93: the Battle for Ukraine - first days of the war - [the story of the 93rd Brigade Kholodny Yar]

[Music] [Music] on january 22nd 2014 the transition to the state of martial law began at that time we had no idea at all where it would be applied whether in crimea or in donetsk or in obelisk we were only roughly informed the disguised members of the russian military were spotted in donetsk and luhansk oblasts [Music] [Music] little green men did many of us change our understandings it became clear to everyone that our good neighbor in the east had simply become an aggressor who through lies and deception had maneuvered ukraine into a very vulnerable position and was now taking advantage of the situation when we were completely combat ready i already knew that my battalion would be the first to the front because it was the most equipped and well maintained in the brigade and it had done more combat training than others [Music] we had already received orders to carry out combat missions we started loading live ammunition into our vehicles that's when we realized that something was wrong we deployed armored and equipped with assault rifles ammunition body armor and everything else it had never happened before setting off where were we going nobody knew only when we were halfway did they begin informing us [Music] so our battalion was the first battalion in the brigade to march to the nest and then [Music] when you go there for the first time you have no idea where you're going you just don't understand well what is it what what is war [Music] when we are stationed in san they were blocking the railroad tracks with metal scrap jumping in front of the trains moving vehicles the village chairman approached us and said in six hours you will be set on fire here you should withdrawal because i cannot hold them any longer our boys were blocking the platform the locals did not even let them move their vehicles from the platform no food no water so we stacked the car with supplies and made it through honestly i don't even know what it was well for me they look all the same because well who gave a damn at the time who knew back then what the 93rd brigade was there were guys who were at most 16 17. i realized that they did not know what they were doing all illusions were gone by then all orders had been issued but so did we have to shoot at our own people we just did not want to do that i can say that nothing was done we got the order and moved out i'm not even in the shadow high school in the northern luxons obliged two of our companies took control of the state border the first company carried out its combat missions near the towns of starobesque the second was operating in districts that government buildings had been seized here and there we already knew that we were prepared for the russian forces to cross the border in our area of operation we were expecting russian aggression because in this time period from march 14th to march 18th a referendum was held over crimea [Applause] we were attacked from the russian side with mortars and then we captured russians disguised as civilians who were scouting positions from orders starting with medicine blankets mattresses they helped with everything they could [Music] [Music] the second and third battalions were deployed to the designated areas of operations and on may 4th 2014. we had already started our combat mission in the anti-terrorist operation area it was the birth of an entire new brigade because at that time they had 300 or 400 people at their home base on march 20th we arrived in tchaikovsky for the first time as we arrived there were issues for example we asked what do you need they replied boots we asked how many they replied five thousand and mattresses five thousand we still had a whole brigade to mobilize we would also need 500 kilograms of bleach we began bringing basics like radios until then the guards used cell phones as they had no walkie-talkies they also needed drones vehicles then socks underwear toothpaste toothbrushes well absolutely everything the first task was to prepare tanks after they had been in storage and to recover all the skills learned as conscripts we were ordered to train so that in case of an attack on our homeland we would be ready to join the military forces in a combative mood in spirit in the beginning everything was complicated there were very few officers who knew anything about military order rules etc lower positions such as company or platoon leader were staffed with reservists although they had military ranks in the reserves of lieutenant or captain they had mostly acquired their degrees in civilian colleges [Music] so they hardly had the proper skills [Music] then sectors were assigned the brigade was transferred to the dynastic area the locals were hostile to us death squads they were continuously obstructing our convoys the third battalion advanced to the area of [Music] at that time our army did not know anything about the tactics of using checkpoints our army then did not know what war was so these problems had to be solved on the spot the defense group from dobapila helped us a lot with the construction of the first checkpoint so much that basically the equipping of this structure was largely their doing there were several threatening situations the battle alarm went off it was suspected that certain terrorist units from drushkika would rally against us however there were no engagements our fire was used exclusively to stop moving vehicles on the day we were taken off from that checkpoint the first barrage of garad was fired towards it [Music] around may 22nd to 23rd active confrontation had begun we moved and deployed our base camp behind the town of crosstalk near karlivka the nadimo patrol road was already cut off [Music] on may 28th the third special forces regiment supported by other ukrainian troops cleared the donetsk airport of separatists we supported them with artillery there was active participation of