived, constant Russian bombardment\u00a0\ufeffkept them pinned down and unable to reach Serhii. <\/p>\n Multiple evacuation teams would try to reach Serhii over the next two weeks, but none could get through and some died trying. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were under constant enemy fire. The enemy seemed to be looking for our weaknesses or testing our endurance,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n With Serhii confined to his trench, his commander used a drone to drop off essentials to him such as water, painkillers, chocolate bars, and even cigarettes. <\/p>\n \u201cThe water was a big problem because, first, the drone could not pick up big bottles of water. So the drone dropped small bottles wrapped in paper and tape, but not every bottle could survive (the fall) and they often broke. Water was leaking out. I appreciated every sip of water,\u201d Serhii said. <\/p>\n At the same time, Russian drones were targeting the dugout with more sinister payloads, one of them dropping a grenade right next to Serhii, who by this point had been joined by another Ukrainian soldier who had become cut off. <\/p>\n \u201cIt exploded near the other soldier\u2019s back and half a meter from me, near my feet. We were wounded but lucky to survive. It was possible to evacuate only one critically injured soldier. So at that moment I realized I\u00a0was\u00a0alone.\u201d <\/p>\n For the next three days Serhii hid in his dugout surrounded by the enemy. Each hour Russian troops came closer and closer to his position. He could hear their voices and knew their plan. <\/p>\n Believing that he would not survive, Serhii contacted his commander on the radio and whispered to him the coordinates of the enemy \u2013 essentially calling in artillery\u00a0strikes on\u00a0his very own position. <\/p>\n Thanks to Serhii, Ukrainian artillery conducted several accurate strikes, but more Russian soldiers continued to take up positions around him. <\/p>\n \u201cI was surrounded by enemies,\u201d\u00a0Serhii explained. \u201cWhen they couldn\u2019t hear me, I whispered the coordinates again on the radio and our artillery fired at them.\u201d <\/p>\n At one point, Serhii thought his time was up when a Russian soldier climbed into his dugout. The soldier asked Serhii where he was from and the Ukrainian replied in Russian that he had a concussion and asked for water.\u00a0The\u00a0Russian soldier did not give him water but crawled out of the trench, apparently still unaware Serhii was Ukrainian. <\/p>\n \u201cI still can\u2019t understand how he didn\u2019t realize I was from the Ukrainian armed forces.\u00a0I was wearing a Ukrainian uniform. My pants were in pixels. Yes, they were dirty. But it was obvious that the boots were Ukrainian,\u201d\u00a0Serhii recalled. <\/p>\n With all efforts to evacuate Serhii exhausted, his commander eventually told him the only way out was to crawl and pray. <\/p>\n \u201cI had to crawl through the dugout where Russians were. Holding the radio in my left hand on my knees, I started crawling. I came across a tripwire with a grenade on it. I could hear the commander on the radio correcting me, but I could not contact him myself. The battery was almost dead. The commander shouted at me that I should move. So, finally I got to the Ukrainian positions, \u2018Fin, keep moving,\u2019\u00a0they kept telling me.\u201d <\/p>\n Serhii has\u00a0now been recovering for\u00a0more than two\u00a0weeks. Sitting in the warm hospital ward, he remembers how he licked\u00a0rainwater\u00a0from his trench\u00a0and would\u00a0dream about every sip. <\/p>\n \u201cYou should see what our guys are doing on the front line. How they fight, evacuate, and rescue their dudes. Our guys are paying a very high price. They pay with their blood. All I want is to\u00a0do\u00a0is go fishing\u00a0with my dudes, drink some beers\u00a0and sit in silence\u201d. <\/p>\n\n Ukrainian soldier Serhii sits\u00a0on\u00a0his\u00a0hospital bed in a public clinic in central Ukraine. There are small\u00a0pieces of\u00a0shrapnel\u00a0embedded in his\u00a0legs that the doctors can\u2019t\u00a0retrieve. Despite the pain, he says \ufeffhe is feeling good. \u201cI can\u2019t believe that now I\u2019m in the hospital, not in the trench. I did not think I would survive,\u201d says\u00a0the\u00a036-year-old. Serhii is an <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Surrounded<\/h2>\n