Point of view

“At some positions, suicide bombers remained to cover the departure of others”: Ihor Lutsenko on the loss of Vugledar

Vugledar is more than just a town on the battle map. For those who stood in his defense, this place became a symbol of courage, loss and endless pain. A place where every piece of land is soaked in blood and memories. Where the asphalt meets the charred remnants of machinery, where not only cars but also hopes once hid in every garage, hard battles for life took place.

When the enemy came too close, and the sound of shelling pierced the air, Vugledar did not simply surrender – he surrendered step by step, with fierce battles. Those garages where soldiers’ cars were once hidden have now become witnesses of tragedy, leaving behind broken wires and bloody traces of war. The departure from Vugledar was not only physical – it was a painful departure from a part of the heart of everyone who fought for every meter of this land. For many defenders, VVugledar has become a point of no return. It became a homeland, even though it was scorched by war, a place where they left a part of themselves. And even when the war receded, memories, pains and losses remained here, on every square meter of the native land.

Exnardep, founder of the Air Intelligence Support Center, commander of the “Order of Santiago” attack drone unit Ihor Lutsenko, who fought in the ranks of the 72nd Brigade, told what losses the Black Zaporozhians suffered when they left Vugledar:

“The 72nd got out of Vugledar with great difficulty, with heavy losses. Before that, the Russians had already managed to appear near the fallen power line tower on the road from Bogoyavlenka and even set up firing positions in the garages behind the cemetery.
Everything there is native to me, every square meter. We used to hide one of our cars in those garages, near the garages once we even got caught on a wire with a pick-up truck – there were steel wires lying on the road, broken by the recent arrival.

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The 72nd came out hard, bloody. A lot of equipment was burnt. Before that, the agony of the besieged city for several days had exhausted the defenders, and when the morning gray came, not everyone had the strength to go out.
At some positions, suicide bombers remained to cover the departure of others.

According to a strange law of life, in those days when my native brigade was tearing itself out of Vugledar with meat, people across the country sat in cafes and cinemas, passers-by danced to the music of street musicians on pedestrian zones; there were both sincere and ritual greetings to the defenders – and they were dying at that time, left, as they would say later, to their own devices.

And I don’t know the knowledge, I don’t have the strength, how to tie back these two worlds, each of which is constantly going its own way.
While we were there, we were reborn. We were born here, in Kyiv – and we became born in the fields and cellars of Vugledar; now those voids pierced with iron are our homeland, and on the streets of the capital we are visitors and strangers.

Some people unknown to us have grown up in these three years, filled the sidewalks and the subway, new grimaces are on their faces.

They are kind of light, translucent; we are dirty and dark, baths and barbershops will not drive this darkness out of us.
Now the 72nd – a beast that was driven out of its lair, is at risk of finally dying in bare landings under the blows of artillery and fpv drones. The radio control horizon of the Russians from the heights of Vugledar now stretches for 15 kilometers, almost to Kurakhovo itself.

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Pray to all who know how to pray, that the 72nd, my first in this war and forever my home brigade (although I am no longer in it for a long time) will not be ground to dust in the deadly spaces behind Vugledar, that the remnants of the once mighty fighting body will not be destroyed finally, so that he has a chance to be reborn, to save all his accumulated experience and pain for future victories.” wrote Ihor Lutsenko on his Facebook page.

 

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