Latest news with #Andriy
American Military News
05-07-2025
- General
- American Military News
Ukrainians Turn Soviet Van Into Modern Warfare Tool To Fight Russian Drones
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission. A clunky Soviet-designed off-road van, has become a tool of modern warfare for Ukrainian soldiers. The Bukhanka, the Russian word for a loaf of bread, may be one of the oldest in-production vehicle designs in the world, but a retrofitted version with a modern electronic warfare system is playing a key role in frontline survival in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Performing its 21st Century call of duty, the vehicle scans the skies for Russian drones, alerting troops of the 68th Jaeger Brigade near Pokrovsk and even intercepting camera feeds being sent back to Russian soldiers. For Yuriy and other soldiers in his brigade, the van and its technology are a life saver. 'If we can see what the drone sees, we can get out before it hits,' he explains as the van is quickly camouflaged to avoid enemy surveillance or kamikaze drones once it arrives in support of the troops. The Pokrovsk sector has become one of the hottest war zones along the front line in Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. The vehicle travels down a road lined with netting, including overhead, to ward off incoming drones. But the netting offers limited protection. 'You're lucky none is flying right now,' says Andriy, an artilleryman. 'At night, it's two or three drones overhead, and then glide bombs. It's a concert starting at 9 p.m.' Andriy's story reflects the broader wartime shift many have endured. Before the full-scale invasion, he worked across Europe, repairing cars in Germany, milking cows in Denmark. After Russia invaded in February 2022, he volunteered to defend Ukraine. Even after being wounded, he refused to leave his unit. 'Here, everything is clear. You know what to do,' he says. Our interview is interrupted as the brigade receives an order to fire. A short circuit delays the self-propelled artillery system, but the crew resolves it in minutes, fires on the target, and immediately moves to a shelter to wait for the likely Russian response. According to Ukraine's General Staff, Pokrovsk is currently experiencing the most intense Russian assault activity of any frontline sector. 'Firing is one thing, return fire? That's when it gets intense,' says one soldier. The Bukhanka may have been around since 1965, but it arrived just in time for Yuriy, Andriy, and their Ukrainian colleagues.
Daily Mirror
30-06-2025
- Daily Mirror
Prisoner of war branded with words ‘Glory to Russia' shares horror ordeal
Ukrainian soldier Andriy Pereverzev said his Russian torturers used a technique they referred to as "Calling Putin" which involved them taking wires from Soviet-era phones and using them to electrocute their prisoners A Ukrainian former prisoner of war has spoken for the first time after Kremlin soldiers branded him with the words "Glory to Russia" on his abdomen. Andriy Pereverzev recalled another barbaric torture method - named 'Calling Putin' - when wires from an old Soviet phone are attached to a victim with an electric current surged through the POW's body. It's believed this could inflict an 80-volt electric shock into the genitals of captives. Andriy said he was captured in February 2024 on the battlefield after being severely wounded. Once in the custody of Putin's fighters, it didn't take long before they turned to torture - electrocuting him in his open wound, seeking to extract any useful intelligence. Andriy has identified himself after his vile branding story was revealed earlier this month following his return home in a prisoner swap, but now he has revealed further horrific details of torture routinely carried out by Putin's troops. He was in hospital after surgery and a Russian nurse said to him: 'Don't worry, when you get home you can remove it or get a tattoo over it.' He said: 'I had no idea what she was talking about. Absolutely none.' A week later when his dressing was being changed by two Russian guards, he 'finally managed to gather enough strength to lift my head off the pillow, just to see what was going on with my stomach.' He strained to examine his midriff - and 'gasped'. 'I lifted my head just to look at my stomach,' he said.'And there it was. 'Glory to Russia.' Burned into my skin with a medical cautery tool. The surgeon did this to me.' Asked what he said, Andriy told Kyiv-based project UNITED24: 'I said, you're all bastards. I'll shoot every one of you.' In response, they 'beat me up'. While changing the bandages 'one of them started poking me in my wounds with his fingers. It hurt like hell.' On another occasion, he was interrogated by suspected FSB agents in balaclavas. 'One guy was sitting at a table typing on a laptop while the other one was torturing me," he said. "He kept hitting me on the ears, punching the back of my head using a stun gun on me. They asked me where my wound was. I pointed to my leg. They ripped off the bandage and started electrocuting me right there directly into the wound. That went on for about 40 minutes.' He revealed another form of torture suffered by his comrades, but not him. 'It's basically a regular old phone,' he said. "Two wires are connected to it like clamps, and they can attach them to any part of your body. Then they crank the phone handle, lift the receiver, and there is this old Soviet style rotary dial on it. 'The higher the number, you dial from 0 to 9, the stronger the electric current. And with each number, the power increases a lot." Last year there were reports of 'Calling Putin' torture used on suspects in the Crucus City Hall massacre in which 145 died and 551 were wounded. In this case, Russian interrogators used a TA-57 military telephone attached to the suspect's genitals. Andriy told how he had been severely wounded when he fell into Russian hands. 'While they were carrying me. I kept asking them, 'Finish me off',' he said. "Just end it, but they didn't….'' They used electric shocks on my open wounds a couple of times, and I started blacking out again.' He said: 'They stripped me, checked my wounds…..My buttock was shredded.' The torture started as soon as he was captured. 'Three hits to the head with a filled five litre plastic bottle. My hands were tied, my eyes were covered. That was their welcome. I fell, blacked out….," he said. 'They used electric shocks on my open wounds a couple of times, and I started blacking out again.' In yet another war crime, he told how 'the guards came in and asked us to recite the Russian national anthem. 'Those who didn't know it were beaten until they couldn't get up.' When he finally got back home, he had lost 35lbs after time in hellhole Russian hospitals and prisons. His daughter, nine, 'didn't recognise me, but I recognised her right away". He continued: "When he went to war in I promised her then that no matter what condition I'd be in. Even without arms, without legs, I'd still come back."
