The one who defeated death: the story of the Spartan brigade fighter on the call sign Klim
His brothers considered him dead. The enemy thought twice that they had killed him. He himself said goodbye to life more than once, but despite all this, he wants to return to the defense of the Motherland.
National Guardsman Vitaly says that on February 24, like everyone, he woke up from the explosions. I immediately turned on the TV, the news and saw that the war had begun. Without thinking long, the man gathered the necessary things and arrived at the military registration office.
“In the military registration office, I first got into unit 3005, the National Guard. We issued the uniform, we stayed in the part for a day, received weapons, lined up and the combatant came out and reported that the tanks were expected to break through on the district road, but the tanks did not reach us, they were burned in front of Northern Saltivka. On Zalyutyn, we stood on the district, there was a block-post. The tasks at the post were: checking documents, filtering measures, detection of DRG,” the fighter recalls.
Vitaly says that he joined the Spartan brigade at the end of April, underwent the necessary training and went to Bakhmut, at that time there was no active fighting there.
He recalls the fighter and the battles in Zoloty, in the village of Komyshuvakha, Slobozhansky counteroffensive and Soledar.
“Arriving in Soledar, we almost immediately took a position at the railway crossing, near the station. And two days later, our platoon commander was ordered to allocate four men and send to the fortification of position “3.2.2.”, which was located in a three-story concrete building. I was accepted and sent to the third floor, to the position that had already been planned, and almost immediately, about half an hour later, the assault began. First there was shelling from the RPG, one guy died immediately, and then it turns out that I was left alone, because the guys who were on the second floor thought that we were all “200”, because they saw Sergei killed, thought that I was too, so they contacted the radio and asked permission to leave.” The National Guard is watching.
After Soledar was captured, Vitaliy recalls how the occupiers tied their hands with wire, put bags on their heads and dragged them into a hangar:
“In the hangar with them I stayed until dusk, then they made some homemade wearables and carried me. They were brought to some farm and decided to suffocate, they threw a rope around my neck, with my back to him, and they began to choke, and I was exhausted, immediately cut off and they thought that I was “double hundred”, but in fact I walked away. I fainted, one leg was already “glass”. I crawled into the house, it was broken there, found some kind of rag, rolled up and spent a day there and already near the evening of the next day I woke up and saw through the window a well nearby, 30 meters from me and there was a bucket on it. I crawled on my knees, picked up the bucket with my teeth, dropped it, there was a little water in it with a crust of ice and I managed to take a few sips. And when he passed back to the house, he heard: “Stand!” I return, and again they keep on the fly, already other “wagners” passed through this village. They ran up: “Who is this?” They dragged me to the basement, where I spent two days, and from this basement I was taken to the infirmary, this is where there were also prisoners, but wounded. Already there the gangrene went away and they sent to the hospital in Luhansk, where they cut off the leg and brought back to the infirmary. I stayed there for 18 days, before the exchange.”
Already on January 31, the exchange took place, the SBU together with the National Guard met the soldier and was quickly taken to the hospital to Dnipro, and then to Kiev.
Despite the experience, Vitaly plans to continue his service in the future, says that he wants to share his own experience with other fighters:
“Winning is the main thing. It is impossible for the orcs to rule us, this cannot be allowed. What to live under them, it is better to perish. I plan to continue my service in the future. It motivates me to share my experience, I want to study as an instructor and help the boys survive.”
National Guard of Ukraine
