“Ammunition, ammunition!”, Paul Smith shouts from the machine-gun tower down to his fellow soldiers in the armored car. In the voice you hear that it is serious. Because the enemy is shooting at them. The Russians are only 50 meters away from the Ukrainian force of which the American Paul Smith is a part. There is an imminent danger that they are preparing weapons that could destroy the car Smith is sitting in and everyone on board. And he’s out of ammo. Fast and brutal At the beginning of September came an important turning point in the war. The Russians were pushed further and further out of the areas they had occupied. The Ukrainians advanced violently. It was fast and it was brutal. Since then, Ukrainian forces have won back several thousand square kilometers of occupied land. Lieutenant-Colonel Palle Ydstebø is the head teacher for the land force section at the Norwegian Military Academy and follows the situation closely. He has seen Smith’s video posted on YouTube. He believes such quick attacks as Paul Smith was part of this morning on September 8 have been very important to Ukraine’s progress on the ground. – They clear away enemy security forces and outposts so that the main force can penetrate the enemy’s main forces and attack them, he says to news. We take what happened on September 8 from the beginning. The assignment It is sunrise as Paul Smith turns on the helmet camera. Paul Smith left the US for Ukraine to fight in March. He is an Afghanistan veteran from the US military. Photo: Paul Smith He sits in the machine gun turret in an armored car. Several cars of the same type race across an open field. On the other side is a cluster of houses. Smith has intelligence that there is an APC inside the village. In addition, there is a danger that the Russian forces have hand-held anti-tank weapons. It’s risky for Smith and his fellow soldiers. He compares his ammunition (right) with the ammunition he fears the Russians might attack them with. Photo: Paul Smith Although they are in an armored Humvee, it is not strong enough to protect them from anti-tank weapons. That is why it is so important that they manage to take the enemy before they have time to resist. Smith takes a firm grip on both handles of the powerful weapon. Each shot is the size of a cigar. He has one job. To keep the Russians at bay until they reach the houses. The mission is to destroy the storm armored vehicle that has been observed inside the village. He pulls off. Paul Smith has called out what are supposed to be traces of the Russians’ armored car. The photo was taken with the troop’s drone ahead of the attack. Photo: Paul Smith It fires back Smith concentrates first on one house. He gets control of it and then he discovers that shots are being fired from one of the neighboring houses. – You can see flashes of light from the windows, says Smith, or “Nucking Futs Yuri” as he calls himself on social media. If you swap the N and the F, you get a crazy crazy Yuri. He shifts his focus and starts shooting. The weapon he uses, a Browning M2 machine gun, can fire between 400 and 600 rounds per minute. It doesn’t take long before the last bullet is out of the chamber. With nothing to shoot with, Smith is effectively defenseless in the armored car. The enemy is now only 50 meters away. – Ammunition, ammunition! he shouts down to the others in the car. The drama comes out clearly in the video from the incident: The fellow soldiers launch a close-in anti-tank missile. A bazooka, if we’re talking cartoon language. A long thick tube with a rocket inside. He fires and hits one of the houses. Shooting is still going on. He must have ammunition for the machine gun. – Ammunition, ammunition! he screams again. – I need .50 caliber ammunition! They send up another bazooka. They probably think he’s seen the APC. You can hear shots hitting the car. One hits the passenger window of the car. A white rose on the square, but the bullet does not go through. Several shots hit the tower he is sitting in. – We are being shot at! he shouts. He fires the other one, before ducking down again. He finally gets hold of ammunition for the machine gun. – I am frustrated when I recharge, he says. – Mostly because I get shot at. This is probably the closest I’ve been to the enemy in battle. It is cramped in the tower. The adrenaline is pumping. Every second that passes gives the enemy time to react. Smith has not yet seen any anti-tank weapons. That’s not to say the Russians don’t have it. He fiddles with the ammunition a bit before loading the machine gun. Then he is ready to fire back. Loves Ukraine The 36-year-old Afghanistan veteran from California in the USA has had a close personal relationship with Ukraine for several years. He has been there a lot and many of his friends live there. In 2015–2016, he fought with the Ukrainians in the Donbas area. – I promised that I would come