The potholed dirt road in and out of the besieged Ukrainian city of Novoluhanske was impossible to cross last week without risking heavy artillery fire, but there was no other escape route for terrified residents trapped in their basements for months.
As fast as their vehicles could go through the dust, Andy Milburn, a British-American former colonel in the United States Marines, and his team of military veterans, including an Irish one, knew they could be spotted by Russian drones or spotters on the surrounding area. snails hope, but had decided their humanitarian mission was worth the gamble.
“We wanted to enter from behind the city, so we were masked by Russian artillery, but the Russians colored all the roads. [registered]so very quickly within seconds they can drive around on vehicles that ride on them,” he said.
As the convoy bounced toward town, grenades slammed into craters in the fields on either side.
“It seemed to be what we call harassment and interdiction rounds – one round every minute or so. Those are troubling because you never know where the next one will land, and it looked like some was phosphorous,” Milburn said. Anything can go wrong, but the rescuers persevere. They had heard that a group of civilians, including children, had been bombed less than a mile from the Russian frontline and urgently needed to be extracted.
“You’ve got to hit the ‘I believe’ button . . . or else you might doubt death,” Milburn said. “We didn’t know these people, but it’s a trust tactic and you take sensible precautions.”
His team of special operations veterans are volunteers with the Mozart Group — leading daily evacuations from Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas region and driving small, unarmed convoys to hotbeds of conflict few would dare enter.
They navigate the current hellscape of the Donbas, relying on their military expertise, but fully aware of the extreme risks involved.
The Mozart group, which has 20 to 30 volunteers in its ranks, was founded by Milburn, who was commander of a combined special operations task force in Iraq to counter Islamic State, and a former commander of the Marine Raider regiment. . He is originally from Lymington, Southern England.
He said the group’s members were brought together by a “sense of purpose” and “moral clarity” that was lacking in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
“Here we are definitely on the right side,” he said.
Funded by donations, the group also trains the Ukrainian armed forces and conducts mine clearance operations, but does not fight.
Novoluhanske is on the cusp of territory occupied by Russian forces as they slowly advance over the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk to occupy the wider Donbas.
Surrounding towns and cities have been razed to the ground as Russia fires its seemingly limitless supplies of heavy artillery indiscriminately at civilian targets, regardless of human cost.
No one knows yet the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster as civilians hide hungrily in the ruins of their homes.
The Mozart Group’s gamble last Thursday paid off. By working with a local NGO they saved 27 lives.
“When we entered the city, we saw groups of people; they’d been given the floor,” Milburn said.
But when the evacuations gathered, he was surprised that not everyone wanted to leave.
Some feared leaving their lives and homes behind if they had nowhere else to go; others, such as the elderly, thought they would have a hard time on the road; and a handful kept hoping that peace would come, even though it seemed increasingly unlikely.
A barrage of incoming grenades made the team “exciting”, but two young children were playing nearby – apparently oblivious to the danger. Their mother insisted that the family stay.
Loading the vans with people and luggage then took an hour – a nerve-wracking period that gave the Russians time to react.
As they left, they heard artillery beating the only way out, realizing they had messed up. “Of course they knew, and the rounds were closer than we wanted,” he said.
“As we drove down the road, the artillery was at an angle – hitting one side and then the other, one round ending up in the ditch quite close to the lead vehicle.
“It was very lucky. It must have been a delayed fuse because it was buried and there was no massive explosion.”
After a thrilling 15 minute drive, they reached the relative safety of trees.
It hasn’t been their only close call in a volatile and unpredictable environment.
Milburn’s colleague, an Irish military veteran who declined to be named, recalled an awkward moment near Lysychansk when more evacuees than vehicles showed up and they had to scramble to find more transport as the bombs rained.
The group helped rescue 33 civilians that day, including a paralyzed woman.
Watching people get stuck was not an option, I argued. “That old lady who couldn’t walk, nobody took her out,” he said.
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]