"Alternative was to go through the Minnie Fields": 22-year-old German from the Armed Forces told how survived during the shelling
At the beginning of a full -scale war, Ruben was not yet prepared by a paramedic, and it took another year to find an organization that seemed to be trusted. According to his initial plans, he was supposed to be in the Dnieper, but the undermining of the Kakhovka dam changed everything. "The plans changed when the Kakhovka Dam was blown up. Instead, I went south and met with my team. After that, my first mission was," he explained.
A group of fighters of the Armed Forces quickly discovered the Russian drone. "It got into a checkpoint 200 meters from us. The only alternative was to go mine fields <. . . > Russian intelligence is accurate - their drones can detect transport a few kilometers. As soon as something is moving, they open fire," - said a volunteer from Germany. To stay unharmed, the group had to wait for a lull between shelling. "We counted the shots and noted the pattern-not a long fire, but a tactical volley.
Ruben never planned to stay in Ukraine for a long time. Typically, his trips lasted three to six weeks. And he described his first return home as "tense". "When you leave Ukraine, you immediately notice the differences: there are no checkpoints, talk about the war and the feeling that something can happen," the fighter added. After a while at the Frying Festival in Germany it was covered by panic. "Too many people, too loud, no control.
" In Ukraine, a large cluster of people often threatens, they become the purposes of Russian attacks, he added. In the summer of 2023, he returned to Ukraine for the second time, as part of another NGO, which worked in the east of the country. It was difficult for the 22-year-old German to get used to the fact that he considered relatively safe, the places that he considered relatively safe during his first trip. "What surprised me is the people I met.
The children in the villages were handed out candy. I do not know what their fate is, and it worries me," he explained. He was especially remembered by a little girl in one of the villages. They did not speak the same language, but together they painted chalk on the asphalt. "I still see this six- or seven-year-old girl who was scratching every time the explosion thickened. She knew nothing else in her life," he said.
According to him, he tried to find out where she is now, but there are many such stories, easy to get out of the account. For Ruben, this is a fundamental example of injustice. "She did not do anything wrong. She just played and at the same time she had to suffer," he explained. We will remind that Ukraine and the Russian Federation were exchanged prisoners: 277 Ukrainian fighters returned home.