Kyiv forces retreated from Debaltseve in blood and chaos - Wall Street Journal

Washington - Kyiv, February 19 (PolitNavigator, Vasily Ablyazimov) - An influential American publication publishes testimonies of Ukrainian soldiers about how the Ukrainian Armed Forces fled from Debaltseve. The evidence contradicts the official version of Kyiv; the soldiers claim that they fled under fire, that there was no artillery cover, and that all the wounded could not be taken away.

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The publication provides a description of the events: “Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers retreated from the strategic railway town of Debaltseve on Wednesday, breaking through the encirclement, and went to government-controlled territory in trucks, armored vehicles and fuel tankers. This day was filled with blood and chaos."

 Albert Sardaryan, a 22-year-old paramedic, stands a few miles from the farthest Ukrainian checkpoint on the road from Debaltseve:

“We worked in a basement in Debaltseve. On Tuesday, the front line was only 500 meters away from us.”

“From 7 p.m. they hit us with everything they had,” the paramedic told the Wall Street Journal. – I went to bed at 12 o’clock in the morning, then I woke up at 1 o’clock in the morning and they told me that we were leaving. We drove with the lights off through the fields. There were about 1000 people in our column. We traveled only 15 kilometers in seven hours.”

“At 7:30 in the morning we saw four tanks on the hill. We thought it was ours, but then they started shooting. Then the machine gun started firing at us from the other side. The bullet hit our truck. Another truck tried to be pulled out, but was blown up by a grenade launcher. We jumped out and returned fire. I fired a rifle for the first time today,” the American publication reports the words of Albert Sardaryan.

“The guys set off on foot, but we doctors were left behind. Six people were injured, including one whose leg was blown off. We bandaged them and applied a tourniquet.”

Igor, a 40-year-old entrepreneur and Ukrainian soldier from the Khmelnitsky region, sitting on a bed in a hospital in Artemovsk:

“We were in Chernukhino. We lost our best people when they went to where the fighting was."

“The separatists surrounded and captured many fortifications. We left, thanks to our foreman, who gave us secret orders in the evening to pack our things and be ready to leave. He told us to take what we could carry and blow up the rest."

“This was not an option. The exit is guarded by artillery along the planned route. She wasn't there. They abandoned us."

“Everything was not organized. Transport rushed past each other. Sixteen of our guys on the armored car were simply swept away from it with a machine gun.”

Vladislav, a 19-year-old soldier from Ivano-Frankivsk, having recovered in the Artemovsk hospital:

“We were one of the last ones to leave. We were cover for the others as they retreated from headquarters. Our cars remained behind the convoy when it was attacked. We were lost and had no idea where to go.”

“We managed to catch up with the convoy again. We were at the back of the column, which continued to be fired upon from an ambush. We picked up as many victims as we could and threw them onto the vehicles. We couldn't take all of them. We arrived in Artemovsk at about 8 o’clock in the morning, and an ambulance took me to the hospital.”