by Lorenzo Cremonesi
29 years old, wounded at the front, he lost consciousness in the trenches. The Corriere correspondent had met him on June 21st. She is now finding him, recovering but still serious, in the Kyiv hospital
I don’t think we’ll ever find out. Nor does he take it too seriously when he realizes that he cannot say everything, that he cannot communicate the fear and resignation of dying young: 29 years not yet completed, in full force…
«In the early morning of October 7, there were 25 soldiers of the 109th infantry battalion in the 104th brigade, which had been operating in Bakhmut since June 20th. The Russian artillery pounded hard. Since the previous evening we had received orders to salvage the bodies of our comrades in the thickets of the suburbs. But the enemy had identified us: a difficult task, slowed by the weight of the dead we were slow targets. At some point the order came to seek shelter in the basement of the asphalt factory, we found a few wounded and boxes of ammunition with heavy bullets. Then all hell broke loose: an enemy tank shot straight through the door, I immediately saw at least 5 comrades die, we were all badly injured, I was hit by an oily smoke, I couldn’t breathe. I realized that the right side of my body was injured: I had almost lost two fingers from my hand, the leg was not moving, the side was bleeding profusely. They told me the shrapnel pierced a lung. I dragged myself out and in a ditch I lost consciousness, I didn’t think I would have taken it back. I woke up in the hospital under attacks but I was happy in the white blankets ».
We met Illias with three of his comrades on June 21 in Bakhmut Square, one of the Ukrainian strongholds that remains the focus of Russian attacks to this day. Tall, thin, with a trimmed beard, his intellectual demeanor, his pipe, his sad and intelligent smile aroused his curiosity. On the bulletproof vest he had written “memento mori,” and just below it had been pen-drawn a skeleton, similar to those seen in the macabre dances of medieval churches.
“Here, death always stays with us, we talk about it in the trenches. Almost everyone asks that if it happens to them, it is the comrades and not the army spokespersons who notify the families,” he said. During all these months we stayed in contact. At the end of July, Illias was delighted with the arrival of American weapons that changed the outcome of the battle. “Finally we can respond to Russian shots with accurate weapons, now ours shoot further than theirs, we are fewer in numbers, but for the first time I understand that we can win,” he noted. But then our appointments in Bachmut failed three times. “I can’t get out of the ditch, it’s the worst place I’ve ever seen,” he said in late September. From October it had become quiet. He didn’t answer anymore. Until his short message on October 29: “I’m badly injured, but slowly getting better, I can’t walk, come and visit me in the hospital in Kyiv”. We met, he was alone, he broke up with his girlfriend, he talked about his fallen comrades, he wants to go back to the front to those who are still alive… “Only they know what it means.”
November 2, 2022 (change November 2, 2022 | 23:27)
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