Withdrawal from Avdiivka: “Leave the 300 wounded and burn everything” Two lucky people win a five-year pension in the lottery

Fierce fighting raged in Avdiivka for almost two years. For the time being, peace must return to the city. The reason is sad: the Ukrainian army has decided to withdraw from the area. For Russia, this is the biggest success in the war against Ukraine in about a year.

However, dramatic scenes unfolded for the Ukrainian soldiers. “Leave the 300 (wounded) behind and burn everything,” Ukrainian soldier Viktor Biliak was ordered. He wrote this in a long Instagram post.

He gives a detailed account of the dangerous journey he and the other Ukrainian soldiers undertook, who were able to leave Avdiivka and remain uninjured.

The Ukrainian soldiers desperately tried to escape from the ruins of the city. The groups left the city one after another. Their visibility was limited: they would not have been able to see on the street. “It was just survival. One kilometer across the field.”

He continues: “The road to Avdiivka is littered with our corpses. I didn’t wait for the evacuation. I led the group and went into the unknown.”

Finally, a commander radioed Biliak that the wounded would not be evacuated. Six men were left behind. Reading the messages from the injured in the Signal chat was difficult for Biliak.

He writes: “Their despair and their downfall. It will always stay with us. Only the bravest die.”

“I have two broken legs and splinters in my back.”

One of these “courageous” was 30-year-old Ivan Zhytnyk. He was a junior sergeant and combat medic and had been fighting in Avdiivka for almost two years.

Zhytnyk was seriously injured and unable to move at the time the other soldiers were withdrawn. On Thursday he video called his sister Kateryna and other family members. The call went viral on Ukrainian social media and CNN also reported on it.

According to CNN, Kateryna asks her brother in the video, “So what, she… is no one coming? Are your boys there too (with you), or are you alone?”

Schytnyk says: “Everyone left, everyone withdrew. They told us a car would pick us up. I have two broken legs and splinters in my back. I can not do anything …”

Kateryna replies, “I don’t know how to… who to call,” she said, crying. ‘I can not get out. Who’s coming to pick you up?”

Kateryna later told Ukrainian investigative news portal Slidstvo.info: “The soldiers had been waiting for the evacuation vehicle for a day and a half. And when they realized no one was coming to pick them up, they called everyone. When Ivan called me, he was in so much pain that they gave him everything they had, but the medicine and food ran out.”

The last call

Later on Thursday, another family member reached Zhytnyk via video link, Kateryna said. “My brother said that the command had agreed that the Russians would eliminate them because our men could not reach them,” Kateryna said.

During the conversation, the video showed Russian troops entering the position where the men were being held. The Russians said, “Get up and go out, we won’t take you.”

Kateryna says her brother-in-law tried to continue talking to Ivan but was told to turn off his phone. This would be Zhytnyk’s last sign of life.

After the capture of Avdiivka, Russian military bloggers published a video that also showed the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers. One of them was Zhytnyk.