Mykhaylo and Mykola, two Ukrainian soldiers, have made their share of dangerous trips to Chasiv Yar.
For over a year, Russian and Ukrainian forces have been battling for control of the strategically important hilltop city in the Donetsk region. Whole neighborhoods have been leveled in the fighting.
The two servicemen are among the drivers charged with carrying wounded forces to safety away from the front lines.
“We had the goal of going in, transporting some men there and picking up others, and doing it as fast as we could,” Mykhaylo told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service.
Speed was critical if they were to evade the Russian drones circling above the roads leading out of the city.
But on one recent mission, with wounded men already on board, their armored vehicle took two direct drone hits.
Aerial video shared by the Ukrainian military showed the moment of the strike and the armored vehicle speeding away trailing plumes of smoke.
“Everything was burning,” Mykhaylo said. “The medicine [in the vehicle] caught fire. It started exploding because it was near the ammunition.”
They needed to get the wounded men to safety. “We couldn’t get them out [at first] because our ammunition blew up,” Mykola said.
“The guys somehow got out on their own,” Mykhaylo added. That gave them time to douse the ammunition with water and call for back-up from a military ambulance.
Then they were able to calm their own frayed nerves. “We moved away for a while, sat down, rested. We thought. We smoked. That’s how it goes,” Mykola said.
The narrow escape left them rattled, but it was also part of what had become a routine for the servicemen during years of war. On some nights, they said, they made as many as four trips into Chasiv Yar.
Those missions were critically important for the soldiers they transported to safety, although the two men said they were not keeping track.
“Did you count how many lives you've saved on these trips?” RFE/RL correspondent Yevhenia Kytaiva-Rusetska asked.
“No. We didn’t count.” Mykhaylo said. “We've transported a lot of people.”
