“Their shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ drowned out our footsteps as we approached from the back”: Confessions of Ukrainian scouts

RU

“In fact, the Kursk operation began as early as March 2024”

Call sign “Cap.” Commander of the reconnaissance group of a separate HUR Special Forces unit

I started my military career in 2000 but became disillusioned with our government in 2018 and retired as a reconnaissance company commander. On Feb. 17, 2022, a friend called me and told me there would be a full-scale invasion. I decided to resume service. At that moment, everyone understood what was about to happen: we have special units that intercept conversations. Some operational units had seen Russian vehicles being pulled up by rail to the borders with Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions. Everyone understood this was not an exercise.

On the night of Feb. 24, my entire family was at home. When the first explosions sounded at four in the morning, my wife got out of bed and said, ‘The war must have started.’ I knew she would not go anywhere without me, so I decided to play a little trick. I said, ‘Let’s go stay with our friends near Kyiv until we know more.’ We spent the next twenty-four hours there, and on Feb. 26, I said I had to go home to get my hunting rifle to protect them. Instead, I joined the reconnaissance forces.

At first, my group worked in the Chernihiv sector. Our main objective was to detect the accumulation of enemy forces and track their movements. We worked covertly: it is forbidden to engage the enemy, as our only task is to collect and transmit information to the command. Several times we found Russian military convoys. Once, we noticed a convoy near the village of Lisne, Chernihiv Region. We relayed the information and immediately withdrew a few kilometers back. After the air force carried out a strike, we went back in to confirm the hit.

Sometimes the task was to capture the enemy for information. From these captives we learn what unit and how many troops are in a particular area, where their headquarters is, how many rapid response teams they have, and where and how many nearby relief forces they can summon. Unfortunately, we haven’t captured any high-ranking officers that could tell us more.

During the Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2022, we worked in the Kharkiv sector, identifying enemy gun posts and alerting our combat units on the offensive. There had been a lot of talk about a big offensive towards Kherson, but it turned out to be headed towards Kharkiv instead.

Our job was to move out a couple of hours ahead of everyone else and transmit coordinates of the enemy and enemy weapons. We went into villages with orcs still inside. I can't call them people or soldiers. And we were constantly passing along information: how many enemy combat units, how many personnel. When the Russians saw our vehicles approaching, they literally ran, as they did in the Kherson sector. According to Russian TV, it was a planned withdrawal. But it wasn't. They got scared and bolted.

Preparations for the Kursk operation began as early as March 2024. The most interesting thing was when we came to the border between Ukraine and Russia's Belgorod Region near the village of Zhuravlevka. When you're looking at a 300-meter-wide mined field with nowhere to hide, and you have to pass unnoticed to scout drones, you have to go about it very slowly and carefully. It's very painstaking work.

We crossed the minefield, found some safe roads, went into Russian territory, reached Zhuravlevka, and then turned around. Our job was to lay out routes for assault groups, which were supposed to go in and make some noise.

The next day, we led two assault groups into Russian territory and stayed behind to cover them. Their main task was to conduct combat reconnaissance, identify firing points, and start the active phase while our artillery worked on the firing points. Our assault fighters were to keep Russian rapid response groups busy in this sector to provide us with a breakthrough northward, in the Kursk Region.

We acted very slowly so that Russia would not even think there was a large grouping of Ukrainian units there. In the meantime, the Belarusian battalion, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and others made a few sorties. Their job was to divert the enemy's attention from the Sumy Region, where we were concentrating all our forces. As a result, there was complete silence in the vicinity of Sumy, and the Russians did not see any active movement there.

On one occasion, our unit took out a group of St. Petersburg drone pilots. We were on a surveillance mission, but while going into position we noticed a group of enemy drones, so we decided to take it upon ourselves without a command to eliminate all of their operators. We approached them, took them out, and left. No one saw us.

I met [head of Chechnya Ramzan] Kadyrov's ‘TikTok troops’ for the first time in Ilovaisk. It wasn't hard to recognize them: they were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar.’ We were then helping other units to clear Ilovaisk, and the Kadyrovites were trying to fight us off. One morning, my lookout guy (he died, unfortunately) woke me up and said he'd noticed a small group moving in our direction.

I woke up two machine gunners, but the Kadyrovites never reached us. They went in the direction of the main forces and opened fire on them. So I took these same two machine gunners and a guy with an assault rifle, and we just went around them from the back. None of them even bothered to look. Their loud shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ drowned out our footsteps. We crept up on them and did our job. Their fire was quickly suppressed.

From personal experience, I can say that the losses of the Russian forces are enormous. During every operation, for two of our people killed, they have 14 or even 20 unit members dead. It's their inexperience that kills them. Russians are being thrown into combat without proper training, like cannon fodder. Whereas our training is given a lot of attention — we can train abroad, honing a variety of skills — they get a month of boot camp, fire three shots, and that's it — they are considered ready for the trenches.

“I finished school a year ago, and now I'm sitting in an ambush with an assault rifle”

Callsign “Young One.” Fighter of the reconnaissance group of a separate HUR Special Forces unit

I went to war when the full-scale invasion began. I was 18 years old. Before that, I practiced freestyle wrestling. I hold the title of ‘candidate for master of sport’ and wanted to further my athletic career.

