A Ukrainian soldier spent two weeks in a dugout with an invader and forced him to surrender
A Ukrainian soldier with the call sign Cartman, an infantryman with the 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade, spent two weeks in a dugout alongside a Russian soldier. He had ended up there by chance while seeking shelter from shelling and came across the occupier.
During that time, the soldier, who had been considered missing in action, managed to convince the Russian soldier to lay down his arms and surrender.
This is reported in a story by “Yedyny Novyny.”
Before the full-scale war, the man led a peaceful life—he ran a store and, together with his wife, raised their young son. When hostilities began, he joined the Armed Forces without hesitation and later found himself in the Zaporizhzhia sector, where he held the line alongside his comrades.
On the day that changed everything, Ukrainian military positions came under intense fire. The enemy used artillery, mortars, and drones, attacking almost nonstop.
“They started picking us off with FPV drones and mortars. Then, as my superiors later told me, the artillery was also firing. I don’t know how they missed,” Kartman recalls.
Fleeing the shelling, the soldier ducked into the first dugout he could find, where he unexpectedly ran into an enemy. A Russian soldier ordered him to hide in a makeshift shelter.
“He says, ‘Come in.’ I go in; it’s a small dugout, and right away there’s a hole, a foxhole. He says, ‘Climb in,’” the soldier recalls.
Kartman spent 14 days in those conditions. Without food or water, he was forced to survive literally at the limit of his capabilities. He drank rainwater or licked droplets of condensation off the plastic sheeting covering the burrow.
Physically exhausted, the soldier didn’t have the strength to escape, so he chose a different tactic—a psychological one. He closely observed the occupier’s behavior, who often complained about poor supplies, and in those moments tried to convince him to lay down his arms:
“I took advantage of moments when he had fits of rage, when he didn’t like the wind and couldn’t get food or water dropped to him. And he can’t go without food at all. I hadn’t eaten almost anything at all all those days,” Kartman recalls.
Eventually, this strategy worked. When a Ukrainian drone appeared over the position, Kartman took a risk and signaled that he was friendly. After that, he managed to escape and make it back to his own forces.
All this time, the soldier’s family never lost hope. His wife admits that, despite the lack of communication, she kept sending him messages
“I wrote to him directly, ‘You’ll get out of there, I know you’re strong,’” recalls Lesya, the soldier’s wife.
The soldier himself says that thoughts of his family helped him endure the hardest moments. What he went through not only toughened him up but also changed his outlook on life. After the war, he dreams of returning to civilian life and starting his own small business—selling refreshing drinks.
Syrskyi coordinatedthe actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Southern Operational Zone.
As a reminder, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the positions of the 65th Brigade on the Zaporizhzhia sector of the front.
Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian defense forces have eliminated 1,440 Russian soldiers and destroyed a significant amount of enemy equipment.
