After the fierce battles taking place between the Ukrainian army and the occupying Russian forces in Kherson, Ukrainian soldiers who participated in the attack said that they are advancing towards the area and regaining control of the territory.
The Ukrainians who spoke to the newspaper said,The Wall Street Journal“The Russian soldiers seemed well-equipped and resisted fiercely.
A 22-year-old Ukrainian soldier said the Russians were fighting with artillery, tanks, helicopters and mortars. “They are throwing everything against us,” he said.
“They have a lot of equipment, but very few men,” he added.
Ivan, a 32-year-old soldier, said the offensive started well for his unit, which captured a village from the Russians during the early hours of the fighting that began Monday.
But on the same day, Monday, he ended up in hospital with a concussion after one of his colleagues fired a rocket launcher a few steps away from where he was standing.
Soldiers and medics at a hospital in southern Ukraine agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
On Monday, Ukrainian forces launched a counterattack on Russian forces in the south to regain control of the city of Kherson. A local official said it was “the beginning of the end of the occupation” of the area, according to Agence France-Presse.
All kinds of injuries
Since the beginning of the invasion, Russian forces have taken control of the city of Kherson (280 thousand people) on the banks of the Dnieper River. It is an essential region for Russian agriculture, and is strategically located alongside the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in March 2014.
Some Russian troops are fleeing their positions and abandoning equipment, Ivan said. The Ukrainian soldier showed footage he said was sent to him by comrades on the front line, showing dead Russian soldiers on the outskirts of a village he said Ukrainian forces captured on Tuesday.
Buffalo, a 22-year-old soldier who suffered a concussion in battle, said Tuesday that he heard a sound like a broken TV in his head. He continued, “We advance in some areas and are beaten in others.”
Ukrainian officials and military analysts said that, even if the attack survived, Ukrainian casualties could be high; Because they attack a heavily armed enemy with great firepower that can quickly eliminate the troops.
In the intensive care unit, six soldiers lie in a coma after being badly injured during the counterattack. One of the soldiers was seriously wounded in the chest and another was holding a Russian bullet that was fired at him while he was lying on the ground.
The doctor in charge of the intensive care unit said he spends some nights on a small sofa in his office after more than half of his staff stopped coming to work after a Russian missile attack on the hospital in August.
He said he felt on the verge of collapse because he was dealing with more soldiers than he had ever since the early weeks of the war.
Faced with this influx, doctors struggle to save the lives of those in critical condition before sending them to better equipped hospitals once they are stable.
The doctor said that the intensive care unit received, on Monday, a 27-year-old soldier with a broken leg, concussion, lung rupture, liver, stomach, colon and intestine rupture. “Head, chest, limbs, stomach, concussion, they come with all kinds of injuries,” he added.
“When they started bringing in so many wounded people, I honestly felt sorry for them and started wondering if this was worth doing at such a cost. There is no right answer here.”