Serhii Krynytskyi spent 346 days in a dugout near Chasiv Yar. He eliminated 23 russian soldiers in close combat, suffered a concussion, and temporarily lost his hearing.
Serhii says he defended “our land and our children so they could go to school and see a clear sky.”
Reuters tells his story through 22 videos he recorded on his phone while on the front line. At times, he powered his phone using batteries salvaged from downed russian drones.
Krynytskyi was not a career soldier. He had worked in agriculture and construction. After suffering an injury, he spent a month in a coma and later raised rabbits.
At the end of 2024, recruitment officers picked him up in the village of Bilohiria in western Ukraine, put him on a bus, took him to Rivne, and gave him expedited training. He was then assigned to Ukraine’s 24th Mechanized Brigade.
In April 2025, Krynytskyi and two other soldiers dug in near Chasiv Yar. The deeper the shelter, the better their chances of survival. Krynytskyi joked that he wasn’t sure what to call it: a shelter or a grave.
Drones repeatedly struck their position. After the attacks, they had to dig themselves out again. One of his fellow soldiers was killed early in the deployment.
Russian troops advanced every few days, sometimes coming within 20 meters of their position.
Because of the drones, supplies sometimes could not reach them for three or four days. To survive, Krynytskyi collected food, cigarettes, and weapons from dead russian soldiers.
On the 326th day, a drone killed the fellow soldier with whom Krynytskyi had shared the dugout for nearly a year. He pulled him back into the shelter, searched for the wound, and applied a tourniquet. It was already too late.
Krynytskyi: “In the morning, you are joking together. By evening, the gates of heaven are already calling.”
Afterward, his commanders ordered him to abandon the position as russian forces closed in. Krynytskyi crawled out of the dugout, spent nearly another three weeks with several infantrymen nearby, and then walked 25 kilometers to a safer location.
In May, President Zelenskyy awarded him the title Hero of Ukraine for his personal courage.
After returning to Kramatorsk, he visited schools near his home and spoke to students about the cost of such long rotations and what he had experienced. His hands trembled, and he could barely hold back tears.
Krynytskyi: “In those schools, I realized that I had not defended our land and these children for nothing — so they could study and see a clear sky.”
Source: translated from the text of Tymofiy Mylovanov