Ukrainian soldier in counter-offensive: “The further we advance, the harder it will be”

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Serhii Kolesnichenko (24) has been carrying a gun every day for a year and a half. Since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, his entire civilian life, work in journalism and acting in the theater have come to a standstill.

Nowadays he hardly ever leaves the front, he tells the Kyiv Post. He is deployed in the Zaporizhia region. During the counter-offensive in September 2022, he saw what a phosphorus bombardment looks like for the first time in his life. However, nothing he has seen so far compares to the current counter-offensive in the south.

Mainly because of the precisely guided bombs. “You hear a huge roar and realize there is nowhere to hide. You’re lucky or you’re not lucky,” said the soldier. “Everything is mined here. When I look at the thermal imager at night, the mines are still giving off heat,” he added.

Biden cleans up F-16 fighter jets

The Russians have prepared for the counter-offensive. Southern Ukraine is currently one of the most heavily mined regions in the world. Serhii Kolesnichenko is surprised by the complaints from the West that the counter-offensive is progressing too slowly. According to him, the offensive is progressing as fast as it can, given the circumstances. “We have to be aware that the further we get, everything slows down.” He adds that there is a shortage of weapons in Ukraine.

Especially in the air, the Russians are superior to the Ukrainians in many places. “They’re knocking us out of the sky with everything they’ve got! On the ground, our infantry is doing an excellent job. But there is nothing about ourselves that protects us,” he reports. “We need F-16s, with them everything would go much faster. Above all, we need more western equipment.”

These are demands that Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky (45) has often expressed. It took a long time before US President Joe Biden (80) gave the green light to the fighter jets a few weeks ago. However, it will probably take a few months before these can actually be delivered.

The soldier refuses to negotiate

Serhii Kolesnichenko complains that there aren’t even enough drones. He has therefore launched a call for donations on social media. This way he can buy different types of drones. He emphasizes that this is absolutely necessary for this war, as the devices often do not survive more than a day before being destroyed. He wants Ukraine to reduce its dependence on foreign supplies and build up its own arms production as much as possible.

“I understand that those who give us weapons and watch from the sidelines would like to end the war sooner. We would like that too. But we understand that it will not end so soon,” emphasizes Kolesnichenko. He rejects the kind of negotiations that some Western observers keep proposing.

Source: Blick