Hell on Earth. Bakhmut and Soledar
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Victor. I work for an American product company. But last weekend, Vitaliy and I were doing chaplain work in East Ukraine. We went through Hell on Earth — Bakhmut, and Soledar.
As always, this article only presents my perspective on events. I had my GoPro with me, so you will see a significant portion of what we’ve seen.
I planned to visit the guys from the 30th Mechanized Brigade and support the work of another of my comrades, Sergiy, who moved to the east from Kyiv suburbs to rescue and feed people.
I will split this article into three parts:
- Military aid
- Bakhmut and Soledar
- Mission Impossible: Return Home
Also, this article will often discuss faith and how anything is possible for a believer because some things that happened to us were simply miraculous.
Military Aid
With Volodymyr Rozhkov and his channel’s subscribers, we raised 87 000 hryvnias (~$2379) instead of the initially requested 50 000 (~$1367) for an anti-tank division.
We spent about 33 000 ($~902) on the division itself to deliver and equip an armory container and tactical boots for a woman who is a military volunteer.
We decided to spend the rest of the money to fulfill different needs. For 23 000 (~$628) we bought a device similar to an EcoFlow. Also, one of Volodymyr’s subscribers donated a laptop, for which I’m very thankful. We another 11 000 (~$300) we spent on things required to fight even more effectively. The rest was spent on fuel and food for chaplains that went to the 66th Brigade.
Our journey started at 5:30 AM on November 7th, 2022. We took a chaplain bus, loaded it with 50 weekly food rations for civilians from UTG Group and Samaritan’s Purse, and everything the soldiers needed, and drove east.
The day before, I lost my wife’s M2 MacBook and some other things in a burger restaurant. So I’d barely slept, wandering around my residential area after curfew, tracking it on Find My. After returning home empty-handed, I promised God that if it were returned, I’d start doing something. I won’t tell you what exactly I promised to do. The laptop was returned in the end, but I was already on the road.
Around 11 in the morning, we reached liberated Izyum. Along the highway, the city was razed to the ground. There was a lot of ruination. Izyum suburbs were wiped off the face of the earth. It is no longer possible to live there. They can be compared to Moshchun in Kyiv Oblast’ or Makarivs’kyi district. Nowhere have I seen so many burned russian vehicles. There were entire forest strips filled up with their scrap. Have you ever seen a WWI movie? That’s what some areas of the forest along the Izyum-Slovyansk highway look like.
On our way to Slovyansk, we started having trouble with the transmission on our VW T5, so we drove on and prayed for it not to break down.
We stopped in Kramatorsk for the night. The protestant church “Dobra Novyna” took us in. With just their efforts, they are giving out 800 food packages per week.
On Monday morning, we headed toward Konstiantynivka, where my guys from the 30th Brigade were stationed.
They were late for our meeting, so we had the opportunity to witness an artillery cannonade. I saw “Hrad” missiles land in the fields and heard M777 howitzers and 120mm mortars work. It was scary at first, but eventually, we got used to it.
It was a little shameful that we wore helmets and bulletproof vests while the soldiers we met wore simple clothing. We also happened to meet the commanding officer of the 30th Motor Brigade, who dropped by to take care of his guys.
In the next picture, you can see Ahmet. He has been a professional soldier for many years and is the commander of a military vehicle.
After meeting the guys, we met Sergiy and headed out toward Bakhmut.
Path to Bakhmut
8 years ago, I spent four months under occupation in Luhansk, and I stayed in Kyiv instead of fleeing the war, but I have never seen such massive shellings. It’s impossible to say where a shell comes from and where it lands. Right now, Bakhmut is actually Hell on Earth.
I wouldn’t have gone there without Sergiy. We found a few groups of civilians near Bakhmut’s gray area and gave them food, water, etc. Those people don’t leave their basements and make campfires in their yards to cook food. You can see that in detail in the footage from my GoPro.