News.com.au
20-06-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Russia might try to take Ukrainian city of Sumy, Putin says
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he did not "rule out" his forces attempting to seize the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, casting fresh doubt over the prospect of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine said Putin's comments showed "disdain" for the peace process. Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have stalled in recent weeks and Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country. Russia currently occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and has claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its assault in 2022, in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014. The Sumy region is not one of the regions Moscow has formally annexed, although Russian forces have recently made inroads there for the first time in three years. At Russia's flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, Putin suggested Moscow could take Sumy as part of the creation of a "buffer zone" along the border and repeated his denial of Ukrainian statehood. "We have no objective to take Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out... They pose a constant threat to us, constantly shelling the border areas," Putin said. "I consider Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. In that sense, all of Ukraine is ours," he told attendees, when asked why his army was entering areas Moscow did not claim as its own. "There is a saying: wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that is ours." Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga described Putin's comments as "deranged" and called for Kyiv's allies to slap "devastating sanctions" on Russia. "The only way to force Russia into peace is to deprive it of its sense of impunity," he wrote in a post on X. - 'They are creating problems' - Putin's widening territorial ambitions are likely to roil Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has accused Moscow of not wanting to end the fighting. The two sides held rounds of direct talks in Istanbul in May and in June, but Kyiv accused Moscow of sending "dummy" negotiators with no real power to enact a peace deal. Putin has declined to take part in the peace talks in person and on Thursday said he would only meet Zelensky during a "final phase" of negotiations on ending the three-year conflict. He has also insisted Ukraine give up territory it already controls for peace. Kyiv says it cannot and will not accept Russian occupation of any part of its land. In his address Friday, Putin denied he was calling for Ukraine to "capitulate". "We are not seeking Ukraine's surrender. We insist on recognition of the realities that have developed on the ground," the Russian leader said. Putin repeated that Moscow was "advancing on all fronts" and that his troops had penetrated up to 12 kilometres (seven miles) into the Sumy region. He also accused Kyiv of "stupidity" by launching an incursion into Russia's Kursk region last August. "They are creating problems for themselves," he said.
IOL News
18-06-2025
- Health
- IOL News
Father and son perform surgery underground in Ukraine
A serviceman steps out of an evacuation vehicle after suffering a shrapnel wound to the thigh from a drone-dropped munition. The hospital's fortified access route allows soldiers to be brought directly into the underground medical complex. JUST a few miles from the front line in eastern Ukraine, almost 20 feet below the surface, the day begins with a brief five-minute exchange between two surgeons - a father and his son. They embrace, swap a few words about the night shift and that evening's Champions League soccer match, then part ways again - one to rest, the other to begin another 48-hour shift in the underground field hospital where they work. Viacheslav, the father, is a trauma specialist with combat experience dating back to 2015 and the war against Russian-backed separatists in Luhansk. His son Andriy joined his medical unit in 2023. Once they worked together in a district hospital to the west, in a small town near the Moldovan border. Now they work underground. When Andriy arrived for his first stint as a combat surgeon, there was little time for reflection. 'I just worked,' he said. It was here that he performed his first amputations - sometimes five in a row. 'After the fifth one, it really got to me. But people adapt. Then shelling starts, and you don't even flinch. You just think, 'It won't hit here.'' But often it does, and that's why they sought safety in the earth. The hospital is a prototype, a new approach, after years of what the Ukrainians characterise as the systematic Russian targeting of their medical facilities. 'Medics are especially vulnerable,' said Lt. Col. Yuriy Palamarchuk, the head of the hospital's surgical unit. 'They're not hiding behind armor. In field evacuations, they think of no one but the wounded. The Russians know this - they hunt medics. It's targeted terror.' Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about targeting field medical facilities, which is a war crime. Capt. Oleksii oversees the facility, which he said they built on their own with the help of donations after other facilities near the front lines were hit. 