The international delegation, headed by Ana Lucía Bueno, ICRC Public Health Coordinator, and Sujit Panda, Head of the Physical Rehabilitation…
A soldier of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Lviv Brigade named after Ivan Vyhovskyi, Roman with the callsign “Traktoryst”, shared his experience of frontline combat.
The interview with him was published on the brigade’s channel.
In civilian life, Roman worked as a tractor-excavator operator. His nickname stuck immediately — “Traktoryst”. After training, he was deployed to the frontline in the Kharkiv region, in the Vovchansk direction, as part of a Combined Rifle Brigade of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
96 days on the zero line
Bunkers, trenches, mud, and the enemy. The guys held the defense.
“The machine gun almost never stopped because the enemy kept coming. Russians acted in small groups.
Anyone who has been at zero doesn’t want to remember it. I’m going back there tomorrow. And how it will be — no one knows”, — Roman said.
He and his comrades held their position for 96 days. He recalls how valuable calls home were:
“Twenty meters to get Starlink signal to call my wife — and 20 drones above my head. You had to wait it out. And on the other side, when there’s no contact — that’s anxiet”, — he says.
Prisoner convicts
On the zero line, they not only held the defense — Roman’s comrades captured Russians.
“We captured convicts. They themselves said they had been released from prison. I personally escorted three Russians to the checkpoint so they could later be exchanged. We captured former inmates from the Republic of Karelia. Among them were sergeants and soldiers. They all said they wanted to earn a lot of money”, — Roman recalls.
Tea instead of cigarettes
Roman’s bunker had a well — there was always water.
“We had our own water and made tea. And over the radio we asked to bring water to our brothers. They carried it halfway, and the adjacent unit would run to pick it up — all under enemy drone observation. Because you want to drink.
And while they delivered supplies, we waited. Rations were usually brought to safer spots, and we walked the rest on foot. Once they were bringing me a package from my wife on a quad bike — and then a drone strike. They said: your package burned together with the quad. I asked: are the guys alive? Yes. Well, that’s what matters”, — Roman says.
The “fridge”
The “fridge” is what Roman calls the sleeping place.
“We had only one stove in one spot so as not to give away the position. And otherwise you crawled into the bunker onto a shelf, in full gear, on a mat, covered yourself with a sleeping bag — and were happy just to catch some sleep”, — he admits.
There was a case at a neighboring position when Russians approached it.
“They surrounded it, and we understood it was the end. We heard on the radio how they entered and captured our guys. Then neighboring units developed a rescue plan. There was a battle — and eventually our guys were saved, and the Russians were captured”, — Roman said.
