A ten-year old boy from Russia’s Bryansk Region is being hailed as a hero after he managed to save the lives of two first-graders during an attack by Ukrainian saboteurs on Thursday.
According to local media reports, Fyodor and two girls, Zlata and Lena, were being driven to school by their neighbor, a 63-year-old man known as Uncle Lenya on the morning of March 2. On their way they encountered a group of armed men.
After realizing that the men were not Russian servicemen the driver attempted to turn the car around and flee, but the Ukrainian operatives opened fire on the vehicle, killing the driver on the spot and wounding Fyodor in the chest.
Despite being shot, Fyodor managed to pull the girls out of the car and escape the scene. “Fedya [Fyodor] told us ‘go to the forest,’” one of the first-graders told the Moskovsky Komsomolets outlet. “I was there, in that car. I saw people in white uniforms and one in green. Fedya showed us where to go and we ran together,” she said.
Fyodor and the girls eventually made it out of the area and were able to catch a ride to the nearby settlement of Novy Ropsk, where the boy was taken to the hospital. Doctors managed to extract a NATO-issue bullet from his chest. Doctors say Fyodor’s condition is stable and that he is expected to make a full recovery.
Bryansk Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz paid a personal visit to Fyodor on Friday and commended him on his bravery. “Despite being so young, he acted like a real man, like a true fighter,” Bogomaz wrote on his Telegram channel. The governor has announced that documents are currently being prepared to award him with a medal ‘For Courage.’
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also stated on Friday that “everyone in the Kremlin and the president are in awe of the heroism of the boy and the man [Uncle Lenya]” and announced that their actions will be officially noted.
The Ukrainian operatives who crossed into Russia’s Bryansk Region on Thursday have since been forced back to Ukrainian territory and hit with a “massive artillery strike,” the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said.