- Can you introduce yourself? - Yes. My name is Sanyuk Aleksei. I'm from Belarus. I'm a volunteer. I've come here voluntarily. Here are my friends. My friends died here. You can say, we live as one family.
For the good. Of the civilians. - Are you Belarusian? - Yes, I'm from Belarus. - What forces do you belong to? - Now I'm in the 13th battalion. I'm a senior lieutenant. - I mean, Russian or Lugansk forces?
- No, Lugansk forces. The Lugansk People's Republic. - I see. And how long have you been fighting here? - I stay here totally. With all my roots, I'll stay here. - No, I mean, when have you come here first?
- I've come here in 2014, when this all was just in the beginning.
Now we are on the bridge where the National Guard unit was. We'll go down now. Also, the facts say there were Ukrainian forces here. - Oh!.. - Yes, as you see. - Be careful!
- So we've just come here, and nobody could put it beforehand. - Okay. - Well, there are two grenades. Let me... Step back please. - Okay.
- Bro, take the assault rifle, please.
So, as you can see (I can show you), they are not dangerous, I've extracted them. As you see, they have been here for a long time. - Okay. - I'll also show you grenades' fuses.
They are already rusted. Here is one. And here is another. They probably tried not to put the grenade pin once again. It looks not properly.
It'll be a present to my dad. I mean, to my commander. We'll move forward, and I'll show you more surprises there.
Here they had a base at that moment. There are their sleeping places. Be careful and watch your step!
Here are their knee pads. As you can see, we don't use knee pads. I mean, they cannot be ours. What else... Step back please. - Okay. - Turn it over.
- It's empty, that is, it's not dangerous. I don't know what was in it. It's written in English.
- Maybe we take it?
Here are dry rations. These are not ours, these are the Ukrainian ones.
This is what their soldiers eat.
[Daily set of dry products. Norm No. 10. Option 2. Manufacturer "Fabryka Smaku", Odessa. The list includes: biscuits, canned food, honey, coffee, tea, sugar, napkins, and wet wipes. Date of manufacture: May 14, 2022]
You can even read it.
To make yourself acquainted with it.
Here is the water. I guess, it's ours. We've left it here yesterday.
Give me it!
Thank you!
When have they been here, in your opinion? - They have been here literally two days before yesterday. - Oh, they've been here still? So, a week ago they were there, and then here, closer...
- We were shelled from large-caliber weapons. Mostly, from mortars. - The day before yesterday? - Yes. - Wow! - Watch your step and be careful!
Here can be many tripwires. Be careful and don't step there. - Okay. - Go exactly following my steps. - Okay. - You go where I go. - Okay.
I'm going to show you a car.
Got it.
When we got the bridge... - The day before yesterday? - Yes, the day before yesterday. When we got the bridge, there was a heavy equipment here on this place, as you can see.
Here was a NATO's armored personnel carrier, Hummer, lying with its wheels up. All what was left was taken away today by our guys.
Also, as you can see, here are the dry rations. They belong to nationalists.
They belong to nationalists.
- Oh, and here is a flag!
- Yes, as you can see, you've found it yourself under your feet.
The Ukrainian flag.
Here is a tent. They had the tent here.
Here is also their tarpaulin.
This is what's left.
- You've said there was a fight here two days ago. How was it going? - You can say, we've taken the bridge without a fight. When we were approaching the bridge, there was our assault brigade active.
So we've taken it easily, without a single shot, you can say. When we were approaching, they were retreating. This bridge... The road goes to Lisichansk.
Now our fighters are engaged in reconnaissance.
Tomorrow or maybe tonight, we're expecting a report.
- Who is he? Is he a civilian or who? - Yes, he looks like a civilian. The body has been lying here for long already. When we took the bridge, the corpse was lying the same.
There's no way to identify him. But the one thing we know for sure, it was a man.
That's what they are doing. There are traces... Here is one. Traces of a bullet wound. The second. The third. So you can see how the skull burst from the gunshot.
- The man is apparently my height and the same physique. - What is it?
- I can't say about that. I don't know. - It's plastic.
- It was worn on the head. - More like a bag. You see it all with your own eyes.
Over here! They were lying here.
- Can you tell me when they damaged the bridge?
- At that moment when the bridge exploded, their last man was here. I won't say who exactly.
As soon as we entered Sirotino, we began to clean up the village, then at that moment we heard an explosion. They blew up the bridge.
- Was it about a week ago? - Yes, about a week. - You said that only the day before yesterday it came under your control.
- The day before yesterday we just went here. - Do you think that the last Ukrainians were here? - Yes.
- And when did they leave? Or don't you know? - Most likely they left when we began to step on their heels.
This is the day when we began to advance. We began to advance on the 20th of this month.
And on the same day, as I said, we started a shootout.
- That is, 7 days ago they blew up the bridge, and they were definitely here. - One person for sure.
- After that, you don't know what time they left. It could be 1 day or maybe... - Maybe 2-3.
- But only the day before yesterday, you arrived here? Yes, we've been here since the day before yesterday.
- Maybe one day was neutral or more, you just don't know for sure? - I can't say exactly how many people were here.
- And maybe, so they are here now or not? - They are not here at the moment, since we looked everywhere here, this whole square.
Up to the river Seversky Donets. - How close do you think Ukrainian soldiers are now?
- They are literally 700-800 meters away from us. - 700 meters from us now? - Well, somewhere like that. Because the river is going downhill.
- Why aren't they shooting now? - Well, yes, we are still at the forefront. - Is this the front line? - It's a firing point.
It’s just that greenery is everywhere, the forest covers us everywhere. That is, it is very hard to see at the moment. At night it's a different story. Through the thermal imager ..
- And so that everyone knows exactly where we are now? Which side is connected by this bridge?
- Now we are in the direction of Lisichansk, or rather the Soda Plant, Lisichansk. - And here? - And this is Sirotino, in the direction of Severodonetsk.