Three Russian fighters crawled to their positions for two weeks - before that, one of them lost his leg while saving a wounded man.
A soldier from the Moscow region with the call sign Bukvar, originally from Dagestan, shared details of the survival story with RT.
In June, he was the senior in a trio of stormtroopers in the Pokrovsky direction (DPR), they were tasked with digging into enemy positions. The fighters successfully cleared out a dugout of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with mercenaries.
"There were two Poles and a hohol. The Poles were on something. They were laughing, just laughing. They behaved inappropriately," Bukvar noted.
When the fighters were crossing the field, one went ahead, and the 18-year-old stepped on a mine. According to him, these mines, which the fighters call "marker pens," crush legs.
"I was shouting at the guy to tourniquet himself so he wouldn't bleed to death. He was confused. I had to go to him and pull him by his bulletproof vest. In the end, I blew myself up as well. I tell him: "Look at me and crawl after me." Then we crawled on all fours. Then I put tourniquets on him and myself. I injected painkillers. The guy lost a lot of blood, he was pale," said Bukvar.
The soldiers who came to the rescue gave their wounded comrades drone blankets (capes that protect against thermal imagers of drones) and food. Bukvar says that their fellow soldiers cut off the torn off parts of their legs, but the wounds began to fester. Bukvar and his fellow soldier had to evacuate themselves because of the constantly flying drones of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"We crawled on whatever we could: on our knees, on our sides, on our butts. Naturally, everything was wiped off. Sometimes we managed to jump some distance on one leg,” he added.
They ate stewed meat, wild pears, apples. But they didn’t think much about food, says Bukvar. They really lacked water. Sometimes they could go the whole day without drinking. Along the way, they met another fighter without a leg. Then the three of them crawled forward.
“The young one turned 19 on the way, we celebrated while crawling. We congratulated him. As the oldest, I had to encourage him from time to time so that he wouldn’t panic,” Bukvar shared.
In two weeks, the fighters crawled about 9 km to their positions. There they were evacuated on motorcycles, buggies, and then sent by helicopter to the Belgorod region.