METRO
Our men surrendered to the Russians who made them kneel in the dirt… then shot them – I saw it all on the live feed
WHEN a squad of Russian soldiers forced their prisoners to kneel in the dirt, all Yulia Mykytenko could do was watch.
As the trailblazing female commander of a Ukrainian drone platoon, Yulia was in the horrific position of witnessing war crimes unfold in real time via a live feed on an iPad.
Her team had spotted the Russian paratroopers in the final stages of an assault on a frontline Ukrainian outpost in the Donbas region.
She watched as the Russian troops blasted tear gas into the bunker, forcing its five Ukrainian defenders to come spluttering into the open.
Yulia, 29, tells The Sun: “We saw it all on the live feed.
“Our guys didn’t have time to react.
“They had to come outside to breathe.
“When they came out, they surrendered.
“The Russians made them kneel.
“Then they shot them.
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“And the Russians took over the position.”
Such atrocities are not unusual.
Ukraine says it has recorded more than 90 cases of prisoners of war being captured and executed by Russian invaders.
All but a handful happened this year, and Yulia suspects it is a new policy.
She says: “The Russians are not taking prisoners now.
“They are shooting them in front of our drones.”
Witnessing war’s horrors has become a gruesome part of her job.
Sometimes she has to use her drones to find dead or wounded comrades.
Once it took her half a day to find what was left of her much-loved commander, Captain Dmytro, who was blown to bits by a direct hit from a Russian artillery shell.
Those are her darkest days — when comrades are killed or maimed and she cannot do anything to help.
Yulia is no stranger to loss.
Her soldier husband Illia Serbin was killed by Russian shelling in 2018.
Her father Mykola, a sergeant, set himself on fire in 2020 to protest against what he saw as President Zelensky’s failure to stand up to Russia’s aggression in the run-up to Putin’s full-scale invasion.
And, perhaps inevitably, she has lost one of her own soldiers on a mission that she gave him.
When I ask her how she copes, she says: “I don’t know how to answer.”
‘I despise men who don’t protect their family’
Then she adds with quiet steel: “The one thing I can do is not let all those feelings overwhelm me.
“I consider that part of my job.”
How is morale in the army more broadly?
“I feel extremely tired,” she says.
And with that tiredness comes frustration that not everyone is pulling their weight.
Yulia, who speaks fluent English and dreams of being a professional translator, says: “Sometimes it annoys me that people back home still have normal lives, going to restaurants and shops and the cinema.
“Especially when I see men together with their girlfriends and children and they know that my soldiers don’t have those opportunities.”
Squaddies like her get just 15 days’ leave a year as the battle rages.
She adds: “I think each grown man and woman who is able to hold a rifle must serve and protect themselves.
“It is not the country you are protecting, it is yourself and your family.
“If you can’t protect yourself and your family, then you have no right to live in your country.” READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
As she talks, her fury grows: “I despise such men who don’t take a rifle and protect their family.
“And I despise the women who chose such men and who hide them.
“I would be very interested to see what these men will do when the Russians come to their houses and start to rape their wives.”
Then she checks herself.
She says: “On the other hand, I feel good when I return to Kyiv for 15 days and can have my normal life in cafes and theatres.”
When Putin unleashed his full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces were swamped with enthusiastic volunteers determined to defend their country.
Yulia was one of them.
She rejoined the 54th Mechanised Brigade where she had served in the Donbas with her late husband Illia between 2016 and 2018.
But as the war has dragged on, that pool of volunteers has dwindled.
War has dragged on
Countless thousands have been killed or injured, and Kyiv has had to draft men by force to replace them.
Shocking footage has shown men of fighting age being dragged kicking and screaming from bars and clubs into waiting police vans.
Like many of her comrades, Yulia has mixed feelings about Ukraine’s emergency draft.
She says: “A year ago I didn’t support forced mobilisation.
“Soldiers who come to us that way are not very good soldiers.
“It’s quite hard to persuade them to be warriors.”
It annoys me that people still have normal lives, going to restaurants and shops. Especially when I see men with girlfriends and they don’t know that my soldiers don’t have those opportunities
Yulia Mykytenko
Now, more than 1,000 days into the bloodbath, it feels like it might be Ukraine’s only option.
Yulia says: “It is not a good idea, but it is the only way to fill the army with people because we have a right to have a rest.”
The 25 soldiers in Yulia’s platoon are all volunteers.
One is a former YouTuber, there is a sailor from the merchant navy and a computer engineer.
Some are former assault troops who have come to her unit shell-shocked or scarred from their time in the infantry.
For those who are physically unscathed, the grinding war takes its toll in other ways.
‘If West is not decisive there won’t be peace’
Recently, one of her soldiers asked her if he could go on leave because his young son was forgetting who his father was.
Yulia says: “My comrade came to me and asked for a vacation.
“He said, ‘Can I go on leave because my son started to call me uncle’.”
Luckily, Yulia agreed. “I told him, ‘Of course, why didn’t you come to me earlier?’ ”
When Yulia visited London earlier this year to promote her critically acclaimed biography, How Good It Is I Have No Fear Of Dying, it was her first break from hostilities in almost a year.
It came as President Zelensky was touring Western capitals promoting his “victory plan” to end the war, which hinges on joining Nato to deter a future Russian invasion.
Yulia is convinced that peace talks are coming and the war may finally be over next year.
She says: “I am sure that we will negotiate.
“We are exhausted.
“Russia is exhausted.
“Both sides are exhausted.”