'If we'd assumed from the start that Russia wouldn't fight by the rules, maybe we'd have built differently. Back then, we used NATO-style field hospitals - modular, clean, visible. Too visible. They were easy targets.' The structure is a combination of wood and metal barrels sunk into the ground - but not with concrete, which the medics fear would have attracted too much attention from Russian surveillance drones. Palamarchuk said the hospital has endured several near misses - explosions within 10 to 20 yards. At the heart of the hospital lies the triage platform flanked by two operating theaters and then a recovery area. There are no beds as the patients don't stay for long and are sent on as soon as they are stable. 'We stabilize, operate and resuscitate. But we don't hospitalise. No beds. No overnight stays. You wake the patient up - and send them out,' Oleksii said. 'If we have enough vehicles, we can take 200 to 400 people a day.' That night, everything was calm. The silence underground was so deep it was easy to forget that war raged just a few miles away. In the rest area, someone was on the PlayStation. Another medic read a book in the freshly cleaned operating room. A few were already settling into bed. Just as darkness fell, a signal announced an incoming evacuation vehicle, but it was being tailed by a Russian drone. Inside the vehicle were three lightly wounded soldiers. They walked on their own into the intake area. Their uniforms were removed - whether stained with blood or caked in mud - and replaced with pajamas and soft pink slippers. The slippers drew laughter, even amid the pain. When everything quieted, distant explosions resumed - walls trembled, earth fell from wooden beams above. The medics were already asleep, as though they hadn't treated Viacheslav admits he's nearly out of strength - but as long as he's still here, it means there's something left. 'Today was my daughter's last day of school,' he added. 'I watched the video. And it was enough.'
Washington Post
15-06-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Ukraine's field hospitals keep getting hit, so they are moving underground
Just a few miles from the front line in eastern Ukraine, almost 20 feet below the surface, the day begins with a brief five-minute exchange between two surgeons — a father and his son. They embrace, swap a few words about the night shift and that evening's Champions League soccer match, then part ways again — one to rest, the other to begin another 48-hour shift in the underground field hospital where they work. Viacheslav, the father, is a trauma specialist with combat experience dating back to 2015 and the war against Russian-backed separatists in Luhansk. His son Andriy joined his medical unit in 2023. Once they worked together in a district hospital to the west, in a small town near the Moldovan border. Now they work underground. When Andriy arrived for his first stint as a combat surgeon, there was little time for reflection. 'I just worked,' he said. It was here that he performed his first amputations — sometimes five in a row. 'After the fifth one, it really got to me. But people adapt. Then shelling starts, and you don't even flinch. You just think, 'It won't hit here.'' But often it does, and that's why they sought safety in the earth. The hospital is a prototype, a new approach, after years of what the Ukrainians characterize as the systematic Russian targeting of their medical facilities. Everyone there had stories of medical colleagues killed after a field hospital was hit: Denis, killed by an Iskander ballistic missile; Kolya, killed by a guided bomb. 'Medics are especially vulnerable,' said Lt. Col. Yuriy Palamarchuk, the head of the hospital's surgical unit. 'They're not hiding behind armor. In field evacuations, they think of no one but the wounded. The Russians know this — they hunt medics. It's targeted terror.' Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about targeting field medical facilities, which is a war crime. Capt. Oleksii oversees the facility, which he said they built on their own with the help of donations after other facilities near the front lines were hit. He commented ruefully that they should have done this years ago. Like the surgeons, he spoke on the condition that his last name not be used to preserve his and the hospital's anonymity. 'If we'd assumed from the start that Russia wouldn't fight by the rules, maybe we'd have built differently. Back then, we used NATO-style field hospitals — modular, clean, visible. Too visible. They were easy targets.' 'Command centers have long been underground — with generators, comms, protection. We asked: If that works for battle control, why not for saving lives? And it does — no one had done it systematically,' Oleksii said. He hoped the example of his hospital would be picked up by the government and built elsewhere. For now it is the exception. The structure is a combination of wood and metal barrels sunk into the ground — but not with concrete, which the medics fear would have attracted too much attention from Russian surveillance drones. Palamarchuk said the hospital has endured several near misses — explosions within 10 to 20 yards. 'We felt the shock wave from the front row — doors skewed, floors sagged — but we kept working.' He noted that the damage around the site is extensive: 'Six bombs fell nearby last month. All surrounding buildings are destroyed — but the hospital stands.' Not for lack of Russian effort, however. They believe the Russians know something is here. Already a flight of the dreaded glide bombs — massive Soviet-era ordnance with crude guidance systems and immense destructive power, known as KABs — landed nearby. 