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Brandon Mitchell of Miramichi, NB, narrowly escaped death for the second time in one day as he raced in his Land Rover to help his family flee a Russian attack near Bakhmut, Ukraine.
It was last August and Russian troops were close to the Donbas city of Soledar, which at that time was still under Ukrainian control. Artillery attacks were increasing and the family wanted to leave as soon as possible.
But as Mitchell and his companions ran through what had turned out to be a Russian cannon alley, a shell whizzed through the air and just meters in front of a speeding car.
Swerving to avoid the crater without stopping, he completed his mission and brought everyone home to safety.
“We got seven people that night, including a baby,” Mitchell recalled.
But the evening will bring more drama. Mitchell returned to do another evacuation when suddenly a huge explosion engulfed his car.
He was lucky – the vehicle absorbed most of the blast but still damaged his eardrums and left him concussed.
“I drove two anti-personnel mines,” Mitchell told CBC News. “I ruptured my right tympanic membrane – my eardrum – and I was told I had a traumatic brain injury.”
Mitchell’s medical work and evacuation were halted while he recovered and contemplated the possibility of death.
“I’ve been struggling with this,” he told CBC News in the town of Kostyantynivka, not far from Bakhmut, which is under constant attack and bombardment from Russian forces.
As our team spoke to them, the cracks and detonations from incoming and outgoing cannonballs were constant and loud enough to set off car alarms.
But despite his injuries and close calls, Mitchell said the war in Ukraine has now become too personal for him to leave.
“I have some friends who are personal friends who have died now in this war. So this is now my war,” he said.
As a medic in Ukraine, Canadian Brandon Mitchell has had many close calls including being injured in a mine explosion and nearly being hit by a Russian artillery attack. But after more than 10 months on Ukraine’s front lines, Mitchell says death is no longer his fear.
A medic on the front line
Mitchell said he was raised by his aunt in Miramichi after his mother died when he was young. He joined the Canadian military reserves and served at CFB Gagetown before moving to England and joining the military there.
Mitchell left the British Army in 2007 and he says his last job before coming to Ukraine was assembling Ikea furniture in Sweden.
When Russia invaded last February, President Volodymr Zelenskyy invited foreigners to join the International Legion and defend the country.
However, Mitchell said he felt he could be more useful doing humanitarian work, which eventually led him to join the Ukrainian Hospitallers Medical Battalion.
Since March, they have been performing first aid on the battlefield, helping with evacuations, delivering medicine and transporting wounded soldiers.
“I am ashamed of this war. Mr. Putin threw his country to the terminal and wasted an entire generation. But I have chosen my password for here.”
The horror of war
Spending so much time near the front lines has given me an unusual and piercing insight into war and its brutal absurdity.
Such as the time, he said, he had to chase after a dog whose owner was killed only moments before it was killed by a Russian mortar attack.
“[The dog] the mouth has the owner’s shoulder and runs away.”
Mitchell said the whole episode was so ridiculous that he had to laugh because he had no other way to process the horror of what happened.
The behavior of many Russian soldiers towards the Ukrainian civilians they encountered was particularly disgusting.
“I’ve seen how they butchered people. I’ve dug bodies out in Soledar with civilian evacuation work.”
He said a woman, a math and science teacher from the nearby village of Nevsky, was tortured by Russian invaders because they suspected she and her husband were hiding guns and ammunition.
He said the men threatened to “make another Bucha in his house” if he did not confess. Bucha, outside Kyiv, is the site of a mass grave filled with the bodies of civilians killed by Russian forces.
“He was tortured,” Mitchel said. “He showed a wound on his back.”
Mitchell said he also encountered a Russian prisoner of war, who was taken to a medical center for treatment after his capture.
At least one of them was a member of Wagner’s mercenary group, a Russian paramilitary organization made up mostly of prisoners from Russian prisons. Wagner persistently pursued the attack on Bakhmut and suffered terrible casualties.
“This Wagner guy won’t be over 120 pounds,” Mitchell said. “He’s malnourished, he’s dehydrated [but] I have no sympathy for him.”
He said his own experience with Russian PoWs confirmed what he had reported: that Wagner’s soldiers had poor morale, were poorly equipped and many surrendered to the Ukrainians as the best option.
‘I think this is right’
Being a doctor in Donbas, especially in Bakhmut, is a very high risk.
Two British medics died near the city earlier this month, as did a 28-year-old Canadian Gregory Tsekhmistrenkowho served with the Ukrainian International Regiment.
He died after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) blast while trying to treat a soldier wounded by an earlier RPG blast.
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die,” repeated Mitchell, but said there are other things in Ukraine that really worry people.
“I’m afraid some days that real fear can paralyze me. And I can’t do my job.”
In fact, Mitchell’s actions went beyond the role played by field medics.
By posting videos of life-saving and other battlefield activities in Ukraine to tens of thousands of subscribers on Instagram and YouTube, he has managed to raise enough money to buy more than 100 diesel generators for Ukrainians around Bakhmut to keep the lights on. many power outages.
Mitchell admits that after less focus in his life, he found a new purpose and a new mission to help Ukrainians defend their country.
“I really, really struggle. I struggle with a lot of things in modern society. But it doesn’t apply here.
“I’m doing what I want to do here. And I think it’s the right thing to do.”
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