'I don’t care what’s gonna happen to me. One or the other way I’m gonna die, why not die doing this?” Riding shotgun with the volunteers shuttling supplies to Ukrainian fighters
Despite the billions in heavy weaponry and materiels pouring into Ukraine, many fighters tasked with holding the line are still lacking in necessary supplies like body armor, consumer drones, and nighttime optics. So-called volunteers and informal networks like those organized by Ihor have taken it upon themselves to raise donations and sort out these logistics, sourcing supplies from all over the world.
The only thing missing is this package containing seven thermal vision monoculars, which have been among the most requested items at the fronts. Ihor had dispatched a young woman, a relative, to retrieve it and bring it over the Polish border from Krakow, but it looks like she’ll be spending the night. He usually sends young women, as they have less problems at the border. Unfortunately, the thermal visions are too important, and we’ll be forced to push the trip back another day.
in 1964, Ihor came of age in the last days of the Soviet Union. He grew up hearing the stories of the Holodomor, the Soviet-created famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s, from his grandfather, who grew up in the east of the country and only survived by catching fish in shallow ponds behind his home. He remembers bread lines and food shortages in the 1980s. But he also remembers summers in Crimea swimming in the sea and meeting girls, traveling around as a champion swimmer.
In 2007, he stumbled onto a product for sale on Ali Baba called Alcohol Killer. He ordered a sample, loved it, swore it worked, and started importing and distributing it in Eastern Europe, South America, and the States, where it’s called Xorb. It’s available at many gas stations in Ukraine, and whenever we pull in to refuel and buy snacks he always makes sure to check to see how it’s selling.
When the Russians first invaded in the east in 2014, Ihor started raising funds to buy supplies for the Ukranians fighting there. But he grew impatient with what he saw as somewhat ineffective efforts in the groups he worked in. Sure, they were helping the families of the dead soldiers, but he wanted to do something to actually try to stop the soldiers from being killed in the first place.
One of the major Russian propaganda points used to justify the war is the accusation that Russian-language speakers are being persecuted. To hear Ihor tell it, most of the men he met fightingthe initial invasion in 2014 all spoke Russian to each other, which proved a little confusing at times. “To tell you the truth, I used to think these weren’t my people at times,” he says of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east. “But that [the fighters’ dedication] made such a big impression on me.
I ask him what he plans to do after the war. He looks at me incredulously, as if I asked an entirely silly question. “We’re going to rebuild and then I’m going to go back to driving a truck,” he says. When I ask men what they’ll do after the war, the answer is always the same. Go back to my life. The implication is clear. They’re simply fighting for their home, so they can go back to their normal lives.
For him, that meant fighting in the trenches in Donetsk these last few years, which he describes as a positioning war, where they lacked supplies, attention, and big tactical movements. He’s cagey about where he’s fighting at the moment, though he says every day there’s shelling, every day there is a fight, every day they advance with a few tanks to see what’s going on and then pull back. I ask him if he’s hopeful. “Without a hope, I don’t fight,” he says. “Ukraine is the Statue of Liberty now.
War has again come to Slovyansk. Already, hundreds of thousands of people have fled the city, as well as nearby Kramatorsk and the surrounding villages. Defense analysts have said that Russia’s success in taking the entirety of the Donbas region falls on the defense of Slovyansk.
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