russian special forces who did not even hide the fact that they were from russia they were russian uniforms with insignias there were a lot of people from the caucus a lot of cars with russian registration plates who drove to the occupied territories we built our checkpoints the separatists did the same [Music] sympathizes behind the separatist lines reported seen people in russian uniforms with identifying insignias quite a lot of prisoners were those who well first of all it was easily noticeable they were foreigners and secondly that they were career [Music] officers the apple trees stood around in full bloom and one soldier came and addressed me o comrade colonel god forbid us to taste the apples from these trees here everybody hoped that we'd be back home by the end of the summer the first checkpoints the first deaths by snipers when there was no ato zone yet an armored infantry vehicle mechanic and a tank driver were killed by a sniper at one of the fifth company's checkpoints at the beginning the first grad multiple rocket launcher was captured in doberpila all the papers all the notebooks of the artillery commander there was his military unit denoted all the medicines were made in russia it was clear this was a russian car we had a case when the company commander a career officer deserted during the battle after that i was appointed as company commander at first it was very difficult only after you have proven yourself in the battle will they look at you differently because then they know who you really are and it's important for yourself to make a decision about who you are either you're a daredevil or not it started in dober pila then across their misc there it was still more or less quietly i'd say the real battle started in the outskirts of donesk at the checkpoint 10 where we had many casualties there for the first time we encountered the enemy tanks which kept firing at us at 4am we left the listening position and went to sleep and at 4 10 it started we hastily managed to grab our guns put on our vests and ran out to return fire the guys who died they are died as heroes they gave us the minute or two to jump out trying to divert the enemies fire at ourselves our checkpoint commander died in the first minutes of battle he jumped on the eye of fee the crew jumped inside and then they were shot by a tank he died [Music] the ifv was burning the boys still managed to take a few shots from it the whole crew of the ifv died we kept the checkpoint under our control but suffered high casualties if it had been my watch i would have been standing there and i would be dead as well therefore naturally i could not retreat without ending the war i can't go away [Music] because they fought for something and when i look into the eyes of his kid and he asks why did my dad die well he fought to free his homeland so did you free our homeland and i will say nope i'm still stumbling around here i can't do that how can i retreat it's [Music] wrong [Music] [Laughter] [Music] in the beginning sloviance was still occupied by the enemy our task was to bait the enemy in the karlivka area during the operation for the liberation of sylviansk so the enemy troops in the area of karlivka could not relocate to reinforced enemy or to lift the encirclement of slovyansk we demonstratively positioned our multiple rocket launcher batteries at that time the enemy had a lot of troops concentrated in the karlivka area and these forces had we not been there could have transferred to slovyansk [Music] later these actions were not beneficial for us because as the enemy forces withdrew from slovyansk they all came here the tank companies and the czech dean battalion deployed near the television and the austrians from the caucus came there the whole unit was waiting for us to attack them from karlivka [Music] a single narrow road through the dam leads to karlivka that meant it was a ready-made kill zone we were informed that the dam was mined which was later confirmed the question of the dam being mined and its explosion arose and if that happened the amount of water from this reservoir would flood even the nearby town of pavlov [Music] the first attack on karlivka failed was then raided by right sector non-boss battalion and dinipro one battalion [Music] therefore to avoid civilian casualties and then our artillery fired on the scouted positions the artillery men in karlivka chased after every rifleman machine gunners were destroyed by motors even with all that karlivka remained largely intact the destruction there was minimal there was a truck on the dam according to our intelligence it was mined it was destroyed by our tank next we marched on relatively calm and confident that there was no one left to the right and to the left of us the enemy troops were already surrounded then together with right sector denim pro one we finally cleared and cleaned up the area [Music] during the advance towards the balcony we sustained casualties engagements mostly without direct contact continued the separatists fled as soon as our tanks or ifv were used against them then there was a period when we just went forward forward forward going going unfortunately it wasn't successful we went through the village of kamisarivka it was difficult there a battle in the evening we were in a crossfire our first battle with real casualties it was difficult to handle this especially for one crew who were on average 23 years old a mechanic a gunner young boys [Music] it was decided to return to the next checkpoint to regroup and in a few days the 25th brigade freed the bol at that time we defended the lane between harurifka and yasin avata to continue the encirclement [Music] at another checkpoint near de balsava i saw a woman standing in the rear looking out for something well i tell my guys let's go get around her and take her she may be pointing artillery at us then i ask what's going on here she replies i've taken my children away and i do not know how to speak