‘We’ve got to move or we’ll die’: Tory MP’S son on the front line
Former Royal Marine helps save fellow Briton during battle in Ukraine after their unit was ambushed
A CONSERVATIVE MP’S son fighting with Ukrainian soldiers helped save a fellow Briton maimed by a landmine during an intense firefight filmed on a helmet-mounted camera.
Ben Grant can be heard screaming “we’ve got to move now or we’re gonna die!” as he and his comrades drag former Grenadier Guardsman Dean Arthur to safety in woodland north of Kharkiv.
In the dramatic footage obtained by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Grant and his unit treat Mr Arthur’s leg with a tourniquet and dressing then tell him: “You’ve got to try and walk or we’re going to die mate.”
Under incessant machinegun fire from Russian forces nearby, the soldiers constantly shout encouragement to Mr Arthur, telling him: “Come on Deano! Last bit, keep going!... Good man, you moved fast and well there, brother. Deano… well done, well done… we’ve gotta go, come on, I can’t leave you.”
The 40-minute footage of the incident, which took place earlier this month, provides a soldier’s-eye view of the brutality of the front-line fighting in Ukraine. Mr Arthur, who appears to be barely conscious as his comrades support him on either side, lost part of his lower left calf as he knelt on a mine. He is now in hospital in Kyiv where doctors have saved his leg.
The two Britons were fighting with a team of around 15 foreign volunteers, made up of British and Americans and two Ukrainian translators, who have been supporting Ukrainian forces fighting Russian invaders. They were part of the Ukrainian counter-offensive that pushed Moscow’s troops out of Kharkiv and, in places, all the way back to Russia’s border.
In a separate video filmed several days later, Mr Grant and his team destroyed a Russian transporter vehicle using a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
“Shoot it now” and “mind the back blast,” Mr Grant, a veteran of Afghanistan and father of three, says before the missile is fired. Yesterday, Boris Johnson called for longer-range artillery to be delivered to Ukraine, warning that Moscow is making “palpable” progress in the key battle for the Donbas.
Former Royal Marine Mr Grant, 30, is the son of Helen Grant, the Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald. He left for Ukraine in March and said at the time: “I didn’t even tell my Mum.”
He told The Telegraph that his unit had been preparing for an assault on a Russian-held target near Kharkiv when they were ambushed.
Mr Grant, a father of three, said: “I think we must have been spotted by drones beforehand and they had set up their lines … so as we went in the mass firefight broke out where you see [in the video] what we saw. We were walking in single file as the contact happened, Deano was at the end of my team, when he went to take a knee … we were shooting, getting our heads down and shooting them.”
He said that a mine – thought to have been remote-controlled – went off near Mr Arthur “which has blown half of his leg off ”. He added: “Trying to do this mid-firefight while there are Russians shooting over us and around us is just so difficult.” A tourniquet was applied by by Edwin Saez, 22, a former US soldier from 3rd Ranger Battalion, described by Mr Grant as “one of the bravest guys I’ve ever met”.
Mr Grant added: “I was terrified, but driven to complete my most important goal, which at the time was getting him and my team out of the danger. What was so scary was being so limited by trying to carry someone, when I can’t pull my weapon up, whilst there are attack helicopters overhead and tanks firing through the woods, artillery shells coming through the woods, and troops chasing you.
“My God it was unreal, I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. We extracted him for 5km through dense woodblock and awful terrain and then get him medevac-ed out of there.” He said the objective was re-taken and “their medics were great, they are fantastic guys, so spurred us on even more to fight with them”.
In the video, breathing heavily, Mr Grant orders his unit to “move, move back – back! Move now!”, then helps Mr Arthur as he tells him: “Come on bro, come on Deano. Come on brother. Come on mate, come on you’ve got this…we’ve got to move now or we’re gonna die! F------ move!”
Several times the team have to take
cover, and Mr Arthur cries out in pain but Mr Grant motivates his team and Mr Arthur, saying: “Come on Deano, come on, we’re going to get shot, come on”.
Despite bullets flying over their heads, the team lie down in undergrowth to assess Mr Arthur’s injury, cutting through his uniform to reveal a gaping wound that they attend to as Mr Grant tells them to note down the time – 12.20 – when the tourniquet was applied, four minutes earlier.
He tells Mr Arthur: “You OK bro? It’s all right. Deano… well done, well done… we’ve gotta go, come on, I can’t leave you. Grab his helmet – someone help! Helmet! Helmet! You’ve got to try and walk, or we’re going to die mate.”
Moments later, Mr Grant reloads his gun, praises his fellow soldiers and tells them: “You’ve got to hit the tank yeah, if you’ve got an anti-tank weapon. Let’s go and get this tank.”
Mr Arthur, 42, from Stoke-on-trent, said: “All I remember is we got contacted, we advanced at the contact. Let out an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] at the positions.
“A few seconds later I was on the ground. One of the guys came to me straight away, put a tourniquet on. It was excruciating pain, with rounds incoming. Mortars, artillery, all that was coming in. I remember being put on a stretcher the last kilometre. This type of stuff, this type of camaraderie is only forged in these situations. When you’ve come under fire – the man to the right and the man to the left are the world.
“If the coin was flipped, it was one of those guys, I would have got them out.
“I was a real lucky boy. So many guys didn’t come back that day. The guys at the front of the column. We won the position, then they called the artillery. They pulled the mines, then retreated.”
Mr Arthur, who went to Ukraine a week after Mr Grant, said: “It’s an honour to be able to do this. I thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine, so when the offer was put out I came straight away.”
Praising the Ukrainian forces, he said: “The stuff these guys are doing is real war fighting. When you attack, you [normally] attack with better odds than the enemy [but] these guys are going in as the underdogs, and they’re winning. They do this every day, relentlessly.”
He said his wounds were “healing great” and he was “upset” that he was no longer with his unit. “They’re my family. I have a mission. I’m gonna get myself well and right. I’ll be back and help them in any capacity I can.”