When we arrived at Stanytsia Luhanska, however, we came under several Grad multiple rocket launcher attacks, and people were acting as though something unusual was underway. On 17 February, a kindergarten near Stanytsia was hit, that must have been the beginning of the full-scale invasion for me.
I kept asking people around me what was wrong and they told me that Grad attacks used to be rare; they were something that shocked people. Many of them, however, spent the previous month hiding in basements and dugouts from these attacks. By around 20 February, everyone knew that something grave was drawing closer.
Reserve units were deployed at the border and there were numerous helicopters in the sky; we were trying to reconnoitre the situation on the front. The Siverskyi Donets River flows near Stanytsia, by the way; it’s as though the river is chasing us now. [Smiles]
On the night of 23-24 February, I was listening to intercepted conversations. At one point I heard that the Russians were preparing for an artillery attack; they often engaged in "radio games" like that, but this time I felt uneasy. I woke a reconnaissance officer and told him, "Get up, they’re preparing artillery," but he just told me to leave him alone and let him sleep.
But I didn’t relent and woke everyone up. That’s how the full-scale invasion started for us.
On the morning of 24 February we set out to meet a Ukrainian convoy travelling from Lviv Oblast to Luhansk. We got into the car of one of our officers; it had a very low ground clearance and we had to drive through fields where even four-wheel drive vehicles got bogged down. When we passed through Shchastia, we saw that it was being shelled… That was the first time I thought that I should write to my mom, I was not sure I would come out of there alive.
Thank God, we got out, though our car did get bogged down right in front of the column we were there to meet. Shchastia, vegetable gardens, swamps – we made it through all of that, but got bogged down in front of the column. [Smiles]
That’s how the war started for us in Stanytsia.
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