ukrainian i say so what are you going to shoot me i say why would we shoot you well because i do not know how to speak ukrainian on it was funny but also so scary this is not the only case they were so brainwashed [Music] we reported by radio that we were going to avdivka we sent out a fake radio message and then went to pski in the evening we received an order to prepare for combat the departure was very early in the morning basically we came with two ifvs and a tank through republica most checkpoint without losses and then sniper fire started from three directions our squad was ambushed our unit apparently hadn't had that kind of combat experience before [Music] so we had casualties dead and wounded part of the unit turned left to the volvo center and the other part went to the right to the blizznitzi we got to the outpost no one there they started pinning us down forcing us into the foliage we withdrew 500 meters back and then they started a mortar attack unfortunately i witnessed the death of our sniper yuri kravchenko [Music] exploded behind him [Music] the hardest thing was not the battle the hardest thing was gathering fallen comrades first of all our wounded and dead were transported away in ifvs there were three checkpoints you were supposed to bomb them then we contacted our commander and he brought us back he was wounded so during the assault on peacekee we were accompanied to the blizznitsi by one ifv one tank and nine infantrymen took four prisoners one russian major and three locals two of our men were dead was in the attack on piski they'd gone on forward just a little and appeared at the enemy positions with the separatists they were suppressing the motor squad and were left with no ammunition the entire tank crew was [Music] killed [Music] later the enemy turned over their bodies washed and dressed so like the fallen heroes they were respected by the other side as well for fighting to the last breath any war experience comes unfortunately at great sacrifice paid for with blood so we had to retreat but later we took piskey how many days passed three four then we were told again you're going back to peacekey we drove to the airport and stayed there overnight and early in the morning at seven o'clock we left the airport in the direction of peacekey with two tanks two ifvs joined them at the main road the infantry advanced into the village tanks and ifvs provided cover plus one tank and one ifv were positioned at the bridge so we arrived there somewhere in the middle of peacekeeping and immediately came under fire from enemy artillery and tanks we were under intense fire extremely intense we survived the artillery fire and held this position to this day [Music] the village of pisces was liberated by the 93rd brigade rights sector we liberated the village of gained a foothold there and lifted the blockade of the airport then abdevka had to be freed and cleaned up [Music] and again we sent a fake radio message as if we were going to yasin we had one checkpoint and in today's industrial area another so two in total that is thus we had already cut off the routes from yasser nevada and donetsk together with the right sector we cleared out avdevka our cover squad the reservists moved out it was the 17th armored brigade ifvs and two tanks we practically entered via the central street over the bypass from donetsk at that time they had hardly any tanks mostly grenade launchers [Music] was hit by rocket launchers several times on average [Music] a few times i thought we would be unable to reach our deployment location in the area we liberated avdevka first then gradually cleared of separatists they crept into all their holes literally and then we reached zenit zenith was our limit of advance the butivka coal mine fell into enemy hands spartak ii [Music] on august 7th i went to partisan capturing the road and then for two to three days many outposts were deployed all the way from partisan to the bolsova that is completely blocking the road to horizon there were always engagements but mostly there was mortar and artillery fire [Music] also they brought food and some information just please free us quickly until july 2014 the battalion's mission was to defend the ukrainian state border we were then returned to our home base meet itself after less than a month of reorganization and combat preparation we were transferred to the area of ilove [Music] the volunteer battalion moved first the indian impro won then grief boss joined by the 40th air defense battalion and under the cover of the former 21st artillery brigade now the 14th [Applause] as part of the company tactical group with an assault mission we were going to take the city of ilovey's there was no time to rest from the very beginning it was just a constant battle both their artillery and ours were engaged street after street neighborhood after neighborhood of the residential district and then we just moved to the city from one house to the next we never stayed in the same location for more than two days each time we left the house was accidentally hit by artillery there was a lack of manning and we couldn't clear the buildings every day our reinforcements which were supposed to man the checkpoints did not make it in time we were surrounded past the passage there is the village of where i spent most of my time during the whole campaign our task was to not let the enemy breach here we accomplished it 100 percent we did not let anyone slip through we laid a minefield we dug trenches we made some cover for the coaxial grenade launchers cgl so in case of tank breakthroughs our cgls would work we cleared the rest of the village an enemy automatic grenade launcher ags squad was destroyed we sighted in the mortars at harapsky so we worked we worked every single day three days just weren't enough just three days to suppress them completely they were out of ammo and low on manpower yes if not for the russians they had no chance [Music] we were constantly