The operation to occupy positions and expand the bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro River by Ukrainian forces lasted from mid-October 2023 to July 2024. The fighting was mainly for the village of Krynky, the only one on the left bank of the Kherson oblast where the defence forces managed to gain a foothold. The village was held by marine brigades and separate units of the troops’ brigades.
On 17 July, Dmytro Lykhoviy, a spokesman for the Tavria Operational Strategic Group, said in a comment to Slidstvo.Info that ‘the Defence Forces continue to conduct a defensive action on the left bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, including in the area of Krynky’.
On 2 July 2024, pro-Russian telegram channels posted a video of the Russian military dropping anti-tank mines on the positions of the defence forces. Slidstvo.Info geolocated the video as having been filmed in the south of Krynky village.
According to Slidstvo.Info, the Ukrainian military are currently fighting for the islands between the right and left banks near the village of Krynky.
During the defence of this settlement, hundreds of Ukrainian families received reports that their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers had gone missing.
The Slidstvo.Info journalists found out how many Ukrainian soldiers are currently missing in Krynky. We talk about several of them in the story.
‘WE TRIED TO BRING ALL THE DEAD TO THE SHORE, BUT A BOAT CAME AND THEY BEGIN TO SHOOT AT US’
Vasyl, a 24-year-old contract soldier from the 505th Battalion of the 37th Brigade with the call sign ‘Fartovyi’ (transl. — “Lucky” from Ukrainian), spent 72 days in Krynky — from 2 December 2023 to 14 February 2024.
Vasyl with the call sign ‘Fartovyi’ / Photo: Taras Fedorenko
He celebrated his birthday and New Year there. Why it took him so long — when a boat did come for him, they always loaded the wounded on board, and Vasyl was left waiting for the next one.
‘In the Donetsk sector, it used to happen that an evacuation vehicle would arrive within an hour. And here we enter Krynky, we can say that we are right in the circle. Russians on the right, Russians on the left, Russians in front, and water behind. There is nowhere to retreat, it would have been impossible to do so in winter. This winter was a very difficult time for the operation,’ the marine recalls.
Vasyl says that they had an experienced medic with them who stabilised all the seriously wounded soldiers.
‘If we had a wounded soldier, we immediately reported it so that a boat could come at night. Many boats couldn’t come, it happened that guys were lying with their limbs severed for 10 days, and the boats couldn’t come to us. We had a very experienced medic who tried to stabilise them all. Only two did not survive. One day we were waiting for an evac, they poisoned us with gases (Russians — ed.), we all ran out, but the doctor did not have time to get out, he was poisoned by gases and died.’
Vasyl talks about the legendary doctor who saved the wounded in Krynky. His name was Ihor Sheremeta with the call sign ‘Bohomol’ (transl. — “Mantis” from Ukrainian), he was a medic with the 2nd Battalion of the 37th Marine Brigade. His body was not recovered from the left bank.
‘We tried to bring all the dead to the shore to be taken away, but a boat came and the Russians started to shoot at us. There are many dead there. Dozens,’ the marine describes the realities of the defence of this village on the left bank.
Photo of the soldier who disappeared in Krynky on the door of a village shop on the right bank of the Kherson region near the Dnipro River / Photo taken by Anastasia Stanko, 14.07.2024
‘MUM, I WON’T SAY ANYTHING, BUT I MIGHT NOT COME BACK’
In various Viber chats, you can find thousands of messages from hundreds of people looking for their relatives in Krynky. Mothers write under every video about this settlement that they are looking for their sons, and maybe someone has heard something, knows or can recognise this guy.
One of those who are asked if anyone has any information is Oleh Kosheliuk with the call sign ‘Svyatyi’ (transl. — “Saint” from Ukrainian). He is 24 years old, from Volyn, and got married a year ago. His mother Svitlana is trying to find at least something about her son.
Oleh Kosheliuk with the call sign ‘Sviatyi’
‘He was an electrician — a driver in a unit in Volyn. They were sent to the South for six months to the 35th Brigade, 88th Battalion. At first, Oleh was in a unit in the Mykolaiv region. And then he called me and said: ‘Mum, I’m being sent to a ‘wild duck’ (zero position), mum, I don’t want to say anything, but maybe I won’t come back’. He called me on 2 April this year. And since then, there has been no contact with him. And on 19 May I received a notification that my child was missing, and then an act, and it said that he was missing. I called the commanders, they said he was killed, but they could not take his body. Two other guys who were sent there with him – they are also no longer in touch,’ says Svitlana.
