Ukrainian Soldiers – Abandoned in Zelenopillia, Corpses All Around Them

Video: Eyewitnesses Speak of the Battle Near Zelenopillia / Extraordinary News, July 17, 2014

W/ENG Subtitles – via Marcel Sardo (@marcelsardo) – http://mondbasis.com/ukraine/20140722.html

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Announcer: Piles of dead bodies as heritage of slaughter near Zelenopillia, – this is the story of those who were lucky enough to survive and come back home.

Extraordinary News met the airborne troops who categorically reject the official data of their commanders saying that 19 were killed in action. Troops were slaughtered by Grad MLRS; exploding shells were sending torn-off limbs flying in all directions, it was hard to find survivors among the dead bodies. And now we’ll tell you about war with no censorship.

CAPTION: Bogdan Lozitsky, Recruit

Soldier: In general, I am a person who takes initiative. I joined the army voluntarily, and my position is that if your country calls you, you have to go and defend it.

Announcer: This video was shown in mid-March, when they were mobilizing in the Kiev Region, Bogdan wanted to be on the front lines as soon as possible, and when they sent him to the East to defend the Ukrainian border, and there he had a chance to see what real inferno looks like.

CAPTION: Bogdan Lozitsky, serviceman of the 72^nd Special Mechanized Brigade

Bogdan: Those torn-off arms and hands, torn-off legs … People were dying in front of my eyes, in my arms they were dying. Burned people… There were people who could not get up from their beds. There were tents, and they had just gone to sleep. Everything burned, there were no people left, just arms and legs scattered around.

Announcer: Bogdan remembers with horror the events of the 13^th of July. Their unit was deployed in the camp of the 24^th Brigade near Zelenopilla, and commanders there, in his opinion, were giving absurd orders that left both men and equipment and ammo in the middle of an open field whereas there was, in fact, a forested area nearby.

CAPTION: Denis, serviceman of the 72^nd Special Mechanized Brigade

I woke up from the sound of explosions, from something hitting the ground. The earth just shakes when they shell you like that.

Announcer: About 40 salvos from Grad MLRS in a few short minutes turned the soldiers’ camp into one bloody mess.

Bogdan: Those who were missing their legs, we were trying to bandage them to stop the bleeding. Where we could, we provided them with drippers. Not a single commissioned officer! We had there, not a single one! There were those shouts, that noise – wounded there, dead here.. Men were burning, men were missing their legs. One was missing a leg while the other leg still had a foot attached, hanging every which way like that, and you do not know what to do with that person. We carried him away, we put him down, but literally several minutes later – that’s it, he was dead. Another one wasshell shocked, he could not say a word, do anything….

Announcer: All pleas for help were in vain – the commanders, Bogdan says, were not even planning to send in any reinforcements.

Bogdan: We call our commander, we say, ‘Save us, get us out of here’, and he says: ‘What, you are still alive? No, no one will get you out of there – you are not supposed to be there at all. Officially, you are not there. Get out of there any way you like’. And then he says: ‘What about the equipment, is it still there?’ ‘WHAT equipment can there be??? All of the equipment was burned, the Ural truck, gone completely, machine guns, rifles, documents, clothes, everything burned down. And that KamAz truck – God bless that driver, Taras, who was wounded, wounded, but he pressed together those brushes that were stuck in that truck, and succeeded in moving it all aside, for it not to explode.

Announcer: Bogdan is showing a video of the annihilated military camp.

Bogdan: Do you see that spot? Guys were lying down there, who came to defend their Motherland. Nothing’s left … No legs, no heads, just one arm left, and that one is burned, because those in that fire no one was supposed to survive.

Announcer: Not yet coming back to their senses after the first strike, the soldiers faced another one. As soon as they re-deployed to another location, they faced more fire, this time the terrorists added mortar shell to the Grad rockets, and in the face of death, soldiers were thinking of their families.

Bogdan: My wife was calling me, and I had hardly survived, but what was I supposed to tell her? My mom was calling, asking me: ‘Where are you?’ I say: ‘A am in Zhitomir, mom, I’m I Zhitomir, do not worry. Everything is all right, I sleep, I eat, I am clean, I have clothes’. Whereas I drink rainwater and we lie down on our bulletproof vests.

Announcer: The soldiers call their survival ‘a miracle’, they were granted a 10-day leave to take a breath, but even here, they find no rest.

Denis: When you are recovering, it’s hard, hard, very hard to take all that, because you close your eyes, and you see the same picture.

Bogdan: And now our comrades are harassed by the military prosecutors: Where is the Ural truck? Where are the armaments? Where is the ammo?’ ‘What do you mean, where? It all burned down, complete with those men. They don’t have their body parts – some missing their legs, some missing their arms, some missing their eyes, their heads, some only have half a body left. Why is it that they are not asking where those people are? Why are they interested only in the ammo?

Announcer: Still his thoughts are there with those guys, still there in the field under fire.

Bogdan on the phone: ‘Do they shoot at you a lot?’ Voice on the phone: “Just has six salvos.”

Bogdan: ‘What kind of salvos?’ Voice on the phone: ‘What kind? Grad salvos, of course.”

Bogdan: ‘Just hold on, my brother, humanitarian assistance will arrive, everything you need will be there, in any case, somehow, we’ll get you out of there. We’ll raise the people, we’ll get you out of there in any case, you should not be there at all now. Bye, my brother, good luck to you’. Voice on the phone: ‘We hope so, good luck to you too’.

Announcer: They are trying to cover up the scale of the tragedy near Zelenopilia, how else are they going to explain the official announcement of 19 men KIA?

Bogdan: What kind of data can you have in general? From a person who was not there at all? What kind of data can that person provide? Four Ural trucks full of people who were killed. Right now you cannot call them, God forgive me, half-men, now they are just dead bodies. Just legs, just rams – four full trucks.

Announcer: The soldiers are certain that the fatal error was not negligence, it was treason, but nevertheless, they will return to the front lines, for who else will do it?

Bogdan: I am really a patriot, I really volunteered, and it would be ok, if it had been a battle. They do not even give us an opportunity to shoot back. We are just like blind kittens, squashed and squashed by those Grads. There is no war there, it’s just laundering of the war money, and there is nothing else to it. Done by high military brass. I do not know now what’s going to happen to me after this interview, but I do not care, I want the people to know. Let the people know what is happening there. All that political dividing the spoils by God knows whom, while those dying are ordinary guys, we, just ordinary guys, we are the ones who are doing the dying.