For three says already the assault on Avdeevka is going on, for three days already the Putilovsky Bridge is surrounded by in incessant roar—death embodied in metal is flying from us and towards us. And for three days already, a drunken, crippled, lame militiaman staggers at the fork of the road with his stick and baptizes all the cars which carry fighters across the bridge into this furious roar.
I see him every time I cross the bridge these days. Clean shaven, in a brand-new soldier's uniform, with a lonely medal on his chest—he cries and raises his hand watching us go: “Kill the bastards boys, kill them...I can’t do it anymore, and you kill them, don’t feel sorry for the bastards” —he shouts out to us...
And this cry is a concentration of all pain and suffering which this damned Avdeevka caused to the people. That very damned Avdeevka, which has stuck as a bleeding noose into the throat of Donetsk. One cannot say whether it was a holiday home area or a village of chemists which was always considered to be “nearly a town”, but before, the Ukrainians turned this place into a bottomless well of our pain and grief.
The enemy dug themselves many meters below the ground surface, covered themselves with a thick blanket of concrete and it was a safe place for them. And they have always been sincerely and happily gloating when being on air: “Hey, separs” [separatists – that’s how the enemy calls us], “suck on that... we’ll come soon”—and then endless flux dirty swearing always followed.
I watched how the soldiers listened to this hooting all the last summer, then autumn, winter, spring... They were silent, smoking and smiling wryly, and only once did the old Lys [Fox] answer: “Just wait a little, we'll come ourselves…”
And we finally went. Went to bring Avdeevka home, to return the village to its roots…And this became a great holiday for us here, a holiday which this crippled soldier celebrated...
A few kilometers away from him, I was sitting in a basement and watching officers of Slavyanka [First Guards Slavic Brigade]—surrounded by clouds of stale-gray smoke—were making this holiday come true. I watched the battalion, tearing through enemy defense lines…
At a large table (in fact, it was a ping-pong table—the net even stayed there, but that didn’t matter) the men are making history. With no anxiety but with confidence: “Yama, take three groups and move forward, over the plantation, two at a time, now Razmakh blows the smoke…”—Den—commander of “Shtorm” troops says in a deep, low voice. He is as monumental and as calm as a polar bear. The Shtorms have been moving for three nights from one strongpoint towards another strongpoint.
It is impossible to imagine what depths of hell are now opening before these guys. The enemy sprinkles shells in front of them, our gunpowder roars behind, and they are crawling forward between two fires... Razmakh—the artillery commander—is sitting next to Den, his shells target only several meters away from the Shtorms and afterwards puts smoke there and the guys break out fast to reach the enemy’s trench...
But we the people who are not at this table will never be able to understand what’s that final moment before rushing into the enemy’s trench is worth…Endless hours of crawling, meter by meter, through iron tornados, fire and death, overcoming all that fills you inside—fear, pain, despair…And maybe the only thing that makes these guys hold the line is Dan's low and calm voice, which is spreading like fog over the ground, “Don’t get distracted and listed to me… See the smoke? Turn leftward and move on”…
And then that very moment when we hear shouts and shots on the radio comes. These are the shortest and quickest minutes on Earth.
And then it all goes quiet and there’s a tired, nearly happy voice on air: “The it, plus… They have 8 two hundred [200 is code for ‘killed’], we have 2 three hundred [300 is code for ‘wounded’] … Light [lightly wounded]
And the deputy brigade commander Monakh nods, without looking up from the map on his tablet and says, “Good…Alright, now hold the position…the reinforcement group will arrive soon… Breath out [Relax] and hold [the position] … Do you read me…”—Den echoes him…
“Clear…”
The Battalion Commander Sova, who is in his early thirties, has already gone to his corner and is returned in full armor and with a machine gun. He is going to lead the reinforcement group to the taken position personally... Usually they don’t do this... Usually there is time... But we are moving forward for the third day... The assault group will retreat to rest, they will lie down for a couple of hours somewhere a few meters away in order to catch a piece of sleep in this continuous roar, until the order comes again to crawl, crawl for the sake of that one moment...
I'm going with Den to the starting line. Things are not going well in the neighboring direction, and Den personally instructs mekhvod [driver-mechanic] Chiba, who is taking his armored landing force into the next hell.
“Look, until now it hasn’t worked out only because they didn’t speed up it here,” he continues calmly, “The main thing is to push, you’ll get through—one hundred percent... If you piss, you’re finished...Got it?”
One-eyed and smoke-stained Chiba nods and asks, “But the mines?”
“There are no mines, the field is clear, the main thing is to push...If you get lost, there will be smoke across the field diagonally, rush straight there...Don’t think...Just fly...Got it?”
Chiba shrugs and takes the radio—today is his seventh flight there, to the foothills of hell.
May Lord take care of you, Chiba, and the guys...
We return, and again the battalion moves forward...Chiba rolls out onto that very field, they hit him, Razmakh works in response, Den holds his guys, the kombat [battalion commander] raises his [guys], signalmen, rebs [electronic warfare], bepelaashniks [drone operators] are next to him, and the imperturbable Monakh above all this, is concentrated in on his tablet—the battalion is working, the battalion is tearing apart the enemy...
And then night suddenly falls to the ground, and long after midnight only Monakh lingers at the table. He smokes and peers at this map with reddened eyes, constantly adjusting something in it...
The third night of the offensive is ending, in a couple of hours his battalions will go into battle again, and it is necessary, it is very necessary to draw up that one and only true course on this damned map...
The dawn has to come yet, but commanders would be at the table already, sitting in clouds of cigarette smoke, the soldiers will again crawl through the firestorm to their cherished goal, and one-eyed Chiba will again lead his old beha [armored vehicle - BMP] somewhere... And so it goes day after day, until our victory is achieved...
And therefore, God bless you, soldiers!
For the victory that we all need, the first to pay are you…