In a desperate bid to delay the Russian advance, a Ukrainian soldier blew himself on a bridge in the southern province of Kherson on Saturday. The soldier, a marine battalion engineer, was standing on a bridge connecting the mainland of Ukraine and Russia-occupied Crimea when he blew himself up and in turn thwarted the approaching Russian tank.
As per reports, Volodymyrovych had volunteered to rig the bridge, a key strategic point linking Crimea and mainland Ukraine, with mines and hence was deployed to the Henichesk bridge when the Russian tanks entered the area. As the Russian forces raced towards him, the soldier realized he did not have enough time to set the fuse and get to safety and he blew himself up to destroy the bridge.
The soldier’s sacrifice however did not go in vain as it significantly slowed down the advancement of the enemy, allowing the military unit to redeploy and reorganize its defenses, a statement by the Ukrainian military read.
Taking to Facebook, the military also posted a photo of the brave soldier thereby hailing him as a hero.
“On this difficult day, when the Russian occupiers are attacking Ukraine in all directions, one of the hardest places on the map of Ukraine was the Crimean intersection, where one of the first enemies met a separate marine battalion. In order to stop the tank column, a decision was made to overthrow the Geniche Car Bridge,” the military’s statement said.
The statement concluded, “We will fight as long as we live! And as long as we are alive we will fight!”
The soldier, Skakun Vitaliy Volodymyrovich, will be given a state award posthumously for his bravery.
The Russia-Ukraine war entered the third day on Saturday with the capital Kyiv coming under attack. This comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday. Since then, more than 130 Ukrainian ‘heroes’ have been killed, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At present, Ukrainians have taken up arms while Russia is neither ready to retreat, despite countries imposing sanctions on them.
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