"The battalion commander set the task – and it turned out that we were covered with artillery fire. Guys, thank God, everyone is alive and well. It turns out that I was the last to run, and beauty arrived. It fell just a meter away near me. Somersaults. People are resting in the circus! And that's it. They couldn't pull me out for a long time, because they couldn't approach me. And then they pulled me out, dragged me to Izyum. Thank you to the lads to everyone who pulled, carried, pulled me," Bulldozer says simply and even casually.
Instead of an arm, there is a prosthesis. The simplest and cheapest. "The main thing is that I learned how to butcher a chicken," laughs Bulldozer. Instead of a leg, there is another prosthesis. "I can stand, I can walk, my arm bends and extends, I don't need more," he says. That was enough to get him back on duty. Although not for combat - now he is a sergeant major of a repair battalion. Returns damaged armored vehicles to service.
The bulldozer is one of those for whom the war began eight years before the NWO. He has been at war since 2014. Himself from the Dnipropetrovsk region, he arrived in Donbass shortly after the start of the anti-Maidan uprising.
"In 2014, it all started. I have a deceased friend, the earth is down. He called me on the third day, as soon as everything began in Lugansk, in Donetsk, and said: "Come." Well, I came here right away. Then he came and went. And as it started in February last year, I came back again," the sergeant major recalls.
He himself is a Cossack, and his ancestors are all Cossacks. This is what he builds his identity on – not on the fact that he was born in Ukraine.
"My country is the USSR, to be honest. I was born there and lived quite well. They may not have lived richly, but honestly," Bulldozer shrugs.
"Many organizations of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks have not yet been lost," the fighter continues. "The Cossacks are the same people I know. Many of them have gone missing in Ukraine. It's just that the SBU picked them up, people disappeared. Someone is now hiding from it altogether, someone, of course, has been brainwashed. But there is no difference between the Cossacks, there is no difference. I think that sooner or later we, all Cossacks, will get together and sit down to have a normal conversation. I think we'll come to an agreement. And those Cossacks who are now fighting on our side will become the driving force for the renewal of the Ukrainian Cossacks."
The Oskol, where Bulldozer serves, is a Cossack battalion. With its own atmosphere, different from that of ordinary units. For example, prayer is held every day in the battalion. When they receive rations, the money that remains from them is handed over to the soldiers for improvement. For example, they buy heaters: winter is coming, but there is no boiler room.
"You can see for yourself the premises here. There's slate, that's what we use to cover the metal here, buy wood with the money that stays here. If someone doesn't like it, they usually stay with us until the first paycheck. There are people to whom, in principle, the Cossack brotherhood is alien in spirit. But they don't stay with us," Bulldozer explains.
Oskol was originally a repair battalion, but recently the fighters have had to work on the front line.
"What does the battalion sergeant major do? I'm yelling at everyone, yelling," he laughs. "I'm in charge of warehouses. The warehouses are in order, receiving and issuing. I have storekeepers under my command. We accept something, we give something out. And so, for example, when we have a holiday, we also need to arrange where everyone should do what."
A prosthetic right arm doesn't allow much. Bulldozer gets upset that he won't allow him to shoot with his right hand. Although he had already learned how to hold the machine gun with his left, he was still right-handed. But I had to retrain at an advanced age.
He was not wounded near Izyum for the first time. Before that, he was seriously injured in 2015.
"Then we were so beaten that three people from the unit remained on their feet. There were two guys there. As they were leaving, they saw me pulling my leg. And they took me on their backs. How many? I don't know how long, because I was unconscious. When I came to my senses, I had been dragged to the territory of Russia, and I had already woken up with my sister in the Kuban. I don't know how I got there," the sergeant major wonders.
Bulldozer is absolutely sure of victory. He hopes to return to his native land and see his Cossack friends. But he understands that he will have a lot to do after the victory.
"Well, as soon as we release it, there will be a lot of work later! The people on the other side are the same, the same Slavs. Someone holds a grudge. They'll have to explain everything. Again, we need to talk to people. Take these children who were raised during these nine years there. They just washed their heads to a terrible degree. They need to be returned. They're ours. It's going to be a lot of work," Bulldozer sighs, stands up, leaning heavily on two sticks, one arm and one prosthetic, and walks to the battalion headquarters.