Thread by @ukraine_world

📌 The story of Ukrainian soldier Ihor Gannenko, who survived the enemy fire but lost his comrades. #UkraineWorldTestimony 1/15

Before the full-scale Russian invasion, Ihor Gannenko was the director of a youth center. He traveled the world with his wife and was even a deputy o the Sumy Oblast Council. But everything changed on February 24, and Ihor took up arms to defend Ukraine. 2/15

In his free time, Ihor has kept a blog in which he records the events that happened to him during this war. We are publishing Ihor's story about being hit by a mortar in his voice. 3/15

An explosion. I open my eyes and I can't understand what is happening. Launch, 2 seconds, hit. The enemy decided to scare us with mortars. 4/15

The third explosion, and only now Kapral and I realize that we were sleeping without body armor and helmets, which are near our shallow "pit." We had let our guard down, like idiots. 5/15

- "Now, once the shell lands, I’ll quickly jump out and pull the bulletproof vests here, you will help me get ‘em on," - says Kapral.
- "OK".
6/15

Another shell falls closer. Usain Bolt himself would have envied the speed with which Kapral grabbed the bulletproof vests and got back down. We quickly get the vests on and try to stay as low as possible into the ground. 7/15

The deeper you are in the ground, the better chances you have to survive. It was good that the day before we had decided to deepen our trench by 10 centimeters. It was bad that it wasn't by 20-30. 8/15

A few shells fall even closer, and we realize that it was not just fire to "scare." Russian mortars were adjusting their fire, which means that an enemy drone with a thermal imager was flying somewhere above us. 9/15

In such moments, the brain does not want to think at all. In movies, we see it as the main characters having their lives, loved ones, and other things flashing before their eyes. It's all stupid – the brain is just empty, an information vacuum. 10/15

A few more hits, and silence ensues.
- "It's finally over," I say.
- "Wait, it's a trap," replies Kapral, who already had combat experience in 2015-16. I have no reason not to believe him, so I continue to hold myself against the ground. 11/15

- "Who has a walkie-talkie, guys?" - we hear the cry of our friend Vedmid from afar.
- "We don't have one," we shout.
- "We need to ask for artillery support, otherwise we will all be killed here," shouts Vedmid, "The 📻 is probably with the commander, I'll be back soon."
12/15

- "Don't go, the drone is correcting. They’ll see your movement & hit again"
But he couldn’t hear us anymore. Here we heard the shell launch and laid down. As Kapral said, it was a trap for inexperienced soldiers. I hope that Vedmid has managed to lie down in some hole. 13/15

A few more shells fall very close to us, and we hear screams that are more like the roar of a wounded animal. A person simply cannot shout like that.
-"I’m injured. AAAAH! Help!", - we recognize Vedmid’s voice somewhere behind us. 14/15

-"Where are you wounded?", - Kapral tries to shout to him.
-"Leg! LEEEEEG!" - we hear Mishka's (that was his name) inhuman scream.
- "Put a tourniquet on!"
- "I can't, my hand!"

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Read the full story on our website ➡ ukraineworld.org/articles/stori…

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