shot at from the russian side from and torres on the 24th of august we celebrated our independence day and in battle unveiling we were assigned to go to the village of petrovsky and re-establish communication with our guys who were in savoy gila as we arrived we saw our vehicles rolling out from there all damaged metal looked like a strainer the separatists attacked and our guys started shooting back at a tank this is a t-72 the separatists got scared and abandoned the tank we gave iraqi a mortar shell and a task go blow up the tank he went there and came back sane and why would i blow it up it's a nice tank it's good for fighting he risked his life and seized a real vehicle to help us he drove a tank our troops retreated from iloveisk on this tank but the tank just couldn't get out we defended our position at the edge of the village and there came a russian column 18 vehicles ifvs and tanks approaching us when we knocked at the first floor they turned around and started fleeing at first we thought it was their new tactics we had such a suburb army before us 20 minutes later we realized they had all fled and left their comrades on the battlefield we all knew very well that we were defending our homeland and they came to us as invaders and there was no more mercy i myself saw that this is russian army weapons documents and personnel we sat in the cow shed the door opens and the guys come in we looked at them and asked who are you we're here from russia from here and there and then all the boys in the cowshed turned to them so you say you're from russia where exactly and everyone began to chamber the rifles and the sound of click click click click was everywhere and then they were like so that's it for us right the overall situation was that we had to retreat so we received an order to withdraw towards iloveisk at the beginning of august 2014 the units of our brigade were located in about three different locations it was because they were trying to encircle the nest our brigade fulfilled its mission of encircling the nest from the north to almost east [Music] [Music] since the volunteer battalions had no heavy weaponry the order was for us to carry out the brunt because only we had tanks in combat vehicles i divide the personnel into three armored crews ukrainian armed forces came forward volunteer battalions followed in this order the column moved out it was in manohar village it was in the morning when the columns were lined up both flight vehicles and armored vehicles tanks and artillery we moved only well 200 to 300 meters then our first tank exploded immediately we had no time to leave enemies artillery covered us by fire the 80 millimeter the 120 millimeter shells destroying checkpoints and strong points we destroyed about 15 checkpoints we were ramming and the volunteer battalions followed us everyone did their job the wheeled vehicles went one way and the armored machinery went the other way the first ones in the line in front of me were tanks and then i a v another tank then me and then one more ifv and then yet another tank in a certain formation when they started shooting at us only two vehicles made it through mine in the battalion commander's vehicle at the end of the trip an rpg round came in i smashed my nose into the glass and blacked out the company commander took the wheel he pressed a hand on my leg so the engine did not stop one to the right another one further to the right there are snipers everywhere and there was a concrete block in the middle so that's it we're done first we were brought in and lined up vehicle operators which were two of us were taken away and the rest of them were taken to the nest we shot all of our ammo to the end none of us were going to give up we were doing the given task until the very an hour and a half later this battalion no longer existed [Music] um [Music] uh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] when they started shooting us with grad ssm surface-to-surface missiles everyone started running and scattering in all directions [Music] then we counted off there were 52 men left we reached the edge of the wooded area and stood in a crowd it was already dark there was a boy standing beside me i think around 20 years he lit a cigarette a shot fired so the boy fell down and then a machine gun burst and we scattered again and then we stopped running when no one was around nine of us were there we sat down maybe the others will gather somewhere here but there was no one around we sat there until sunrise said i have the most important thing here an icon he brought it with him everywhere i said why are you carrying it he replied it keeps me safe two men did a reconnaissance and brought a bottle of water they said yes there is a station and the old man said that no one is there we lined up in a row and went to the cornfield to see what's going on there when we crossed it one guy stood there he covered his mouth and waved i came out and saw two ifvs then we quietly went back returned through the cornfield into the wooded area and then we saw a tank rushing at us from the right side of the wood we laid down he stopped the barrel has turned and he began to shoot into the wood with his dragon off sniper rifle and one of them yelled i still remember hey people speaking of a mixture of languages give up then ole kachenko screamed loudly do not shoot i give up we saw that the tank was turning its barrel without a second thought we turned around i thought that they were shot dead for the next day we were lying in the woods they rolled around shooting in between the trees then we saw a whole column driving out the column was impressive they had like 30 bmds airborne ifvs 10 tanks one of our guys came out with a rifle as soon as he did three cars stopped while driving we saw lots of destroyed armor tanks were burned the road was full of holes and then we approached the checkpoint we were like damn it we're finished which checkpoint was this nobody knew i still