Lieutenant-Colonel Ihor Hryb, commander of the 186th battalion deployed in Donbas, chose to commit suicide rather than carry out orders that would have inevitably led to the death of his under-equipped and ill-prepared men against the Russian forces.
To save the lives of his men, he lost his own. It was October 2. Five days earlier, Lieutenant-Colonel Ihor Hryb and the soldiers of his battalion had received orders to leave the Kherson region in southern Ukraine for the Donbas region in the east of the country.
“We had to hold a village at all costs, it was chaos,” explained Ivan, a non-commissioned officer (NCO) of the 186th battalion, who spoke anonymously after returning from the mission.
The soldiers had been deployed overnight to unfamiliar territory and the battalion was understaffed and very poorly equipped.
“We only had machine guns, but no artillery or armor [to hold off the Russian advance],” continued the NCO. “Ihor knew what that meant, that everyone was going to die.”
On October 2, according to Ivan and another NCO, the commander of the 186th battalion sent a last recommendation on a messaging loop: “Make your decisions, save people’s lives.”
He disappeared the same day. News of his death, under circumstances that remain officially unclear, quickly spread among the soldiers, who eventually left their positions the following day.
For many, there was no doubt: The commander had committed suicide after refusing to carry out orders.
