Listen to this articleA BRITISH ex-soldier was hailed by Ukraine’s president yesterday after he miraculously survived a Russian missile blitz on his secret coaching base.
Dan Ridley, 27, was saluted for bravely persevering with to teach recruits regardless of the attack.
President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Dan and his instructors at Trident Defense Initiative — and warned the Kremlin: “Neither rain nor even Russian missiles get in the way.”
Dan, a former non-public in the 2nd Battalion of The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, spent 4 years in the Army and later turned a Ukrainian marine.
CCTV photographs obtained by The Sun captured the second his HQ in Kharkiv was destroyed by 5 S-300 surface-to-air warheads.
He and 6 different heroic Brits had been drilling Ukrainian troops and frontline medics on the former airbase when it got here beneath attack.
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Dan stated: “We’d simply completed one among our closing workouts with round 100 personnel.
“Some of them had been nonetheless on the firing vary, the medics had been ending up and a 3rd of us went to the native fuel station 200ft away to get some meals.
“We had been about to go away when the primary missile struck.
“You hear the missile coming after the explosion, that’s how briskly they’re transferring.
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“I walked out of the fuel station and noticed an enormous plume of smoke. The first two rockets got here in fast succession.
“I screamed at everybody in the fuel station to get down and to avoid the home windows.
“The third missile got here in, I’ve received no physique armour on, my helmet’s in the automobile, however I felt accountable for folks we had been coaching.
“I went on to the Kharkiv reside Telegram channel and noticed that extra missiles had been incoming.
“There’s a 45-second pause and I’m screaming at everybody as a result of they thought it was over.
“After the fourth one hit the sphere, I sprinted towards the entrance gate and by the time I’d received there the fifth missile struck the concrete plate of the hangar.
“I kept running, got to my vehicle and put my body armour and helmet on and headed to the bunkers.”
Dan, initially of Croydon, South London, arrange Trident Defense Initiative with different Brits and has skilled 3,500 Ukraine troops to date.
He added: “We began getting folks out of the bunkers.
“Me and some other guys started doing a casualty sweep. Luckily everyone was accounted for.”
Dan reckoned every of Russia’s S-300s missed their supposed targets — a firing vary, coaching base and airfield — by round 500 metres.
He bravely vowed to remain put and proceed his work after the lunchtime attack on October 14.
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His story emerged as Ukraine’s generals claimed 950 Russian troops had been killed in a single day — and Nato accused Moscow of “weaponising food”.
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin suspended a deal to allow shiploads of grain to go away Ukraine after an attack on his Black Sea Fleet by hi-tech water drones.
