On the evening of November 1, Russian forces carried out a rocket and drone attack on one of the villages in Dnipropetrovsk region. In the following days, it became known that among the dead and wounded were servicemen from the 35th Marine Brigade, who had arrived for an award ceremony. This was confirmed by the relatives of the victims, who noted that the brigade did not provide them with adequate information about the incident.
This is reported by Rivne24
Journalists had the opportunity to speak with a serviceman who also arrived for the award ceremony on November 1. We publish his testimony, provided anonymously for security reasons.
According to the serviceman, it was the anniversary of the battalion’s formation, and a formal award ceremony with bonfires and torches was planned. “We were given two locations to go to. My comrades and I were in the first group, in the forest, where the torches were being lit. One of my comrades was at the second point, near a store. The alarm had been going off for a while. We were heading there without a navigator because it simply wasn’t working due to the alarm. The weather was gloomy, and no drones or rockets were flying above us. Most likely, someone from our side ‘leaked’ our positions. They knew these two points and struck 15 minutes after the award ceremony was supposed to begin,” he recounted.
When the soldiers arrived in the forest, the commander ordered them to wait. “We stood about 100 meters from the torches. About 15 minutes later, an ‘Iskander’ hit that spot. We didn’t hear anything — there was an explosion, and we fell. One guy who was standing near us had his leg shattered, another had injuries to his shoulder. We were just lucky that we were waiting and not standing where the ceremony was taking place. Everyone who was there — 200. I can’t say exactly how many, but three people definitely died. Their bodies could not be found at night; they remained there until morning. If we had all been at that point, we would have all been killed,” he added.
After the explosion, the soldiers tried to leave the scene, but then they heard the strikes of ‘Shaheds’ again.
“I personally didn’t hear when the strike hit the second point, near the store. When we were leaving the forest, we saw that something was burning in the village itself. One of the soldiers wrote in the group: ‘call ambulances to the village,’ as there were wounded. He himself was seriously injured and later died in the hospital,” the serviceman noted.
They returned to the village because one of the comrades who was near the store had not been in contact. “The medics reported that eight had died, forty were wounded, and six were missing. This was all among the military. We wanted to retrieve the bodies, but the police said everything had to go through the morgue. At the morgue, we did not find our comrade during identification. We searched for him among the wounded in the hospital until he managed to call us himself. He had been injured,” the serviceman added.
“Why did I agree to talk to journalists? Because people need to know the truth. I just put myself in the place of my comrades’ wives, my own wife. Or I put myself in the place of the fallen guys. Their relatives know nothing at all. They are told nothing. This is simply negligence on the part of the command because the alarm had already been sounded. Everyone should have left the area within ten kilometers,” the serviceman concluded.
It is worth noting that during this strike, a soldier from Rivne Oblast, Nesteruk Petro Volodymyrovych, who lived in the Ostroh community, was killed.