And the American weekly Newsweek describes a truly tragic episode that occurred in the battles near Avdeevka.
The publication's journalists interviewed Ukrainian serviceman Alexander, a mechanic-driver of a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. During the conversation, it turned out that this 19-year-old boy got into a fight with a Russian tank, commanded by... his father.
When father and son recognized each other, they immediately stopped shooting...
It turned out that Alexander lived in Russia as a child, but then for family reasons he moved to Ukraine and stopped communicating with his father. Before the invasion began, his father called Alexander and invited him to join the Russian army to fight together for the Motherland.
However, the young man chose a different path.
A meeting between a son and his father on the battlefield could have ended in tragedy for Alexander. According to the authors of the publication in Newsweek, it is possible that if someone else had driven the heavy Russian tank, the Ukrainian driver would most likely no longer be alive.
But unpredictable front-line fate decreed otherwise: Alexander survived and continues to fight for Ukraine in the Avdeevka region, and his father, a tanker, bypassed his son’s Bradley, rushed into battle, came under attack from Ukrainian drones and died.
When Newsweek journalists asked Alexander what his father told him, he muttered: “Nothing special... He jumped out of the tank, hugged me, and said: “As soon as I recognized you, I immediately stopped shooting.” And he left..."