Drone pilot Viktor doesn’t see why the Russian invaders deserve to be spared when he has them in his sights.
‘Why should we feel sorry for them? They have no mercy on us when they come in and kill our people,” he says in the scathing BBC documentary Ukraine: Enemy in the Forest.
He speaks while shocking images show the moment a grenade is thrown from a drone.
When it hits the ground and explodes, two Russians running for their lives are knocked down. Only one gets back up and continues fleeing.
Another clip shows a Ukrainian soldier being shot in the finger and collarbone by an enemy hiding in the trees.
He holds up his bloody finger before a doctor examines the entry wound on his body in a shelter that evokes memories of the trench conflict of the First World War.
The new documentary, which aired last night, follows the 99 soldiers of Berlingo Company as they defend 500 meters of the 1,500-kilometer (about 930-mile) front line. The company suffered difficulties like no other during the seven weeks that director Jamie Roberts was with them.
The soldier, affectionately called “uncle”, was seen being examined in a makeshift shelter after being shot.
Ukraine has been using FPV drones to attack Russian targets
Of the 99 it started with, ten were killed, while another 66 were so seriously wounded that they could no longer fight: the company had a casualty rate of 76%.
It comes more than two years after Vladimir Putin’s Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Vovan, the commander of the Berlingo battalion, has nicknames for all his men: Skull, Goblin, Dancer and Guru.
One of the 99 is the doctor Natalia. Before the war she was a veterinarian, but now she uses her medical knowledge to treat her comrades.
An old man tells her as she bandages him: “I’m an old man, I’ll heal like a dog.”
But despite his training, he admits that losing so many people in his company is hard.
Vovan (pictured) is the Berlingo company commander.
Doctor Natalia (pictured) has been trying to keep the company together.
The Berlingo company suffered numerous casualties during the seven weeks that director Jamie Roberts was embedded with them.
She told the documentary’s creators: ‘More than half of them have disappeared. It’s hard for the kids here. I have become more confident, perhaps tougher in some ways. No emotions for certain moments in life.’
Ukrainian troops also use FPV (first-person view) drones, which they pilot with virtual reality headsets.
Viktor is seen guiding his death machine into a ruined building moments after a Russian drone pilot seeks refuge inside.
The drone flies towards the building before exploding.
“He just walked into the house and we knocked on his door with our FPV,” he says.
Denys, another drone pilot, adds: “I don’t see them as individuals I can feel sorry for. You came armed to visit your ‘brothers’ as you call us.
‘Well, as you came, so you shall go.’
Maxsym, who is only 19, says that more Russians are coming every day to replace those they have killed.
Berlingo company in a snowy Ukrainian forest with a grenade launcher
The body camera footage shows the immense damage the Russians are causing to the Ukrainian side.
One clip showed Ukrainian troops dropping bombs on Russian soldiers.
Soldiers fight at all hours of the day to ensure Russia does not break through
“They just die, but they keep coming and coming.”
Dmytro, a company commander, adds: “We kill a thousand, they send another thousand.”
But body camera footage shows the immense damage the Russians are doing to the Ukrainian side.
In one scene, troops are forced to treat a comrade who groans in pain after being shot in the left side of his body in the field.
Despite the terror of the incoming fire, they manage to joke around, and one soldier asks the wounded man, affectionately called “Uncle,” “Fuck me, why are you so careless?”
The ‘dude’ crawls towards a makeshift trench covered in leaves, before running towards a deeper trench with more supplies, where his comrades can determine that he was shot in the collarbone and can treat him there.
A man, known as “uncle,” was shot in the finger and collarbone
Vlad (pictured) is only 19 years old, but he holds a respected position in the Berlingo company.
Denis is one of Berlingo’s drone operators (pictured)
The stark footage shows the man sitting calmly as other soldiers assess the wound, which went through his collarbone before becoming trapped behind him.
But in a war of attrition that has left nearly 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead as of March 2023, according to the UALosses project, infantrymen simply don’t have the time to deal with it properly. ‘Come on, wrap it up. It doesn’t bleed anymore,” one tells the doctor.
Four more soldiers are then forced to carry him out of combat, putting their own lives at risk as they put away their weapons to carry their comrade first across open fields, before passing through dense thicket, as the wounded man groans in agony.
The Berlingo company constantly remembers their fallen comrades, who sleep on a pile of their personal belongings in the small house they use as a base at the front.
Since only a few of them can fit in the house at a time, most of the company sleeps in shelters in the countryside, risking their lives so that some of them can stay warm and eat hot meals.
The Berlingo company constantly remembers its fallen comrades.
The ‘dude’ was forced into a trench after being shot.
The Russian invasion has claimed thousands of lives on both sides, as either Moscow or kyiv are making little progress.
Beyond the bitter conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has been trying to turn the world against kyiv by spinning the tragic massacre in Moscow in his favor.
Those in the field are under constant threat of Russian fire, and it is up to the Berlingo troops to ensure they survive the night.
On a fateful trip to the countryside to check on two troops, nicknamed Fury and Adidas, after they haven’t been heard from in a long time, Vovan ends up finding their bodies in their shelter.
Unsure who is behind the small cloth curtain at the entrance to the mini-trench, he slowly pulls it back with his gun raised, only to find their long-dead bodies lying side by side.
Vovan orders several soldiers to take his remains to their base, while stealthily approaching the location of two Russian soldiers hiding in their trench.
The commander can be seen sneaking up to the trench, where enemy soldiers are crawling.
Against all odds, he manages to crouch down and fire several bullets at them from just a few meters away.
To make sure they were dead, he fired a few more bullets at them, accidentally detonating a grenade they were carrying, which he managed to avoid.
Running back to a defensive position, he sees one last Russian still alive and well.
Sneaking back to his trench, he prepares and fires several bullets at him, finishing him off.
The Russian invasion has claimed thousands of lives on both sides, as either Moscow or kyiv are making little progress.
When Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was asked on Tuesday whether an additional wave of mobilization would be necessary to secure a buffer zone protecting Russian territory from Ukrainian attack, he called the idea “nonsense,” the state agency reported. RIA news.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this month that Moscow may need to occupy a buffer zone to protect the Belgorod region, which in recent months has come under heavy attack by Kiev forces across the border in Ukraine. .
Beyond the bitter conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has been trying to turn the world against Kiev by turning the tragic massacre in Moscow in his favor, claiming that ISIS terrorists would be welcomed in Ukraine as “heroes.”