'Either it was random, or a very precise coincidence,' Oleksii said. 'No direct hit.' But they know the structure can't withstand a KAB with its more than 500-pound warhead. 'That would destroy everything. But artillery, shrapnel, near misses — that we can handle.' At the heart of the hospital lies the triage platform flanked by two operating theaters and then a recovery area. There are no beds as the patients don't stay for long and are sent on as soon as they are stable. 'We stabilize, operate and resuscitate. But we don't hospitalize. No beds. No overnight stays. You wake the patient up — and send them out,' Oleksii said. 'If we have enough vehicles, we can take 200 to 400 people a day.' That night, everything was calm. The silence underground was so deep it was easy to forget that war raged just a few miles away. In the rest area, someone was on the PlayStation. Another medic read a book in the freshly cleaned operating room. A few were already settling into bed. Just as darkness fell, a signal announced an incoming evacuation vehicle, but it was being tailed by a Russian drone. The team waited calmly as the vehicle maneuvered to lose the tracker. Inside the vehicle were three lightly wounded soldiers. They walked on their own into the intake area. Their uniforms were removed — whether stained with blood or caked in mud — and replaced with pajamas and soft pink slippers. The slippers drew laughter, even amid the pain. Andriy Dmytruk described his unit's narrow escape from a drone strike. Ordered to retreat, he fled through one house. Just as he got inside, an explosion shook the walls. Smoke and dust filled the room. Lights cut out. 'I couldn't breathe,' he said. He fled to another building and then another as explosions went off around him. Inside, he threw a rug over a table and crawled underneath. Drones buzzed overhead. He powered off his phone to avoid detection. Then came the smell — sharp and acrid. He wet a scarf with bottled water, tied it over his mouth and nose, and stayed still. His eyes burned. He thinks he lay there for at least two hours. When the noise faded, Dmytruk escaped and found his comrades. It took nearly a full day for them to reach the evacuation point, where they were finally transported to the hospital. They arrived courtesy of 58‑year‑old paramedic Oleksandr Smolyar, who before the war spent 31 years in prison medicine and since 2022 has worked on front lines in Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. He appreciated the new underground hospital. 'You drive in for a second or two — you're indoors. Above ground, you're visible — a target,' he said. His profession was running out of people, he lamented, and where once two medics would handle an evacuation, now it was just one. When everything quieted, distant explosions resumed — walls trembled, earth fell from wooden beams above. The medics were already asleep, as though they hadn't treated half a dozen wounded just minutes before. Everyone knew, however, that more casualties would be on their way as the weather warmed and the summer fighting season began once more. 'Everyone says Russia will try again, but they already are. As soon as the weather warmed up — the pressure started,' Oleksii said. 'Everything is shifting in our direction. And not in a good way.' Yet amid all the fighting, whispers of peace talks persist — statements of ceasefires or negotiations. Meanwhile, shifts in global politics are destabilizing supplies. 'One charity told me plainly: Since the new U.S. president, purchases have gotten harder,' he said. 'They can still send bandages, syringes. But advanced, higher‑tech gear? Not anymore. There's no money.' The hospital has a laparoscope, allowing for minimally invasive surgeries — but sterilizing its delicate camera requires a plasma sterilizer, not a conventional autoclave. 'A regular autoclave can be found. But plasma sterilizer? Without it, the camera needs replacing every year.' 'These high‑tech items are outside the standard budget,' Oleksii said. 'There was a time when those same funds could help with things like this. Now they can't. We haven't stopped, but it's become much harder to move forward.' Natalia Chernokoz, an operating room nurse, wants the war to end — but not at any cost. 'Maybe negotiations,' she said, 'but only on normal terms. Not just surrender.' She fears a premature peace could lead to another cycle of violence. 'Like we make a deal — and then in a year, it starts again. There need to be some guarantees.' She thinks of the children already affected by the war. 'We can't let it touch another generation,' she said. 'They need to see strength,' she added, referring to the Russians. 'I don't think anything else gets through.' Viacheslav admits he's nearly out of strength — but as long as he's still here, it means there's something left. He dreams of returning home with his son. Waiting for them are his wife, two daughters, elderly mother — and a house in need of some care. 'A gate that needs fixing. A faucet that leaks. Something to prop up by the porch,' he said, smiling. Since 2023, he's kept a ritual: a daily game of solitaire. 'If the cards fall right — it's time for demobilization.' This year, they seem to be falling into place. 'If not,' he said with a laugh, 'then next year. It's already the third year like that.' 'Today was my daughter's last day of school,' he added. 'I watched the video. And it was enough.'
