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Sky News team's harrowing account of their violent ambush in Ukraine this week
On Monday, near Kyiv, chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his team were attacked. Camera operator Richie Mockler took two rounds to his body armour, Stuart was wounded. Their experience illustrates the scale of the mayhem and violence as Russia's invasion enters a new and deadlier phase.
Large snip/
We set off, but it was deadly quiet, and it's fair to say we were concerned. But we travelled slowly forwards towards an intersection. There was rubble in the road, but that's normal now. There were no soldiers, it all seemed deserted.
And then out of nowhere a small explosion and I saw something hit the car and a tyre burst. We rolled to a stop.
And then our world turned upside down.
The first round cracked the windscreen. Camera operator Richie Mockler huddled into the front passenger footwell. Then we were under full attack.
Bullets cascaded through the whole of the car, tracers, bullet flashes, windscreen glass, plastic seats, the steering wheel, and dashboard had disintegrated.
We didn't know it at the time, but we were later told by the Ukrainians that we were being ambushed by a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad. It was professional, the rounds kept smashing into the car - they didn't miss.
Snip
Richie was shouting to me, but I can't really remember much.
I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful.
And then I was hit in the lower back. "I've been hit!" I shouted.
But what amazed me was that it didn't hurt that bad. It was more like being punched, really.
It was strange, but I felt very calm. I managed to put my helmet on, and was about to attempt my escape, when I stopped and reached back into a shelf in the door and retrieved my phones and my press card, unbelievably.
Richie says I then got out of the car and stood up, before jogging to the edge of the embankment and then started running. I lost my balance and fell to the bottom, landing like a sack of potatoes, cutting my face. My armour and helmet almost certainly saved me
Much more at link: https://news.sky.com/story/sky-news-teams-harrowing-account-of-their-violent-ambush-in-ukraine-this-week-12557585
Large snip/
We set off, but it was deadly quiet, and it's fair to say we were concerned. But we travelled slowly forwards towards an intersection. There was rubble in the road, but that's normal now. There were no soldiers, it all seemed deserted.
And then out of nowhere a small explosion and I saw something hit the car and a tyre burst. We rolled to a stop.
And then our world turned upside down.
The first round cracked the windscreen. Camera operator Richie Mockler huddled into the front passenger footwell. Then we were under full attack.
Bullets cascaded through the whole of the car, tracers, bullet flashes, windscreen glass, plastic seats, the steering wheel, and dashboard had disintegrated.
We didn't know it at the time, but we were later told by the Ukrainians that we were being ambushed by a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad. It was professional, the rounds kept smashing into the car - they didn't miss.
Snip
Richie was shouting to me, but I can't really remember much.
I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful.
And then I was hit in the lower back. "I've been hit!" I shouted.
But what amazed me was that it didn't hurt that bad. It was more like being punched, really.
It was strange, but I felt very calm. I managed to put my helmet on, and was about to attempt my escape, when I stopped and reached back into a shelf in the door and retrieved my phones and my press card, unbelievably.
Richie says I then got out of the car and stood up, before jogging to the edge of the embankment and then started running. I lost my balance and fell to the bottom, landing like a sack of potatoes, cutting my face. My armour and helmet almost certainly saved me
Much more at link: https://news.sky.com/story/sky-news-teams-harrowing-account-of-their-violent-ambush-in-ukraine-this-week-12557585
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