Selwyn_Times: September 21, 2022
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong> Wednesday <strong>September</strong> <strong>21</strong> <strong>2022</strong><br />
26<br />
NEWS<br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
Burnham soldier Dominic Abelen’s<br />
A Ukrainian Armed<br />
Forces report goes<br />
inside the firefight<br />
that killed Burnham<br />
Camp-based soldier<br />
Dominic Abelen. Kiwi<br />
photojournalist Tom<br />
Mutch reports from the<br />
ground<br />
IT WAS THE fog that led<br />
Dominic Abelen to his death,<br />
and the Russians who pulled the<br />
trigger.<br />
The 28-year-old corporal from<br />
the Royal New Zealand Infantry<br />
Regiment’s 2/1 Battalion had<br />
served in the New Zealand Defence<br />
Force for nearly 10 years.<br />
But to his apparent dismay,<br />
he had never been deployed<br />
overseas and when Ukraine put<br />
out its call for volunteers with<br />
military experiences to join its<br />
struggle against the Russian<br />
invasion, Abelen answered.<br />
In the dawn light of an August<br />
morning, Abelen was the point<br />
man leading an assault on a series<br />
of Russian-controlled trenches in<br />
the depths of the embattled Donbas<br />
region in eastern Ukraine.<br />
According to a Ukrainian<br />
Armed Forces contact report,<br />
described to the New Zealand<br />
Herald on Sunday by people<br />
familiar with its contents, Abelen<br />
and his regiment first scouted<br />
the trench line with a drone, but<br />
the morning fog prevented them<br />
from getting clear visibility of<br />
the Russian positions. It turned<br />
out they were present in much<br />
stronger numbers than the<br />
Ukrainians understood.<br />
When they reached the trench<br />
line, they were immediately<br />
engaged by Russian troops,<br />
and after a brief firefight, were<br />
ordered to pull back. Abelen laid<br />
down covering fire, apparently<br />
killing multiple enemy soldiers<br />
before he was hit in the leg. He<br />
attempted to put on a tourniquet,<br />
and another soldier, American<br />
Joshua Jones, joined him to attempt<br />
to carry him to safety. But<br />
a burst of enemy fire killed both<br />
instantly.<br />
While his regiment attempted<br />
to recover Abelen’s body, heavy<br />
fire from Russian artillery<br />
pelted the ground, making a<br />
safe retrieval impossible. When<br />
the fog lifted and the soldiers in<br />
his unit used a drone to scout<br />
the trenches where the men had<br />
fallen, the bodies had gone –<br />
meaning it is almost certain they<br />
are in Russian possession.<br />
This part of the country is<br />
riddled with defences and fortifications,<br />
built by the Ukrainian<br />
Army in its ongoing conflict<br />
waged against Russian proxy<br />
separatist forces since 2014. They<br />
VOLUNTEER:<br />
Off-duty<br />
New Zealand<br />
soldier<br />
Dominic<br />
Abelen<br />
was killed<br />
in Ukraine<br />
fighting with<br />
foreign troops<br />
and has been<br />
remembered<br />
as a tough<br />
professional<br />
“warrior”<br />
who “died<br />
doing what<br />
he loved”.<br />
PHOTO: NZ<br />
HERALD<br />
are now bulwarks of defence<br />
against the entire might of the<br />
Russian Armed Forces – and<br />
they have held far longer than<br />
most would have thought.<br />
The first time I visited these<br />
trenches in May, the situation for<br />
the Ukrainian army was grim.<br />
A small platoon of Ukrainian<br />
soldiers rested in a converted<br />
farmhouse, while we could see<br />
shells from the endless Russian<br />
bombardment landing in the<br />
fields in front of us. The rolling<br />
green hills and yellow fields with<br />
their blooming sunflowers would<br />
have been beautiful were it not<br />
for the constant smoke rising<br />
from artillery fire.<br />
At this stage, the fighting was a<br />
meatgrinder and the Ukrainian<br />
government said that up to 200<br />
of its soldiers were being killed in<br />
action on any day. The Russian<br />
army was on a slow and inexorable<br />
advance, reducing the cities<br />
in front of it to rubble before its<br />
troops moved in to “liberate” the<br />
ruins. First Mariupol, then Popasna,<br />
then Severodonetsk were<br />
pounded down by a seemingly<br />
infinite amount of artillery shells<br />
and rockets.<br />
Just last week I was in Soledar,<br />
a town with a population of<br />
10,000 before the war accompanying<br />
a group of former soldiers<br />
who were evacuating civilians<br />
from the frontline under fire.<br />
The air was heavy with the<br />
constant thump of artillery.<br />
We could see Ukrainian troops<br />
taking up defensive positions<br />
in smashed-up apartment<br />
blocks. Sitting in the burned-out<br />
remains of a living room, one<br />
soldier was flying a reconnaissance<br />
drone as if he was playing<br />
a video game. We watched as<br />
Russian forces rained cluster<br />
bombs and thermal munitions<br />
fired from rocket launchers<br />
down on what had once been a<br />
sleepy provincial mining town.<br />
At one point we were spotted<br />
and tagged by pro-Russian<br />
sympathisers who we believe<br />
photographed us and sent our<br />
location to the separatists.<br />
ADJUSTABLE MASSAGE BED<br />
by