remember that a minibus of ukrainian armed forces arrived to pick us up in the evening they brought us to some base there was an apple garden we were met by colonels majors and lieutenant colonels on the map we showed what we had seen it turns out that when we had fled from that column we were in the russian federation well when i woke up in the morning the next day it was already seven o'clock and when i looked around i saw puzanov face all beaten up i hugged him oh hello he said oh you're alive i said well sorry for alec kachinko this and that happened to him and then after three months i saw olay again hey kid he said i told you that this icon would save me actually it was a picture of my wife because this is our land and no one has a right to tell us how to live on our land we must live by our own rules [Music] because it was a fairly large city and i had two platoons operating only three ifes and the number of personnel we had was 42 people and we didn't get into the industrial area at all the enemy's main forces were concentrated there and almost all the enemies fire was coming from that area there was a lot of artillery barraging but all of them missed very much off the target even if it reached any target there it was most likely by an accident when on august 22nd according to my intelligence report an echelon with artillery entered yesterday with servicemen in russian uniform with the insignia of russian troops that's when they started working professionally in total about 14 people were injured in three days and two were killed [Applause] attacked from the slag keeps with heavy equipment with self-propelled artillery motors grads [Music] they kept the whole city in fear and attacked us the long stand at this city was particularly detrimental for our personnel and our equipment we were forced to retreat to our previous positions [Music] on the night of the third to the fourth of august we got a new assignment international airport and conduct its defense a tank and 50 men we got to the airport to replace the 72nd brigade and we were sitting there and looking at the atl map our hearts rejoiced our forces seized this and that we thought that we could get somewhere around october 14th we thought we might even get a leave home well if not for the ill-advised tragedy [Music] at the time when we got into position there in august there was no such heavy bombardment only tanks and artillery some of this the most fun for us began after the first mints protocol in september for a couple of days it was quiet but then it started there was an assault every day at five or at six in the morning it started with the artillery fire and then the infantry would come with tanks we were placed at the operating side yanot raccoon a small two-story building at one point two walls of that building were blasted over a single night this is exactly where the guys from harkie have captured the artillery men the euro truck brazenly drove up to us we started shooting at them and they asked what are you doing let's kill the banderas together the first building which stood closest to the nest to the highway was burnt to ashes then we moved behind the old terminal terminal c in order for them to retreat the enemy infantry had to be cut off this was a task for the ifvs began firing it received a direct frontal hit by a tank [Music] as long as we had ammunition the actions continued we did not give them a chance to approach us and throw grenades at us because if we gave them a short break they would have simply destroyed us with grenades and that would be it two of our ivs were destroyed one tank went out of service so only infantry remained while the enemy still had two tanks and the chances of infantry to stand against the tank well they were pretty close to zero the tank destroyed the second floor then the first ground floor that meant there was nothing left to defend we had to move to the old terminal then we were able to consolidate our positions in both the old and the new terminals we gained more manpower and our fires masked it became harder to approach us at the close range therefore we could hold both terminals for much longer then the first minutes agreements were passed in all areas of operation in the combat zone it had become more or less stable and calmer but not for us our fight had just begun [Music] starting from the illa vice tragedy and until the disengagement of the 93rd brigade the battle in the donats airport didn't stop for a single day we saw everything there at the donesk airport we observed enemy aviation flame guns peony and tulpan self-propelled launchers in action we saw special forces fighting there the anti-ship missiles were shot at us from the slag heaps the whole range of existing weapons every one of them was there we did not only see all that we experienced it ourselves every day we were shot at with about 15 000 projectiles that is they had such an allowance there was five enemy divisions each of them fired about 3 000 shells at us that was their daily [Music] [Applause] allotment [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Lidi Ya Films

Views: 1,178,200

Rating: 4.5563107 out of 5

Keywords: видео реального боя, Ukraine, war, война, Украина, війна, Україна, ОУН, OUN, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, 93, омбр, 93омбр, ak47, warzone, warfare, war footage, combat footage, netflix, military history visualized, war video, world war 3, ww 3, what is 93 Mechanized Brigade Kholodnyi Yar, what.is.93.brigade, 93rd

Id: 1cMBPN3rjXU

Length: 50min 30sec (3030 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/akatits]

very cool thanks for sharing

[u/anti_5eptic]

I just watched this yesterday it was so good!

[u/Timnc25]

I actually watched all 3 parts of this last weekend with some of my buddies in my unit (on the American side), it gives fascinating clarity on an incredibly complex war as well as the developments of both Ukrainian and Russian land warfare tactics.