‘EVACUATION IS NOT POSSIBLE AT THE MOMENT’
‘I’m looking for him, some say they saw his body, others say there was a shelling, we can’t find out what really happened there,’ Anastasiia says of her younger brother, Oleh Kostov.
Oleh Kostov
Oleh is 33 years old. He is from the Mykolaiv region. On 5 March 2022, he volunteered to fight in the 18th Battalion of the 35th Marine Brigade. He was a sniper.
‘On 16 April, he called and said that he would have a combat mission on the left bank of the Dnipro River, and that he would call back in three days, but he never called back. I called the brigade’s hotline, they told me they would call me back, and on 26 April they said he had officially gone missing in Krynky. I would like to know under what circumstances,’ says Anastasiia.
His military acquaintances said they saw Oleh lying there, and then his body was gone, the bodies of the other two guys who were with him were evacuated and buried, but Oleh’s was not.
‘I asked his commanders, I asked them, and they said: “Evacuation is not possible at the moment”. Our mother can’t accept this, it’s very hard to bear. She would like to take his body and bury him, so that she could visit his grave, he could not have fallen through the ground,’ Anastasiia adds.
‘GET OVER IT, LIGHT A CANDLE, HE’S DEAD’
‘His commanders tell me to accept it, light a candle, he died. Am I some kind of bitch, not a mother, to light a candle when I don’t know if my child is alive,’ says Liubov, the mother of Yevhen Smulskyi, call sign ‘Smurf’, through tears.
Yevhen is 23 years old, he had a job in Poland, but on 28 February 2022, when the full-scale war began, he returned to defend the country. He volunteered for the 88th Battalion of the 35th Marine Brigade. He fought in the battles for Maryinka, received a severe concussion there, was treated, and returned to the front line.
Yevhen Smulskyi with the call sign ‘Smurf’
He served as a combat medic in the battalion, and before the war he worked in an ambulance. ‘He’s a short guy, so they called him ‘Smurf’… The last time he called us was on 9 April, he said: ‘Mum, we are being thrown to the Left Bank, they don’t allow us to take our phones with us, I’ll call you when I get back’. For two and a half months, his comrades sent me greetings from him, and once a week his commander called me and said that he was fine, because his phone was switched off. We called, looked for phones, and everyone told us he was alive. And on 17 June, we received an official letter saying that he was missing. I wish they would let us take the bodies out of there… these Krynky are a trap,’ says Liubov.
HOW MANY UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS DISAPPEARED IN KRYNKY
Denys, call sign ‘Enot’ (transl. — “Raccoon” from Ukrainian), commander of an air assault company of one of the battalions of the 35th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which fought and continues to conduct operations on the Dnipro, says that defending and expanding the bridgehead at Krynky was a necessary task, otherwise the Russians would have tried to land on the right bank by boat.
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- Denys ‘Enot’
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- Denys ‘Enot’
He assures us that his company has no wounded or killed soldiers who could not be taken from the left bank.
‘We killed a lot of Russians there,’ the officer says.
According to the calculations of a Western OSINT researcher with the call sign Naalsio, who has been recording confirmed cases of destroyed equipment since the beginning of the full-scale war, the losses of Ukrainian equipment in Krynky from the beginning of this campaign in October 2023 to 14 June 2024 amounted to 58 units, and Russian – 271 units. Artillery, and especially drones, played a major role in these losses. But the marines, like no other, showed the greatest heroism and resilience in holding this piece of land on the left bank of the Dnipro. But they also paid a heavy price.
The marines in a conversation with Slidstvo.Info repeatedly said that Russians do not take prisoners in Krynky. However, the lists for exchange and reports of captures still contain the names of those who disappeared in this village.
Now the war with the Russians is going on on the islands near Krynky.
Slidstvo.Info talked to a dozen sailors, boatmen and medics from different marine brigades who either were in Krynky or transported people there.
Most of them say that defending Krynky was an extremely difficult task with limited resources from the very beginning.
‘It was especially difficult to go there in October for the winter,’ says one officer who participated in the operation.
Some of the participants of the Krynky landing believe that at first it was possible to defend the village and try to expand the bridgehead, but when the village was wiped out and not even ruins remained, then at the end of winter the task of holding these positions became a ‘one-way trip’ for many, although Slidstvo.Info managed to find people who had been to Krynky three times.
The journalists managed to find out from the police how many Ukrainian soldiers went missing in one village of Krynky, Kherson oblast, on the left bank of the Dnipro River. 788 men are reported as officially missing there between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. At the same time, the number of dead soldiers who were taken out of the village and eventually buried is much smaller — 262 defenders during this period.
