A soldier from the Third Assault Battalion rescued a teenager after an attack by Russia
15-year-old Yevgen, along with his mother, was waiting for a bus at a bus stop in the Kharkiv region when the Russians launched an attack with cluster munitions. A soldier from the Third Assault Brigade, whose call sign is David, spotted the wounded boy—he stopped, administered first aid, and helped get the teenager to the hospital.
The shelling occurred on August 11 in the Izyum district of the Kharkiv region. Yevhen and his mother, Lyudmila, had arrived at the bus stop and were waiting for a bus to Kharkiv. According to his mother, they missed their bus by just a few minutes. After the explosion, the boy was injured. At first, his mother did not immediately realize how seriously he had been hurt. Then she saw blood on his clothes and heard her son say, “Mom, I can’t feel my legs.”
At that moment, a soldier from the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, whose call sign was David, happened to be nearby. He was traveling from Kharkiv toward Izyum and heard explosions about 150 meters away. Seeing people at the bus stop, the soldier stopped and rushed to help them.
David immediately began providing first aid
The soldier quickly assessed the young man’s condition and realized he had a serious back injury. David returned to his vehicle, grabbed a first-aid kit, and began providing first aid to Yevgeny. “A young man and a woman were lying there; as it turned out later, they were mother and son. I stopped, ran over, took a look, assessed the situation—and realized the boy had a back injury,” the soldier said.
David covered the wound and tried to organize an evacuation as quickly as possible. At that moment, another explosion rang out nearby, so it was dangerous to stay where they were. Eventually, they managed to flag down a car to help with the transport. Yevhen was taken to the hospital, where medical staff continued to treat him. Thanks to the quick actions of the soldier and the doctors, the boy’s condition was stabilized.
“I couldn’t have done anything else”
David himself doesn’t consider his actions extraordinary. According to him, at that moment he simply saw an injured child and realized he had to act. “I couldn’t have done anything else; I just saw that I had to help,” the soldier explained. He also noted that soldiers of the Third Assault Brigade are constantly honing their tactical medical skills.
The brigade emphasizes that such skills are needed not only directly on the front lines. Soldiers may find themselves alongside civilians after shelling, and in those situations, the very first minutes are often critical. “The Russians continue to target civilians. And soldiers of the Third Army Corps are saving people even behind the front lines,” the Third Assault Brigade stated.
The soldier later visited the boy he had saved
A few days after the shelling, David traveled to Kharkiv to visit Yevgeny in the hospital. The teenager was finally able to speak in person with the soldier who had helped him after the blast. Yevgeny recalls that he remained conscious after the explosion. He remembers how David pulled up to the bus stop, asked what had happened, and then immediately began treating the wound.
“He’s a really good person—he helped me in that situation, and I’m very grateful to him,” the young man said of the soldier. This story serves as yet another reminder that Russian attacks pose a danger not only to military personnel. Ordinary people who are simply waiting for public transportation or returning home can come under fire. In such situations, a quick reaction from someone nearby can literally save a life. The video was released by the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.
