The Azov battalion is back home
However, 150 soldiers will go back to the front in just eight days
Family members, friends, and all concerned citizens were waiting for the soldiers from the early morning in Sofiivska Square. Olha Kriak, who has been doing volunteer work for the battalion, met the boys with a bouquet of yellow and blue chrysanthemums. She works for the Azov’s human resources department at the unit’s base camp and has been ordering personal files of soldiers, but the girl dreams of going into battle with them one day. “I feel strongly for these boys. I live at the Azov’s training camp and we have really become friends due to all the time we spent together there. Still, I, of course, wait for my boyfriend, who I have not seen for two months, more than for anyone else. He has gone there in early July, was at Mariinka and Ilovaisk, and generally participated in all of the most hard-fought battles of our battalion.”
The welcoming crowd included also the battalion’s veteran going by his callsign Staf, who had to leave the service a month ago due to injury and loss of a leg. “I had been to many places,” Staf told us, “but it was Mariinka where we hit a fougasse, and I lost a leg. I have started my battle back in Maidan where I went to correct mistakes of our fathers, who were unable to control the government in the past. I then went east to defend our country, so that my future children would not be beaten and humiliated because they are Ukrainians.”
The newly arrived soldiers came to the injured friend first. As Staf cannot go to the east, he asked the boys, instead of destroying all enemies themselves, bring some home for him.
KYIV. SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 / Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day
Oleksandr from Lviv is full of optimism and faith in victory after two months spent in eastern Ukraine. “I went there in early summer and have not regretted it for a moment. I was at the Euromaidan for three months, then returned home and looked at all this mess and realized that something had to be done. I think we will see terrible developments – I mean, terrible for our enemies. I am not ethnic Ukrainian, but am a Ukrainian citizen and stand ready to defend my country,” the boy told us.
The boys’ leave will not last long, as they will return to the anti-terrorist operation area in just eight days, we have learned from the battalion’s commander Andrii Biletsky. “These guys were with the battalion from the start. It is clear that they cannot fully recover in such a short time, many have not seen their families for months. These few days will give them at least some opportunity to offload tension. They are volunteers who have freely chosen this path, but they also are not iron men, they need rest. We are confident that all boys will return to the ranks after the rest,” the commander told us.
The soldiers who have been rotated home participated in hard-fought battles in Donetsk, at Mariinka, Novy Svit, Mariupol, Ilovaisk, and Novoazovsk. Since the outbreak of hostilities, the battalion lost 13 boys, and 56 more soldiers were seriously injured.
