A Ukrainian officer described how, during an awards ceremony, servicemen were abandoned when an air-raid alert sounded

Officer of the “Khartia” brigade Andrii Ishchenko (call sign Hrom) said that during an awards ceremony, after an air-raid alert was announced, he and other soldiers were left waiting above ground for 4.5 hours.

An interview with the Ukrainian serviceman was circulated by Telegram channels and on Ukrainian social media.

According to Ishchenko, after the danger was announced, a certain high-ranking person who was presenting the awards was hurriedly taken to a bunker.

“We’re sitting in Kyiv, in a building on the third floor. He comes in, some flashy guy, handing out awards, and he asks the guys: ‘Were you scared?’ I tell him: ‘No.’ I told him: ‘If you want to know—go and see for yourself; secondly, I don’t need all this (the awards — Ed.). Give me my guys back; on every one of these trinkets there’s my guys’ blood.’ And then they announce an air-raid alert, and they take him the f*** out with 20 idiot bodyguards, and we’re sitting there—30 people on chairs. And they didn’t even let us go out for a smoke. They say no one goes to the toilet until the alert ends. So they don’t give a damn about us guys who are grinding it out, but that one is ‘great’ because he represents the state. He went down into the bunker and sat there while the alert lasted 4.5 hours,” the soldier said.

Ishchenko did not name the high-ranking person he was talking about. But in the comments, some suggested that he was referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.