They are five soldiers in the armored car as they attack the Russians. Only four of them will make it out alive. No one knows that things will soon go very wrong. – Oh God! It is November 8 in the small village of Ternovi Pody, just under three miles from Kherson, in southern Ukraine. The offensive to retake the city from the Russians is underway. Paul Smith is one of the five in the car. He sits in the machine gun turret of the armored Humvee. He has one goal, he tells news via webcam: To keep the enemy at bay, so that the Ukrainian ground soldiers can get in to recapture the village and the trenches behind it. He films everything with a helmet camera. The video is intense. They drive in a circle past the village, keep moving and shoot. At one point the car hits a wire. Smith gets it in the head and screams. – Aaaaah! He thinks he’s been shot. He ducks down, keeps shooting. – Oh God! You hear the sound of them being shot at. Some shattered houses pass by. This is the front and it is war. Then everything explodes. Near-death experiences This is not the first time Paul Smith has been in danger. The 36-year-old Afghanistan veteran came to Ukraine in March. Paul Smith in the machine gun turret of his Humvee. The picture was taken in October. Photo: Paul Smith For several years, the American has had a close personal relationship with Ukraine. He has been there a lot and many of his friends live there. – I promised that I would come back and defend Ukraine if war broke out, he said when news spoke to him in September. Since he enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, things have gone wrong several times. As when his team attacked a Russian position on 8 September and he ran out of ammunition fifty meters from the enemy. He barely had time to reload. As he was ready to fire again, he saw a soldier with an anti-tank weapon coming towards them. Smith fired and the anti-tank weapon went airborne. Had the enemy managed to aim and shoot at them, things could have gone much worse. As it did on November 8. In the exact same village. Exactly two months later. Where is fifth man? A drone films the attack. In the front car, Smith sits in the turret. There is a violent explosion. Seen from the outside, it is difficult to imagine that anyone inside the car could survive. It’s total chaos in there. Paul Smith is knocked over, off the tower, into the car. He manages to pull himself together before one of the other soldiers reaches in and pulls him out. He is hit by steel fragments in his legs. He has a cut on his head. But he can walk, and he can fight on. There are one, two, three, four of them out there. Where is fifth man? – We had a fifth man who was not with us. We knew he was on the other side of the Humvee. Smith says that they seek cover behind the remains of the armored car and discuss what to do to save the fellow soldier who is on the opposite side of the car. The side facing the enemy. The four soldiers discuss how to get to the system man who is on the other side of the car – in the enemy’s line of fire. Photo: Screenshot They have tried to reach him through the car wreck, without success. It’s too dangerous. They decide that three of them will provide covering fire while the fourth man will try to get to the injured soldier. – We start shooting, and he tries to get around the Humvee, but can’t. There are only three of us shooting, while there are more than three Russians shooting at us. We cannot neutralize everyone, says Paul Smith. It doesn’t work. They try to call out to their fellow soldier without getting an answer. – We didn’t see him move. We thought he had been killed in the explosion, says Smith. Only when they got home and saw the drone footage did they see that he was alive after the explosion. In the video published on social media, and probably originating from the Russians, the soldier lies on the opposite side of the car and waves his arms. But they do not know this, as they decide to evacuate and throw themselves into the other armored car that has arrived. The drama could have ended here, but after one kilometer, while they are still in the war zone, that car also breaks down. They are shelled by artillery and tanks. The soldiers must move on on foot. A drone flies above them. They don’t know who is flying it. Ukrainian flags in Kherson This is the reality on the ground in Ukraine. Dangerous and dramatic. The fighting on November 8 was part of the Ukrainians’ recapture of Kherson from the Russians. On November 9, Russia’s defense minister ordered a withdrawal from the area. Children celebrate the Russian withdrawal from Kherson. The picture was taken on 13 November. Photo: VALENTYN OGIRENKO / Reuters Two days after that, the Ukrainian flag flew again in Kherson for the first time since March. It was an important victory in a tough war. – Everything is a video game Back on the ground on November 8, Paul Smith looks up into the air. – Drone! he shouts. – Right above us! Smith and the other soldiers, now on foot, pick up speed. They are not sure whose drone it is that has been following them. But they know it might be Russian, and they know it might be equipped with a grenade. Then he sees it: – Bomb! The helmet camera is still filming as Smith runs away from the drone. It explodes behind him. One of the fellow soldiers is left after the impact, a German Afghanistan veteran called “Kaiser”. He is bleeding from the leg and from the head. – Don’t worry, man, reassures Smith as he prepares a tourniquet. He tightens and “Kaiser” screams. – Damn it, it hurts. Smith does what he can to stop the bleeding. “Kaiser” has a cut in the head. While all this is happening, the camera captures the conversation between them. – This was like in a damn video game, man, says “Kaiser”. – Everything is a video game, replies Smith. As Smith bandages his fellow soldier’s head, the wounded man continues to talk about video games and how everything reminds him of scenes from the popular war game Call Of Duty. – Everything goes well, and then they run over a grenade, he says, before he gets down to it: – I’m sorry, this is not an appropriate topic to talk about now. Paul Smith replies, as he finishes: – That’s perfectly fine, just keep talking to me. “Kaiser” is badly injured, but he survives. 6 months of war They finally get out of the combat zone. And after a quick check-up at the hospital, Paul Smith is back home. He takes a picture of himself as he enters the door. Paul Smith, 8 November 2022. He got his head cut when the car hit the mine. Photo: Paul Smith In social media, he calls himself “Nucking_Futs_Yuri” – if you switch the N and the F, you get a roast crazy Yuri. His Instagram and Youtube profile has gained a large following after he started sharing dramatic war moments. The photo he takes on this November day, he puts together with another photo he took in May and publishes it on Instagram. 6 months of war have changed him. Not just physically. The look is completely different. Screenshot from Instagram, 25/11/2022 at 11.30 am. Photo: Paul Smith/nucking_futs_yuri / Instagram He says himself he is ok, but he is not unaffected by everything that has happened. He has just come dangerously close to being killed twice in fifteen minutes. – I expected that at one point or another we would hit a mine. There are so many of them in this country. But when it happened it was unreal. It doesn’t feel like it happened to me. It just feels weird. Seeing the drone video of the mine explosion on social media, and discovering that the fellow soldier was alive when they left him, was also difficult. – As it dawned on us that he was alive and that we had abandoned him, I felt bad. He was found dead a couple of days later. – Ready to fight Smith hasn’t been back in battle since they ran over the mine, but he’s not done fighting. – I have sent a message to the boss and said that I am physically and mentally fine. If they can get me a new Humvee, I’m more than ready to go out and fight. – How long will you be in Ukraine? – Until it’s over.
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Here, the Ukrainian force runs over a Russian mine – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
