These soldiers described it as apocalyptic: the sky was “blackened by drones,” there was constant shelling and bombing, and the green fields were now filled with mines, trenches, and Russian bunkers, making any further advance south nearly impossible.
But progress southward is exactly what the soldiers with the call signs Karatsupa, Pan and Taba are aiming for, as they race American Bradley fighting vehicles along what they believe is the path to victory for all of Ukraine.
Under constant fire every day, they brought fresh soldiers into the battlefield and took wounded soldiers out of the battlefield, and had only 30 seconds to exchange soldiers on the battlefield.
“I have been in the army since 2014 and I have never seen such dense minefields. They are hectares wide on both sides of the road. There are trenches and bunkers, and they stretch for tens of kilometers. They even laid mines in the territories we are retaking. If it weren’t for the minefields, we would have reached Tokmak by now,” Karatsupa said.
Robotyne’s strategic importance in Ukraine’s three-month-long southern offensive has been repeatedly stressed, but the village’s recapture by Ukraine has only further angered the Russian military, according to the 47th Brigade.
The ruins of the village, with a population of 500, continue to be under attack day and night. In addition to artillery and air strikes, the village has been hit hardest by drones.
“They blackened the sky,” Pan said. Both Ukrainian and Russian reconnaissance and attack drones were operating here, and Pan said it was almost impossible to tell them apart. The worst were suicide drones that chased soldiers and destroyed the entire area around them.
After months of fighting, the village they captured in August was so badly damaged that they could hardly believe it when they found villagers sheltering in basements.
After soldiers advised them to pack up, they were loaded into Bradleys under fire. One woman brought her cat, another civilian asked if he could take the car he had saved his life to buy before the battle between the two Bradleys broke out.
“Life in the occupied territories is not normal at all,” Pan said. He explained that the man’s car was a $300 Zhiguli, but also that “property here has a different meaning.” After some negotiation, the car was abandoned and the evacuation began.
Pan and Taba are Bradley engineers - Soldiers of the 47th Brigade fighting on the "road to hell". Photo: Pierre Bairin/CNN.
“The Russians immediately opened fire on us,” Karatsupa said. “They didn’t care who was on board, whether civilians or soldiers. They didn’t care. When we closed the Bradley doors, the artillery immediately opened fire. Luckily, the vehicle was very solid and we got out of there. We came to the next turn and the Russians opened fire on us again, even though they knew we were carrying civilians.”
CNN has not been able to verify that Russia knows these Bradley vehicles are carrying civilians.
In a nearby forest, Ukrainian soldiers brought a group of civilians, mostly elderly men and women, here after spending months in shelters, while fighting in the area reached its peak.
Karatsupa said: Residents said that even before the counterattack was launched and the battle to retake the village broke out, they could not bear the sight of Russian soldiers occupying the village from which they had no way of escaping.
Like other villages and towns in Zaporizhzhia, Robotyne was disadvantaged from the start of the war because of its geographical location, located just south of where Russian special operations slowed in March 2022 and thus out of reach of support.
But without the Bradleys, none of them would have survived. They proudly showed some of the places where the shells directly hit these American armored vehicles, and praised them wholeheartedly.
The Bradleys have only one drawback, Karatsupa says: They have a distinctive noise that can be heard miles away. He says this can strike fear into Russian troops, and reassure Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines by letting them know that supporting fire is on the way. But no vehicle, no matter how advanced, is without its weaknesses.
Karatsupa, Pan, and Taba now carry not only pride in their accomplishments, but also the pain of what they have lost.
Several soldiers who had joined them in capturing Robotyne last week were killed when a Bradley took direct fire, a reminder that no matter how important Robotyne was to the counteroffensive, there were still many casualties on the road to hell.
Nguyen Quang Minh (according to CNN)
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