"I made a decision and called the fire on myself."
Russian servicemen are performing feats of heroism every day in the area where the Strategic Air Defence Forces are being conducted. It is difficult to understand the full intensity of what is happening from official reports. Guards Major Sergei Bacherikov called fire on himself to prevent his unit from being surrounded. Guards Senior Lieutenant Ilya Struchkov with a group of several fighters unexpectedly encountered an enemy company and engaged in unequal combat. Senior Sergeant Ilona Pshenichnaya is a nurse, and in the combat zone she had to deliver a baby to a local resident. On the eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day, Izvestia talked to the participants of the combat zone and found out how fighters hunt for Ukrainian MLRS, what nurses working on the front line are proud of, and how ripe rye can save soldiers.
"There were nine of us."
Sergei Bacherikov was assigned as a platoon commander of a flamethrower-assault unit in early 2022. Soon he found himself on the Kharkiv direction.
Major Sergei Bacherikov
- In August, we stormed an enemy stronghold," the officer recalls. - The task was to take and consolidate. There were nine of us - all flamethrowers from the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces. According to intelligence, there should have been 10-12 men on the enemy stronghold. It was hot days. The operation to capture the stronghold was to begin at five in the morning and be completed by lunchtime. We approached it, entered the battle, but there were at least 50 people there. And with heavy equipment and artillery support - they burrowed there like moles and camouflaged themselves. They came out on the alert and gave us a light.
When all the ammunition was used up, Sergei decided to pull back.
- At that moment, at the corner of the green, we were taken in a vise," he recalls. - They wanted to cut us off from the main forces and destroy us.
The situation was difficult, we had to fight our way through the enemy's fighting order.
- I made a decision and called the fire on myself," the commander recalls. He says that at that moment it was the only chance to escape and it could not be missed. We ask what gave him strength in that unequal battle. The officer, after a little thought, says that in general, simple things.
- Everyone wants to live, so they broke through," he says. - Captivity was out of the question. It was better to stay there. They believed in our artillery, calling the fire on themselves, and they were not mistaken. Well done, artillerymen.
They worked tightly on the given coordinates, creating a corridor for withdrawal.
- We jumped out of there and took up the defense," Sergei recalls. - Then I gave first aid to two wounded soldiers with lacerations. They were taken to the medical center at the first opportunity.
After that, those who remained in formation held their stronghold for three days. The AFU launched a counter-offensive, and our fighters again had to repel the attacks of superior enemy forces.
For those battles Sergei was awarded the title of Hero of Russia. The award was presented to him in November of the same year, already in the southern direction - the unit was redeployed there.
Now Hero of Russia, Guards Major Sergei Bacherikov - the commander of the battalion. His subordinate personnel carries out territorial defense of the Kursk and Bryansk regions. On February 24, his Moscow assignment will end, and he will again go to the Kursk region. Sergey is married and has three children, and most likely they will follow in their father's footsteps. This will be the third generation of military in the family.
I would like to congratulate my troops - Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops. Happy clean air to you guys! I wish you health, be responsible for your subordinates, for their safety and do not worry. Victory will be for us, we will all come home alive and healthy!
"You look at a baby and realize that it's practically your child."
Now senior sergeant Ilona Pshenichnaya works as a senior nurse - anesthetist at the central military hospital in Sevastopol. She has several tours of duty in Syria and more than two years of work in the SWO zone. On her dress tunic is a medal "For Combat Honors".
- I always have a loving husband and three sons waiting for me at home - it's a great support," she smiles.
Staff Sergeant Ilona Wheat
Ilona found herself in the Special Forces Medical Detachment in the first days of her deployment. She is a nurse in charge of anesthesia support and support in the operating room. Anti-shock intensive care is also her area of responsibility. In almost three years, she and her squad have traveled to almost all areas of SWO.
Ilona clearly knows what her squad's medics can be proud of.
- We haven't lost a single soldier," she says. - And we've had a huge number of them pass through our hands. It's hundreds, thousands, probably. Many of them were later awarded the title of Hero of Russia. This is also pride.
She had to provide assistance not only to the military, but also to the civilian population. It was in these cases that the most non-trivial medical tasks had to be solved.
- Many children and old people were blown up by mines near Donetsk," she recalls. - One day I was told that a child of seven years old was brought in who had been blown up by a petal mine. I jumped up, ran into the operating room, and I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, because I have three sons. It's very hard to pull yourself together in a moment and start doing your job. You look at that baby and you realize that it's a baby, it's practically your baby, but you have to do your job.
On the Kherson direction once a civilian ambulance car flew into the territory of the detachment.
- There was a woman in it who had already given birth," Ilona recalls. - We were a bit confused, as we have no obstetrics service. But the mother of the woman in labor said that they had been traveling around the villages for eight hours and they were not accepted anywhere - they had been kicked out of three hospitals and would not go anywhere else. The last one advised them to turn to the military: "They will definitely help you, they will not drive you away.
And Ilona and her colleagues helped the woman give birth to a healthy baby boy. Two or three hours later, the mother and child were transferred to a civilian hospital.
Ilona says that this case was accompanied by mysticism and the woman in labor did not get to them by chance.
- A day before, the head of our pharmacy came up and said that somehow he had gotten a package of Oxytocin," Ilona recalls. - This is a drug that is used in the postpartum period. We told him to put it away somewhere far away, it would never be of any use to us, it's not our profile at all. But life turned out to be much more complicated than we thought.
I want to congratulate my battle buddies, my medical girls, who have been out there saving the lives of our guys from day one to today, behind the tape. I wish them a speedy return home, to their families, to their babies, so that this is all over. Happy holiday, girls!