Once, I asked Sergiy why he did this. He said he’s not ready to kill yet, but he’s ready to lay down his life to rescue people. He’s been doing this since the spring of 2022. By his approximate estimates, he has evacuated around one thousand people from east Ukraine since then.
The question of why people refuse to flee to a safe place remains open. Some of them are waiting for the russians to liberate them, and some patriots believe that the AFU won’t let the occupiers capture the city. Some hold on to their dwellings, scared of change. Older people, especially.
After Bakhmut, we went to Soledar, also razed to the ground, but it’s easier to be there than in Bakhmut. In Soledar, we gave away all the food we had left and evacuated a young man and his dog. On our way back, we gave the soldiers all that we purchased for them specifically. Passing by a tank full of warriors, we passed them a gift from you, our community.
Having returned to Slovyansk, we said goodbye to Sergiy and headed toward Kyiv. In Izyum, we stopped in a ruined neighborhood to feed stray cats.
Return Home
After leaving Izium, we started having trouble with our van. The fifth gear broke completely, and the gearbox started making weird sounds. We decided to leave the vehicle in Kharkiv and take a train to Kyiv. We needed to be back home that night because Vitaliy had very important things to move on to. Eventually, the sounds from the gearbox stopped, and we arrived in Kharkiv three minutes late for the intercity train. In addition, we had to gather our things and give the keys to the van to another person, so we drove as fast as we could, often ignoring traffic lights. It was dark outside, and a T5 is bigger than the average passenger vehicle, so I had to be very careful, especially since I don’t know Kharkiv well. I didn’t believe that we’d be there on time.
We arrived at Kharkiv’s train station two minutes before the train’s departure. With our backpacks, helmets, and vests in our hands, we rushed up the station’s stairs listening to the announcement: “Attention! The Kharkiv-Kyiv Intercity+ train is departing from platform one.” Thinking on your feet always comes in handy in non-trivial situations. While I raced the streets of Kharkiv, Vitaliy gathered our things into our backpacks. I arranged for the person waiting for us to collect the keys to the bus right in front of the main entrance to the train station because I understood that we won’t have time to look for him.
We dashed into the hall and right into the luggage check post and the Intercity+ train’s closed doors. Having thrown our things onto the scanner, we waited for them on the other side. Each second felt like a minute. After receiving our luggage, we ran to the platform. The doors opened before us, but my backpack was left behind on the conveyor belt, and Vitaliy ran back to get it while a security guard was already running toward him with my backpack in hand.
The doors closed with me inside the train and my comrade on the platform with my things. I told the conductor that we were not going anywhere without him. I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he opened the doors. Vitaliy boarded the train, and we headed home. We only made it thanks to him because he believed in it, and I helped his faith become a reality with my actions. We call it “the hand of God.” If I’d taken 30 extra seconds at an intersection, the train would have left without us. That was a justified risk because Vitaliy happily got home, collected his things, and went back east the next day, but this time with different goals and tasks.
Inside the train, my pulse was around 100, while in Bakhmut, it was almost 130. Just imagine the action there if the train situation was easier for my body to deal with. I heard somewhere and always like repeating that “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the action in the face of fear.”
Faith in Victory
We will definitely win. But it comes at a very high price. In cities that have suffered from the occupiers’ attacks on our infrastructure, we are getting used to blackouts, lack of running water, and other conveniences. We buy EcoFlows, uninterruptible power supplies, generators, and AGMs. But we have a much lower chance of dying than in Bakhmut or Soledar.
I’ve supported some soldiers since March, and I can see how the war changes them. They will be back, and most of them will suffer from PTSD. The state mustn’t abandon them and supply them with everything they need for a normal peaceful life.
I wholeheartedly believe that soon every company in the civilized world will want to have among their employees “Davids” who defeated the “goliath,” whose unbroken spirits are living examples of dedication to their values and freedom.
Below is my series of articles about the war and my time in captivity:
- Article on my time in captivity in 2014
- Article on evacuation. From February 23, 2022
- Article on Assisting the Azov Regiment and my thoughts on what we should expect shortly
- And around 5–7 more articles.
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