back and defend Ukraine if war broke out, he says via webcam from the front. At the start of the war, almost 20,000 men and women from 52 countries applied to come to Ukraine to fight, according to Ukrainian authorities. Smith was one of them. Now he sits in the machine-gun turret on the armored car every day. Photo: Paul Smith Near-death experience The shots hit the car Smith is sitting in. He has reloaded and with the help of a crank he spins the machine gun turret into position. He aims the weapon. It doesn’t take many seconds, but if you watch the video and immerse yourself in what Smith is in the middle of, it feels like it takes forever. He is ready just in time to see a Russian soldier round the corner of the house. As Smith fires at him, he realizes that they have been very lucky. It goes incredibly fast. But when you slow down the video, you can see it: The soldier had a close-in armor weapon that could have destroyed them. Instead of hitting, it went airborne. – This is one of the times I have come closest to being killed, he says. Mission accomplished As they drive out of the village, all soldiers and vehicles are safe and sound. They did not find the armored personnel carrier that had been observed in the village, but Smith still believes that the attack has been successful. Paul Smith inside the car after the attack. The damage to the armored car is evident in the photos he shared on Instagram the next day. Photo: Instagram/nucking_futs_yuri Bullet holes from Russian weapons. Photo: Instagram/nucking_futs_yuri A bullet hit the window. It didn’t go through. Photo: Instagram/nucking_futs_yuri The vehicle was armored. Those sitting inside were protected from the Russian shots. Photo: Instagram/nucking_futs_yuri Bullet holes on the armored car. Photo: Instagram/nucking_futs_yuri – We inflicted a heavy defeat on the Russians, he says. He does not know how many Russian soldiers they killed or injured this Thursday, but based on the videos of the attack, he assumes there are more. The Washington Post has verified the video and geolocated the fighting to the village of Ternovi Pody, located between Kherson and Mykolajiv in southern Ukraine. He says that the Russians escaped from the village that day, but that they returned a couple of days later. Then they repeated the attack. – Important job Lieutenant-Colonel Palle Ydstebø at the Norwegian Military Academy follows the situation in Ukraine closely. Photo: Mathias Moene Rød / news Lieutenant Colonel Palle Ydstebø at the Military School says that the job that Paul Smith and the others in his squad do is called “clarification with violence”. – This is about trying to keep up to date on where the enemy is and get an overview of an unclear and sometimes chaotic picture, he says to news. He also says that these forces, of which Paul Smith is a part, are used to lure out enemies who are in hiding. – They take a risk and drive into an area where they suspect the enemy is, to get them to shoot at them. It’s deadly, but it’s the way to do it. When the enemy defends themselves, they reveal their position and make themselves targets for attack. – What we are seeing is part of a larger attack. You have to find out where the enemy is and how strong he is, says Ydstebø. The future news has kept in touch with Paul Smith in the weeks following the attack. He tells about new missions and that they are being shot at with artillery. A video he sends us from the front is titled: “A funny little video … artillery falling all around us.” In the video, they drive over a bump in the road while the Russians bomb nearby. One of his fellow soldiers drops his rifle out of the car. They have to stop and back up to retrieve it. Despite the seriousness of the situation, they laugh. – People who have never seen a fight don’t understand that if we have nothing to laugh about, then the dark thoughts come, says Smith. All this is happening, while Putin has started the mobilization of large forces that are heading towards them. Smith does not seem significantly concerned about this. He believes it will take time before they arrive. They must receive equipment, be transported to the front and, not least, receive training. – You can’t just give a gun to a hundred thousand people and tell them: “Run in that direction and shoot at everything you see.” They are going to be killed. – What do you think the future holds? – I have been to Crimea once. I have been to Donetsk, Luhansk. I have been to all the capitals of all the oblasts of Ukraine. I have seen these cities in peacetime, without bombing and destruction. I really hope that Russia understands that Ukraine has its own identity and its own people. They do not want to be part of Russia, he says.
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Running out of ammunition 50 meters away from the enemy – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