"I didn't realize the spike was cutting so hard."
In the family of Guards Senior Lieutenant Ilya Struchkov, all the men were military sailors. Great-grandfather during the Great Patriotic War participated in the evacuation of people from besieged Sevastopol. Grandfather served in the Northern Fleet. Father is also a military sailor. My uncle was a paratrooper and died in the second Chechen campaign.
Senior Lieutenant Ilya Struchkov
- I followed in my family's footsteps - to a military school," smiles Ilya.
As a member of his native 810th Marine Brigade he visited the hottest spots of the North-Eastern Europe - he liberated Melitopol, Mariupol, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. He received the Order of Courage for the battle, in which he commanded a group conducting engineering reconnaissance.
- We were demining forest belts," he recalls. - We approached one of them, but we were sure that it was a gray zone - there was no one here. The strip was wide and thick, because it was summer. In front of it we found a mine barrier and started to pull it down. That's when the enemy came to his senses and opened fire. They were dumbfounded and looked at us for a long time - they did not expect that a small group would so calmly come to their stronghold and start demining.
Ilya's group had four fighters plus two special forces, and in the enemy stronghold there was no less than a company.
We had to withdraw under hurricane fire. Our soldiers crawled 800 meters through a field of rye.
- It was summer, we went in short-sleeved clothes and body armor, and while crawling, we cut all our hands," he recalls. - For me it is an amazing moment, I did not think that the spikelet cuts so hard. But the rye saved our lives. It was lucky that it was tall and provided us with some cover.
During the withdrawal, Ilya stayed behind to correct the artillery fire. They worked well - they accurately covered the AFU stronghold. The group withdrew without losses. Later, after a powerful artillery preparation our troops took it.
The medal "For bravery" senior lieutenant received for the battles in Mariupol. They managed to find and mine a parking lot with the enemy's equipment directly on the line of contact.
- In the end, we led our unit there, which took it away and transported it to the rear," he said. - There was a lot of stuff there: two self-propelled vehicles, two motorcycles, two MAZs.
Now Ilya is deputy commander of a large landing ship.
- It has been a lifelong dream to get on the ship, to continue the tradition. At last such an opportunity has appeared, - Ilya smiles.
I want to congratulate all those involved on the Defender of the Fatherland Day! First of all, I wish you a peaceful sky above your head, health and soldiers' luck, so that all of you come home soon, safe, alive and healthy. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be for us!
"The first MLRS was found that very evening, and destroyed at night."
Major Pavel Kushnerev was born in the Bryansk region. In 2002 he graduated from Kazan Artillery School, served in Transbaikalia, in Chechnya, then came to Tambov - to the artillery brigade. He has been in the North Caucasus Military District since the first days.
Major Pavel Kushnerev
In September 2022 he was sent to the grouping of state border protection - Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions.
- I became chief of artillery of this grouping," he says. - And for a year and a half, it turns out, I defended the state border. At all shelling of our territory we reacted, conducted counter-battery fight - found and destroyed the enemy.
His most memorable operation is the destruction of Ukrainian MLRS, which hit Belgorod on December 30, 2023. The shelling killed many civilians then, and no one was going to forgive the enemy.
- We spent three days looking for them," Pavel says. - The first MLRS was found that very evening and destroyed at night. Then the reconnaissance reported about the hangar where the MLRSs were located, but because of the bad weather we couldn't reconnoiter the target. I made a decision, we opened fire, increased ammunition consumption a little bit to guarantee to cover them there - and we did.
In the area of Volchansk, retribution caught up with the crew of the Czech-made Vampire MLRS.
- We received intelligence information that there was a hangar on the outskirts of Volchansk," the officer recalls. - We assigned three UAVs, which took turns changing each other to catch the installation. In the end we covered it - there was a direct hit on the hangar, detonation of the ammunition.
On Pavel's tunic is the Order of Courage, medals of Suvorov, Zhukov and "For Combat Distinctions".
- We destroyed a lot of things," says the officer. - "Grads - I can't remember how many. There were also Ukrainian new artillery systems - Bogdana, for example. And Western equipment was burned.
The officer's parents and sisters live in the Bryansk region, not far from the Ukrainian border. Pavel has a wife and a son.
- I have a reliable rear," the officer said. - My son is 15 years old. I give him the right to choose his own destiny. But, seeing his hobbies, I think he will follow in my footsteps.
"We took the settlement without losses."
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Koveshnikov has been in the SVO from the very beginning. First he was chief of staff of a self-propelled division, and in 2022 he became its commander. Prior to his service, he graduated from a civilian university and was a historian by training.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Koveshnikov
- History helps to understand what will happen next," says the officer.
After college, Alexander went to serve under contract, graduated from the junior lieutenant course. During a special operation he was awarded two Orders of Courage.
- We worked in one of the directions in the Luhansk region, - he says. - The task was to suppress the enemy's pillboxes so that our units could enter and liberate the settlement. During the artillery preparation I was adjusting myself. Then we covered the advancing troops with fire - we hit the newly identified targets, we opened more than one stronghold. As a result, we managed to take the settlement without casualties among the personnel. For this I received one of the orders.
Alexander was awarded the medal "For bravery" for the liberation of the Syrian Palmyra.
Alexander has a wife and a son.
- My son is going to follow in my footsteps, we are purposefully preparing to enter a military university - the Mikhailovsky Military Artillery Academy, - says the officer.
On February 24, Alexander will go to the front, to carry out combat missions.
I want to congratulate all servicemen and men on the coming Defender of the Fatherland Day. To wish all good, kind, peaceful sky above our heads, that everything will be over as soon as possible and everyone will come home. Alive, healthy, to their families and children.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
