Stepan Vasilyevich Knysh (Stepan Vasilyovich Knish), Степан Васильевич Кныш, Степан Васильович Книш
Stepan Vasilyevich Knysh
- January 26, 1966;
- 31st Separate Mechanized Brigade (А4773);
- Soldier;
- He was captured on January 13, 2024 near Avdeevka.
Part 1
They came from the military enlistment office, and they took away everyone who didn’t show up on summons. And we drove up to a neighbor, he is younger than me, we live just across the street, we approached him. He was served with a summons for the 28th. When I was doing something around the house, they came in.
– “So, does Knysh Mikhail Stepanovich live here?”
– “Well, here. But he’s gone, he’s abroad, at work.”
– “Is Mikhail Stepanovich your son?”
– “Yes, that’s my son.”
– “Where’s he at work?”
– “In Norway”.
Then they say, “The documents are yours.” I brought my passport.
“Okay, a military ID.” I’m bringing my military ID. Well, they looked at it.
Well, it’s okay, he says, it’ll do. “You will serve in the rear. Here is a summons for you, on February 28 to appear at the military enlistment office.”– That is, it turns out that you were taken instead of your son?
– Well, it turns out like this.
– When were you captured?
– January 13, 2024.
– How did this happen? Where were you?
– Well, we were brought to the position. At two o’clock in the morning we were already in the dugouts.
– Where was that, approximately?
– Somewhere near Avdiivka, it seems.
– Somewhere near Avdiivka.
– Yes. And at about five o’clock, the shelling began.
– Have you been told what you should do?
– Absolutely nothing. They didn’t tell us anything. They only said that we would be kind of on patrol. That’s where the infantry is. It turned out that there was not a person, not a soul. Only eight of the people we replaced. And that’s it.
– Were you just brought in for a rotation?
– Yes.
– Eight people? Are they gone?
– And they left. And that’s it. And what should we do, where, what’s what? I have no idea. It’s incomprehensible. Eight men and such a force to stop it is unreal.
Part 1
– How did you get captured? What was going on?
– Well, when the shelling started, some people were shooting back. You can’t go anywhere, you can’t stick your head out, because there are bullets and shrapnel flying all around. BK remained in these trenches. We threw down our machine guns. They are shouting at us, surrender, or we will throw grenades. Well, we sat down, there were 5 of us left, one 200, two 300. – “What did you decide? Are we giving up?”- “We give up.” We started shouting from the trench, don’t shoot, we’re surrendering. And again, they repeated it several times, don’t shoot, we surrender. – “That’s it, come out.” We left everything there, in the trenches, raised our hands and went out. They started to say, “Let’s waste them. But I guess their commander said, “No, don’t touch anyone.” That’s it. And we were taken away.
– How were you treated?
– We treated us normally, but our drone caught up with us.
– Your?
– Yes. As far as I understood, it was a Kamikaze drone, because it could be seen carrying explosives from below. It flew by, one of the Russian soldiers wanted to aim at it, but he took us off and flew away. We started moving, and he flew again from the right side into our line. And a Russian soldier opened fire on him. He must have hit it. And he flew into our line, over our heads, into the landing. And then there was such an explosion. All. It fell to the right, to the side, on the field. One soldier stood up and got up after the explosion. And one of them is lying there, his head is covered in blood. Well, he was picked up. He got hit and wounded somewhere. And concussed. We took him by the arms and brought him there.
– Also a prisoner of war?
– Yes, too. There are five of us. We were told that he was seriously injured. When they arrived, they took him to the hospital. And we were sent, I don’t know, to the commandant’s office or something. Yes. And that’s it.
– Why do you think they were hitting POWs? They saw that the prisoners were coming, and did not hit the Russian soldiers.
– Well, to destroy so we don’t get captured by the enemy. I think so. Well, why did they shoot down a Russian plane with our prisoners of war? They don’t want to pay or what? I can’t imagine in my head why they did it. Either by mistake or whatever. This can’t be a mistake if drones were sent after us. The guys here in the camp say that this is not the first case. There have been many such cases.
– When did they destroy their fighters?
– Yes.
– What would you say to the servicemen who are now fighting on the side of Ukraine?
– What would I tell them? That they should not fall for any provocation and not listen to these bad commanders, that they send soldiers for meat, for minced meat.