The issue is whether that peace will endure.
She says: “If the West has enough conviction to keep the pressure on Russia, if it lets Ukraine into Nato, then there is a chance to avoid the next wave of aggression.
“But if the West is not decisive, there won’t be peace.
“There will be a short pause to prepare for the next wave of war.
“And unfortunately, Russia will be ready for it much sooner than Ukraine.”
METRO
Mother left everyone in disbelief after they heard her excuse why she left her baby alone with pit bull only for the dog to chew on the child’s hands and leave her without 5 fingers!
Ellis Artist of Clayton, West Yorkshire was living a normal, 6-year-old life when everything went downhill.
One night, Ellis woke up in pain and screaming to his parents, 37-year-old Paul Artist and 34-year-old Sarah Girdwood.
His head and neck were in tremendous pain and he began to vomit profusely.
This all happened after a minor illness, which he seems to recover quickly from earlier that day.
Ellis’ parents rushed him to a nearby hospital, and a rash started to develop.
First, doctors thought it was meningitis, but antibiotics didn’t help and Ellis was mumbling and moaning in his sleep, unable to wake up…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Doctors then performed an MRI scan.
The resulting diagnosis was shocking and horrifying: acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM.
This extremely rare condition causes brain swelling, and Ellis now has repeated seizures as a result.
ADEM is a little-understood disease that can begin from even a small infection.
It causes negative reactions to the white matter of the brain, which then affects the body’s immune system.
The result is a severe allergic reaction that involves attacking the immune system and the eroding of nerves’ protective layers.
This condition tends to affect different people in different ways, meaning it is usually impossible for doctors to provide an accurate prognosis – as is the case with Ellis.
75% of those who develop AEDM are able to recover fully, but the remainder may develop significant impairments and disabilities as a result. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
It is unsure whether Ellis will recover, how severe his condition is, or if he will have any long-term effects from it.
After the AEDM diagnosis, Ellis was placed in a medically-induced coma and rushed to the Leeds General Infirmary.
A week later, another scan revealed that the swelling was no longer just in Ellis’ brain – it was beginning to make its way down his spine.
He was also having mini-seizures due to the brain swelling. But it’s not all bad news – after a while of being on a ventilator, Ellis is able to breathe on his own again.
The Sick Children’s Trust has put up Ellis’ family, including his three brothers, the youngest of which still doesn’t know what is really happening to Ellis.
Ellis, meanwhile, is still in a coma with his parents by his bedside as he receives the 24/7 care that he needs.
It is still unknown whether Ellis will recover fully or not, but doctors are doing everything they can to provide information to his worried family.
It’s expected that Ellis will be at the hospital for at least a couple of months, and will then need constant care at home once he is able to leave.
In order to ease the financial strain, family and friends, as well as Ellis’ school Clayton St John CE Primary School, have been working hard to raise funds for the family.
Ellis is a strong, tough boy and everyone is rooting for him and hoping for his recovery.
A fundraiser for the family with a £5,000 target goal has been set up, and around 92% of funds have been raised at the time of writing.
If you’d like to donate to the cause, you can do so at their JustGiving page.
Losing a child can be a devastating event, no matter what age.It is, however, universally agreed upon that it is worse when the child is lost at such a young age.
Sadly, this sort of early death is expected for some families, due to the circumstances that their child is involved in.
Despite the advancement of modern medicine, there are still plenty of children who suffer from severe health problems from either a young age or even from birth. These children are often predicted to not survive very long.
In a way, their passing can be considered them finally having rest and relief from their life, which has been an uphill battle all the way…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Most of these children and their families, however, find themselves with plenty to live for.
They fight, they strive, and they try to use everything at their disposal to push forward and see another day.
Alas, this is a war, and sometimes, the inevitable happens.
In the case of North Carolinian Chelsea Banton, she wasn’t expected to see her third day.
A premature baby born five weeks early, Chelsea had a major problem – she had to deal with excessive fluids creating pressure against her brain.
The doctors gave her at most 36 hours to live.
However, the baby girl would defy all odds, and would live to grow up.
Her life, however, did not get any easier after that first major hurdle.
The girl would spend the following 14 years of her short life fighting against one health problem after another.
Infections, life-threatening viruses, fluid retention, shunt revisions, hydrocephalus – you named it, she suffered it at some point.
In the fall of 2008, Chelsea was struck by yet another round of advanced pneumonia, which had developed from a bad cold she caught. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
This latest bout of illness seemed to be the last one she could handle – the girl was forced to stay in the hospital for seven weeks, completely dependant on life support.
It was at this point that Colleen Banton, her mother, was forced to make a heartbreaking decision.
In the interest of not prolonging her daughter’s suffering, she opted to keep the ventilator off the next time her daughter was strong enough to breathe on her own.
It was essentially plugging the plug for the girl – by this point, Colleen had decided that should her daughter’s time had come, then there was no use in delaying the inevitable.
While praying with friends and family who had come out to support this mother, Colleen was suddenly called over to a nearby monitor by the pediatrician nurse.
There, her attention was directed to the bright light that had appeared in front of the door to the pediatrician unit.
Astonished, Colleen took a quick photo of it with her camera, then went to check this strange light in person.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t there physically.
A miracle occurred shortly thereafter – three days later, Chelsea was well enough to return home once again.
Colleen is convinced that the figure was an angel who helped her daughter.
Chelsea would then go on to live for another 7 more years before passing away in 2015, at the age of 21.
Her story is one for the ages!
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