He amputated his comrade’s arm with a knife, survived on raw pheasants, and escaped an encirclement that was supposed to kill him. When 37-year-old Viktor Svystun, call sign “Boomer,” realized he was surrounded, he made a chilling decision: “If everything is leading to my death, then the price of my life for the enemy must be very high.” Five months surrounded by Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia region. Fighting at distances of just 5–7 meters. Sleeping only 2–3 hours a day. Stretching food supplies for days. And eating pheasants that were barely cooked over trench candles because there wasn’t enough heat. But the most horrifying moment involved one of his comrades. An assault soldier with the call sign “Kocherha” suffered an arm injury that had already begun to rot. Removing the tourniquet was impossible. And Boomer did something few people could bring themselves to do: he amputated his comrade’s arm at the elbow joint using a knife. “He had no way to remove the tourniquet. The arm was already in such a condition that it had to be cut off at the elbow joint,” recalls an officer of Ukraine’s 108th Territorial Defense Brigade. The enemy repeatedly offered them a chance to surrender. Russian troops dropped notes saying: “You are surrounded. Lay down your weapons and go home.” Boomer responded in his own way. He carved a notch into the stock of his rifle for every Russian soldier he killed. When the number exceeded one hundred, he stopped counting. “Captivity is absolutely not an option for me,” he says. And he adds: “I heard my personal information over their captured radio, along with an order to eliminate me at any cost.” Boomer himself suffered shrapnel wounds, multiple concussions, and a bullet lodged in his thigh, which he discovered only after escaping. He thought it was a boil. It turned out to be a bullet. “We removed the shrapnel ourselves. With a multitool, with a knife. We didn’t even need painkillers. The adrenaline after combat overwhelms everything so completely that you barely feel the pain.” When the time finally came to escape, the group traveled 60 kilometers over six days. They wore enemy uniforms, pretending to be a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group. They made it through without a single encounter. “When I try to sleep at night, I have this feeling that I’ll wake up and, in reality, I’ll still be there. I guess I still don’t fully believe that I’m actually home.” But he already knows one thing: if he cannot return to the trenches, he will pass his experience on to others. “I have never regretted joining the infantry. If it weren’t me, someone else would be in my place. Someone’s son, someone’s loved one. Someone has to do this job.” Glory to this Hero. He went through hell and came back. And as long as there are men like Boomer, Ukraine has a chance. Thank you, Lieutenant. Source: translated from Oleh Bairak.