“Ghosts of Bakhmut” or “Ghosts of Bakhmut”. As you can hear, it is something related to the city of Bakhmut in the eastern part of Ukraine. The city is now occupied by Russian troops. The forces of Ukraine are continuing their efforts to de-occupy it. One of their group is called Bakmut’s Bhoot. The task of the team is to capture the enemies by shooting silently from a distance with the sniper gun.
BBC reporters had the opportunity to meet Bakhmut’s ghost team. The team commander took them to their base on the outskirts of the city. The commander said, ‘I am called “ghost”. When we started fighting in Bakhmut and started terrorizing the Russian warriors, we were given the name Bhut of Bakhmut.’
Bakhmut’s ghost team consists of about 20 soldiers. They have been fighting in this area for six months. They often went on raids to capture the important leaders of the enemy. When asked how many Russian soldiers the party has killed so far, the party commander replied, ‘524 people have died for sure. I killed 74 of them.
Bakhmut’s ghost raids in the dark of night. They also had a raid on the night the BBC journalists met. A soldier named Kuzia took part in that campaign. Once he worked in a factory. Didn’t like guns at all. After the start of the Russian campaign, Kujia was forced to take up the gun.
However, Kuzia thinks that he is not killing any people in Bakhmu. According to him, he is only exhausting the enemies. That night Kuzia was taking a last look at his sniper rifle before going on a raid. At that time, he said, ‘Every campaign is terrible. If we make a mistake, the enemy may attack us instead.’
Kujia will be accompanied by another soldier named Taras. His job is to help Kuzia with various information including identifying targets. A man named Kusch would drive them closer to the battlefront. From there Kuzia and Taras had to walk more than a mile to reach the target. During this time the team commander will remain at the base. There will be a person named Britt. He is a new member of the team.
Brit trained in the UK. He has not yet had the opportunity to kill anyone from the enemy and open the account of hunting. The commander of the team said that he took everyone into the team after careful scrutiny. In this case, importance is given to their ‘humanity and patriotism’. How experienced or skilled one is militarily is not important here.
There are many dangers on the way
As evening approached, the team members got into their cars. BBC journalists went along. They will go up to the front where Kujia and Taras will be dropped off. Kusch, the driver, said that this road is under the target of Russian artillery. He let out a song as the car started driving. The song is used to boost their morale. Playing music has another benefit. As a result, the sound of shell explosions is covered a lot.
The car was making a loud noise. As a result, when shells exploded nearby, it was difficult to hear him. But Kusch kept looking up at the sky several times while driving, saying, “It’s coming.” Immediately after that, the sound of the explosion was heard around. Kusch was actually talking about Russian artillery shells coming in.
Several Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed along the way. It was understood that they could not survive the cannon fire. Apart from this, Kusch was also showing the places where mines were buried on the side of the road. After 20 minutes the car stopped near a destroyed house. After getting down from the car, Kujia and Taras disappeared towards the trees.
Now it was time to return to the base. There was a loud explosion on the way. A bad noise started coming from the car. As Kusch drove the car, he opened the door and saw that a bullet had lodged in one of the rear wheels. After returning to the base, he found that the wheel’s tires had been torn to shreds.
“One shot, one kill”
As night approached, the sound of gunfire began to subside. Inside the base, everyone looked worried. He was waiting for a message from the two expeditions on the radio. Seven hours later after some sleep, it was time to go again on the same route. It was a late night. Still, Kusch turned off his headlights and drove on. Kuzia and Taras were brought back to base. Kuzia just says, “One shot, one kill”.
They later showed BBC reporters a video of that night’s raid. Said they killed a Russian soldier. He was firing at Ukrainian soldiers with a machine gun. Then rest till the next night. Kuzia said, ‘I am happy to come back. And it is good to see that everyone is alive.
In the last six months, many of these Bakhmut ghosts have been injured. Even the team commander. But no one died. The commander said, ‘Every campaign could be our last campaign. But what we are doing is good work. This group of snipers is much smaller in size than the Russian forces. They may not win alone or liberate Bakhmut. However, the team members feel that their small contribution is also very important. As Kusch puts it, ‘Our operations have a psychological effect on the enemy. Because Russian troops cannot see where the attack is coming from. They do not hear any sound of gunshots.