Christopher Forsbäck, who enlisted as a sergeant in the Ukrainian army, was on a risky mission when the group was surprised by Russian artillery fire. He suffered extensive injuries and was a hair’s breadth away from death, he tells Nyhetsmorgon.
– If they had come 20 minutes later to the ambulance, I probably wouldn’t have made it.
Christopher Forsbäck was out with a small group of soldiers in the Zaporizhzhya region in southern Ukraine this summer to clear mines and take over a Russian defense position. It was a risky mission in the middle of the day – the way forward was in downhill terrain towards the Russian front line.
With a minesweeper at the front, they crept slowly towards the Russian defensive position they were to take over. They hadn’t seen any Russian soldiers, the drone overflights showed no activity.
– When we had gotten away somewhere 70-100 meters from our position, we were pushed from the side, from a position that we did not know existed. We were shelled with artillery, and directly shelled with a tank, says Christopher Forsbäck.
Towed four kilometers
He ordered the group to turn around.
– I was the last to go back, and on the way back I was shot in the arm.
As he returned to the cover position, tank fire hit the roof. The shock wave and the splinter injured both Christopher Forsbäck and one of his colleagues. In a video that appears in Nyhetsmorgen can be seen when Forsbäck discovers that his knee has been destroyed by a bullet. He does not know that the skull bone is crushed.
He is so damaged that he begins to accept that he will not make it. It is roughly half a mile through mined ground to the rescue. But his comrades do not give up, he is put on a stretcher and dragged through the night to the nearest road where an ambulance is waiting.
– If they had come 20 minutes later to the ambulance, I probably wouldn’t have made it. The nurse lays down on the plasma and fluid bags so that I can get the fluid in as soon as possible.
Want to return
Christopher Forsbäck survives. His skull was crushed, his arm is permanently damaged, but he wants to return to Ukraine after the New Year.
– If you want to function down there, you more or less have to accept that you can die.
– The reason why I help Ukraine is so that my children will not need what I do. That was my motivation to go down. I’m not afraid of losing my life but I don’t want to expose my children to my disappearance. But if we’re going to do this, we have to take those risks, he says.