On the night of Feb. 24, a friend of mine called me: ‘It's started. Grab your documents and essentials.’ He also gave me the coordinates. I woke my mom up and told her, ‘Mom, a war has begun. I'm going to go to the boys for half an hour, find out what's going on, and I'll be back.’ She was furious: ‘No, you're not going anywhere. You've only just turned 18!’ We had an argument, and I left. She was calling me all day afterward, begging me to come back, saying I was just a kid.

To make a long story short, I didn't see her again until a year and a half later. I even teared up because I hadn't thought I would see her again — or that I would make it home at all. She also cried for a long time, begging me not to leave again. I told her I couldn't do that. But she already understood it was my conscious choice, not youthful maximalism.

Our group of volunteers was split up. The majority were sent to Irpin, but the four of us, all between 18 and 20 years old, stayed in Kyiv. They issued us weapons and explained how to use them. We were all scared because there had been reports of Russian sabotage groups operating in Kyiv.

We were told that Russian paratroopers should land in the center of Kyiv, enter the presidential office building, and kill Volodymyr Zelensky. We were assigned to guard the sector of the presumed landing site. We sat in one of the buildings for twenty-four hours, hardly even moving around so as not to make a sound. Only our adrenaline kept us going.

Some two weeks prior I'd been going to the gym. A year earlier I'd finished high school — and here I was, sitting in an ambush with an assault rifle. But the landing party never reached us. They were defeated somewhere nearby. There were several such attempts to break into the center of Kyiv. On another occasion, our job was to go fetch humanitarian aid. We're driving along, and there's a white bus on the road. Bullet holes all over the windshield, blood everywhere. We were told there had also been Russian saboteurs on the bus.

Then we were sent to Irpin. Since we were all young guys without any combat experience, our job was to guard artillery from sabotage groups.

I remember my first direct combat experience. At first, there was a moment of stupor. I did everything on autopilot, as there was no time to think. I crouched down and opened fire. Everything was happening very quickly. I don't even have words to describe it. There was excitement, adrenaline. I was getting a lot of mixed feelings. I had thoughts at first that my enemy was human too, that he probably had a family. But those thoughts were soon gone. These days, when the fighting happens, I treat it like a job. I don't have any feelings anymore. It's a job.

We ran into Wagner fighters during the defense of Bakhmut. They were ‘career officers’ who knew battlefield tactics and moved with sector overlap. But their main tactic was always meat-grinder assaults. Our boys were even keeping count: who would kill more of them in 24 hours? A guy once shot 12 men with a rifle during his shift.

Basically, they threw meat at us — poor-quality meat, so to speak. There were convicts with hepatitis or HIV — they wore bracelets of different colors on their hands for identification.

After Bakhmut, I asked to join the scouts. Before that, I had only imagined this job from the movies. For instance, a crew wearing bucket hats and headphones walks through the forest, through the jungle, quietly approaches the enemy, gathers information, and quietly leaves. In reality, of course, this happens too. A few times, we, too, quietly entered the forest and gathered intelligence in a certain location. And quietly left. But in most cases, it's much more complicated than that. It's a very demanding job, physically and mentally. Sometimes I feel exhausted. But I never feel that I don't belong here.

“The wall of my house in Irpin was knocked down with a blast. After that, I asked to join the scouts”

Call sign “Scythian.” Tactical medic of the reconnaissance group of a separate HUR Special Forces unit

I joined the army in 2015, at the age of 18. First I served in a volunteer unit, then I signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and I resigned after being wounded. When the war began, I lived in Irpin, and on Feb. 27, I joined the Territorial Defense Forces.

I was in the city when Russian units came in from the direction of Bucha. There were groups of snipers who committed all these atrocities, shooting up civilian cars. I emphasize — civilian cars with no soldiers in them and no signs to suggest otherwise.

There was constant shelling, airstrikes, infrastructure facilities and gas stations being blown up. In Irpin, fighting inside the city unfolded as civilians tried to flee. People ran from their homes down the main street. In the meantime, shelling continued, and there was no evacuation corridor. That's why there were so many civilian casualties there.

I was in Irpin right after the Russian army retreated. Burnt-down houses everywhere, roads strewn with corpses. There was no wall in my house — a shell had exploded there. A [Russian] Buryat unit had been into the house and had looted everything they could: washing machines, toilets.

After that, I asked to join the scouts. It is an elite unit with good training, a lot of innovation, the right approach to service, a developed command, and the right approach to human resources. I can really say they are the elite.

The scouts' main job is to gather intelligence. We have to remain undetected, so I had no contact with the enemy — which is the point. The Kadyrovites, for example, rarely engage first. They come in after either infantry or airborne units. They all have very good equipment, so we always joke: shoot Kadyrovites in the head, not in the chest, so as not to damage the trophy equipment.

I treat our work as an art. We work as a single organism. Scouting is a team sport. And the war itself is a team sport. Any mission is naturally an adrenaline rush — overcoming yourself, giving something up. For example, once I had to crawl through a swamp for a very long time. We practically swam in it — not my idea of fun.

It was easier for me because I already had military experience, but in 2015 the fighting wasn't as intense. And technology has changed a lot. A drone used to be a kind of UFO. Now GPS is being used extensively, with drones peeping into every crevice. Aviation wasn't as present either. As a result, all tactics have changed a lot.