Fighting the Wagner group is like a ‘zombie movie’, says Ukrainian soldier

Southwest of the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisich they live in a candlelit bunker dug into the frozen earth. For several weeks, they faced hundreds of fighters belonging to the Russian private military group Wagner, who hurled themselves against the Ukrainian defenses.

Disguised wearing a balaclava, Andriy recounts a seemingly endless firefight as they were attacked by a barrage of Wagner fighters.

“We’ve been fighting for about 10 hours straight. And it wasn’t just waves, it was non-stop. So it was like they just kept coming.”

Their AK-47 rifles got so hot from the constant firing, Andriy says, that they had to constantly change them.

“There were about 20 soldiers on our side. And let’s say 200 on their side,” he says.

Wagner’s mode of warfare is to send a first wave of fighters comprising mainly recruits fresh out of Russian prisons. They know little about military tactics and are poorly equipped. Most just hope that, if they survive their six-month contract, they can go home instead of going back to a cell.

“They make the group – say 10 soldiers – reach 30 meters, then they start digging to maintain the position”, says Andriy about Wagner.

Another group follows, he says, to claim another 30 meters. “This is how, step by step, [Wagner] is trying to move on, while they lose a lot of people in the meantime.”

Only when the first wave is exhausted or cut off does the Wagner send in more experienced fighters, often from the flanks, in an effort to overrun the Ukrainian positions.

Andriy says facing the attack was a frightening and surreal experience.

“Our shooter was almost going crazy because he was shooting at them. And he said, I know I shot him, but he doesn’t go down. And then, after while, when he maybe bleeds, he just falls off.”

Andriy compares the battle to a scene from a zombie movie. “They climb over their friends’ dead bodies, step on them,” he says.

“It seems very, very likely that they were being given some drugs before the attack,” he says, a claim that the CNN was not able to verify independently.

Even after the first waves were cleared, the attack continued as Ukrainian defenders say they ran out of bullets and found themselves surrounded.

“The problem is that they bypassed us. And that’s how they surrounded us. They came from the other side. We didn’t expect them to come from there.”

“We were shooting every last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and it was just me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation.”

They were lucky. Held back until the last moment, Ukrainian fighters say, the Wagner group withdrew by the end of the day.

Andriy’s account of the Wagner approach corresponds to a Ukrainian intelligence report obtained by CNN last week.

According to this report, if Wagner’s forces can get into position, artillery support allows them to dig trenches and consolidate their gains. According to Ukrainian intercepts, there is often a lack of coordination between Wagner and the Russian military.

THE CNN reached out to Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin this week about allegations of abuse within the company’s ranks.

Prigozhin responded in a broadly sarcastic statement via his press service, calling the CNN of an “open enemy” before insisting that Wagner is an “exemplary military organization that abides by all the necessary laws and rules of modern warfare”.

While he talks to CNN , the fields above Andriy’s bunker reverberate in near-constant shelling. The howl of the outgoing artillery is followed by a distant thud a few seconds later and a few kilometers away.

The roar of small arms fire erupts as Ukrainian soldiers spot what they believe to be a Russian drone and attempt to shoot it down.

Andriy’s unit claims to have captured a Wagner fighter whose story is as tragic as Wagner’s tactics are primitive and brutal.

According to a recording of the man being interrogated, he is an engineer but started selling drugs to earn some money. He volunteered to join Wagner in the belief that it would eliminate his criminal record so his daughter would have less trouble pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer.

“And when did you realize that you are just meat?” Andriy asks him.

“On the first combat mission. They brought us to the front line on December 28th. They sent us last night.”

“How many people were in the group?”

“Ten,” he replies.

Andriy says that he told the engineer: “Obviously, you know that you will be killed (in battle). But you are afraid to fight for your freedom in your country”.

“He said, ‘Yes, that’s true. We are afraid of Putin’”.

Andriy compared Russian President Vladimir Putin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who not long ago was the country’s leading comedian.

“Our advantage is that yes, we really can pick the guy that [os russos] they call it a clown. But as we can see now, this guy is really the leader of the free world right now on our planet.”

Andriy, who is from the southwestern city of Odessa and enlisted just days after the invasion of Russia, says that no matter how many more fighters are sent to invade their positions, they will resist.

“Most of my guys are volunteers. They had good businesses, they had good jobs, they had a good salary, but they came to fight for their homeland. And that makes a lot of difference,” she says.

“This is the war for freedom. It’s not even the war between Ukraine and Russia. This is a war between a regime and democracy.”