Three Canadian war heroes have shared their harrowing experience of fighting Putin’s troops in Avdiivka.
The three men, known as Bandit, Lance, and Rosumnik, are all part of the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade and the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine – a military unit made up of foreign volunteers.
The battle for Avdiivka, a city in the Donetsk Oblast of eastern Ukraine, was one of the fiercest of the conflict so far. The city is of strategic importance to both sides, as it is seen as a gateway to the city of Donetsk itself.
Speaking to the International Legion’s YouTube channel, Lance described the battlefield as like a “crazy Vietnam War movie scene” and said he asked himself “what life choices did I make to end up here?”, during the brutal fight for the city.
Avdiivka was eventually captured by Russian troops following a major offensive, which forced Ukraine to pull out on February 17 2024. Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi announced that the men were being withdrawn “to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of service personnel.”
However, pulling out of the city wasn’t as simple as merely retreating, as doing so would have left Ukrainian soldiers encircled by Putin’s monsters. To get as many of Zelensky’s forces out of the city alive as possible, there needed to be a counterattack to give those stranded enough time to get out.
The Canadian service personnel were part of the band of warriors that made that possible.
Lance, a machine gunner, explained: “Our mission was to basically counterattack the Russians, hold them back, so that the other Ukrainians could pull out of the encirclement”.
Sharing his bone-chilling experience of the fighting, Rosumnik, a drone operator, explained that he had “never seen such big explosions well, ever, even in movies”.
Bandit, also a machine gunner, and Rosumnik had not previously experienced combat in Ukraine before. However, despite Lance explaining that he had fought in the war-torn country in 2023, he claimed that the battle for Avdiivka was “a lot crazier, a lot more intense” than any kind of operation he’d previously been on.
Not sparing any details of the horrific scene, Bandit unpicked how he killed three Russian soldiers intent on preventing the Ukrainian forces escape.
Speaking from behind a camo face-covering, he said: “I noticed that the metal was wiggling and started to take a closer look, and yeah, three Russians were peeling it back and pushing one of their men through to fit through.
“And I took my weapon off safety, put it on automatic – keep in mind this is 20 metres in front of me – yeah I aimed my rifle, dead centre [of] mass, he looks up at me and it was the pure look of shock.
“And he grabs the fence… and starts pushing back, but the guys with him, they weren’t looking so they were still pushing him through as he was trying to come back. And, yeah, I ended up killing all three of them”.
Emotional, the fearless fighter shared tear-jerking details of how he had to take up a combat position from within a child’s bedroom. He explained: “One thing that stuck out to me… [I] ended up taking a kids’s room, it had two windows and good vantage point down the street.
“I remember finding a clone trooper from Star Wars, and [I] remember me as a kid growing up like f****** love Star Wars.
“… And like his drawings, he had little drawings of soldiers and tanks and jets”. Visibly moved he added: “I don’t know, it’s just crazy to think about and really sad”.
Lance later details how he nearly lost his life in bitter conditions. He explained: “We had two strikes come very very close to us, to the point where my ears were ringing, my head was spinning.
So I put my ear protection down, [I am] really glad I did ‘cause on the third strike, it was so close… I was almost temporarily blinded by the flash.
“ …it didn’t really kick into me like that I was hurt, I didn’t feel anything, didn’t feel any wounds. And I’m like, ‘okay, you know, that one was really close’.
“I look down, I see my PKM [machine gun] in pieces, like it was like almost completely destroyed, and then I see the blood going down my arm and I go ‘okay, you know, I’m hit’.”
Bandit, who came to wounded Lance’s aid, described the scene as “organised chaos” as the Brigade continued to wander through the warzone to the evacuation point. Such was the scale of the carnage, the Canadian hero said he thought to himself “is this my time?”.
With “fields on fire”, the Brigade made it to the evac point, miraculously still alive. Rosumnik, who was also wounded during the devastating battle, said that his exit wound in his upper leg was so big “you could fit a child’s hand in it”.
After making it to the field hospital, medical staff rushed to try and save Lance’s life. In a stomach-turning moment, Lance explained: “The last thing I said to the doctor was ‘don’t cut off my hands, I like my hands’.” Fortunately, after waking up for his operation, the war hero’s hands were still intact.
