Went to the Armed Forces to protect her son: a sniper who lost her leg told about the war (photo)

Anastasia "Phoenix" Savka served in the 118th Mechanized Brigade. During the retreat from positions near the girl, a fugas mine exploded. Anastasia Savka with a call sign "Phoenix", a sniper of the 118th Mechanized Brigade, lost her foot on the front after 18 months of service. She is now undergoing rehab and interviewed the Daily Mail, telling why she went into the army. 25-year-old Anastasia Savka joined the 118th Mechanized Brigade because of the desire to protect her five-year-old son Yarem.

When a full -scale war is ongoing in the country for the third year, she needs women to fight. As a result, the upper age limit for women who want to enroll was increased from 40 to 60 years. Ukrainians take on the male roles of drivers, drones, machine gunners and snipers - like Anastasia. 25-year-old Anastasia joined the 118th Mechanized Brigade because of the desire to protect her five-year-old son. Anastasia has grown in Lviv.

Her father fought in the Armed Forces when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and her mother works as a nurse. She met with the father of Yarema's son, Anastasia when she was a teenager (now a couple in divorce), she worked in a kindergarten of her son and then at Hyundai's car company. When the war began, Anastasia took her son to Poland. They left the house when it was still dark, and their father drove them to the bus station in Lviv.

He put them on the bus to Warsaw, but in a few minutes they came out because Yarema wept. He did not want to leave the house, and Anastasia did not want to leave her country. Her father was still waiting for her car. "He was glad to see us, but also upset. We all realized that it was dangerous here," the serviceman recalls in an interview with Zoom.

In adolescence Anastasia, who loves adventures and outdoor vacations, has passed a survival course in camping in the Carpathians and participated in equestrian competitions. She thought of going to her father in the army before the Russian invasion. "I thought it would be interesting," she says. When the war came, she made her even more decisive. "I didn't feel that I had a choice. I needed to protect my son and my family," the girl says.

That fatal morning, November 28, 2023, the battalion commander sent her and the rest of her detachment back to the base, where they tried to warm up after the night in the bunker. "We did not feel either hands or legs," she remembers. But they soon received an urgent message. The Russians retreated, but needed help. Anastasia was sent back to the front line to the Zaporizhzhya region, and now it was hidden in a small armor, where the corpses of Russian soldiers were full.

"I had to sit on someone, and I heard his spine breaks under my weight," Anastasia recalls, according to her, the shelling was cruel: there were only two or three seconds between the explosions. Suddenly, an enemy drone came, which was preparing to throw on their bomb. But Anastasia transferred her coordinates to the battalion command a minute before. There was an explosion and then silence. The drone was intercepted and the commander gave a signal to retreat.

But when the detachment retreated, a fugas mine exploded next to the girl. "You know, I was lucky to have lost only one foot," Anastasia says now, smiling while interviewing Zoom. She says that in Lviv, which is located far from the front line, you can forget that there is a war. She shows a photo with his companions and says that the guy from the left was killed two days after she was injured.

According to her, the war with the Russian Federation lies not in sniper shooting alone, but in artillery and drones. She was under constant shelling. Soldiers on the Ukrainian Front have the saying: "You want to live - dig. " "We had to dig a lot. Trench, shelter, armor," she says. Its main duty was the observation and informing of troops about the residence of the enemy. She is used to running a forest at night with night vision devices, trying to find thermal traces of bodies and tanks.

She is now undergoing rehab: she was amputated her left leg below her knee, and her right was severely torn. She had to learn to walk with a leg prosthesis. But she also does not want to stop there. According to her, some people lost both legs or both legs and arms. "My situation is not so bad. The whole thing is about. I am not going to depression about it," says Anastasia. Her son thinks it is "cool and this mom will be a robot.

" "He realizes that it is because of the war and understands how I lost my leg," the girl says. She plans to continue his service in the army, "probably as an instructor. " Anastasia also said that it was part of her five -month training: training sessions, derivatives, first aid, the art of masking, as well as practical firing training at the landfill first in the Territorial Defense Troops, and then, after choosing a specialty, at 118 -Brigade. "There were times when men tried to reduce our load.

But we, the girls, did not allow that. It is a level of conditions," - says sniper. The difficulties were with the military form, it is intended for men. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine issued the first female form on individual order only in February - 60 thousand kits of light summer. "Wearing a military uniform for men is like a man to wear a bra-inconvenient," one Ukrainian woman-soldier said. In fact, Anastasia bought herself shape and helmet.

In her emergency backpack on the battlefield were "balls, tampons, hygienic pads and wet wipes. " She remembers her evacuated from the battlefield in 2 hours and 15 minutes, brought to the medical center, and the doctors wanted to cut her pants, Anastasia remembers how she asked not to do so, because they cost 8000 hryvnias. But only a T -shirt and jacket managed to save. We will remind, in Ukraine again talked about military service for women.