CNN –
Ukrainian soldier Serhii sits on his hospital bed in a public clinic in central Ukraine. There are small splinters in his legs that the doctors cannot recover. Despite the pain, he says he feels good.
“I can’t believe I’m in the hospital now and not in the trenches. “I didn’t think I would survive,” says the 36-year-old.
Serhii is an infantryman with the 80th Galician Air Assault Brigade. He joined the army shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and left Finland, where he had lived and worked as a craftsman for the past decade, to enlist. As a nod to his past, he was given the call sign “Fin”.
A month ago, on October 27th, he and his unit were assigned to hold the trenches on the Eastern Front on the outskirts of Bakhmut. This mission was supposed to last three days, but lasted two weeks after the unit was pinned down by enemy fire. For some of the men, it would be the last mission they ever saw.
The unit had been under constant fire for several days when a mortar exploded near the dugout where Serhii and two other men were located, cutting off the group just as it was about to change position.
“We were all wounded. I was injured on both legs and immediately touched them to check if they were still there,” recalls Serhii.
Courtesy of Serhii
Serhii, who had worked as a craftsman for ten years, became an infantryman in the 80th Galician Air Assault Brigade.
The other two soldiers had broken legs and jaw. One of them was so shocked that he asked to kill himself, whereupon the others took the gun away from him. When the evacuation team arrived, Serhii insisted that they grab the other men first and that he would wait for the next opportunity.
But that opportunity never came. Whenever other units arrived, they were pinned down by the constant Russian bombardment and were unable to reach Serhii.
Several evacuation teams would attempt to reach Serhii over the next two weeks, but none could get through and some died in the attempt.
“We were under constant enemy fire. The enemy seemed to be looking for our weaknesses or testing our endurance,” he recalled.
While Serhii was locked in his trench, his commander used a drone to bring him essentials such as water, painkillers, candy bars and even cigarettes.
“Water was a big problem because, firstly, the drone couldn’t hold large water bottles. So the drone dropped small bottles wrapped in paper and tape, but not every bottle survived (the fall) and they often broke. Water leaked out. I appreciated every sip of water,” Serhii said.
At the same time, Russian drones were targeting the shelter with even more sinister loads. One of them dropped a grenade right next to Serhii, who by that time had been joined by another Ukrainian soldier who had been cut off.
“It exploded near the other soldier’s back and half a meter away from me, near my feet. We were wounded but lucky to survive. Only one seriously injured soldier could be evacuated. At that moment I realized I was alone.”
Courtesy of Serhii
Serhii lived in Finland for 10 years and was given the call sign “Fin”.
For the next three days, Serhii hid in his shelter, surrounded by the enemy. With each passing hour, Russian troops were getting closer and closer to his position. He could hear their voices and knew their plan.
Believing he would not survive, Serhii contacted his commander via radio and whispered to him the enemy’s coordinates – essentially calling for artillery strikes on his own position.
Thanks to Serhii, Ukrainian artillery carried out several targeted attacks, but other Russian soldiers continued to take up positions around him.
“I was surrounded by enemies,” Serhii explained. “When they couldn’t hear me, I whispered the coordinates again over the radio and our artillery fired at them.”
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. The Russian soldier didn’t give him water, but crawled out of the trench, apparently not yet suspecting that Serhii was Ukrainian.
“I still can’t understand why he didn’t know I was from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. I was wearing a Ukrainian uniform. My pants were made of pixels. Yes, they were dirty. But it was obvious that the boots were Ukrainian,” Serhii recalled.
After all efforts to evacuate Serhii were exhausted, his commander finally told him the only way out was to crawl and pray.
“I had to crawl through the dugout where the Russians were. While on my knees, holding the radio in my left hand, I began to crawl. I came across a tripwire with a grenade on it. I could hear the commander correcting me over the radio, but couldn’t reach him myself. The battery was almost empty. The commander yelled at me to move. When I finally got to the Ukrainian positions, they kept telling me, ‘Fin, keep moving’.”
CNN
Serhii, 36, during an interview with CNN.
Serhii has been recovering for more than two weeks now. As he sat in the warm infirmary, he remembers licking rainwater from his ditch and dreaming about each sip.
Serhii tells CNN his story and sees nothing heroic in his actions.
“You should see what our guys are doing on the front lines. How they fight, evacuate and rescue their boys. Our boys are paying a very high price. They pay with their blood. I just want to go fishing with my boys, drink a few beers and sit in silence.”