A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Russia’s Wagner PMC mercenaries said the fighters are “tireless” and “didn’t stop coming” during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
“We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn’t like just waves – it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn’t stop coming,” the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 200 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a “frightening and surreal experience.”
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a “zombie movie.”
“They’re climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them like zombies,” he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be “getting some drugs before the attack.”Andriy said their machine gunner was “almost going crazy” because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
“He said, ‘I know I shot him, but he doesn’t fall,'” Andriy told CNN. “And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down.”
The soldier said his group’s AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner’s attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers – mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin “digging into position,” Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land “step by step,” moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more in an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy’s group was surrounded. “We didn’t expect them to come from there,” he told CNN.
“We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation,” he told CNN.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia’s war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group’s fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines, sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops, and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
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