For Ukrainian soldiers in one unit, life on the front line is very difficult. They only get 10 days off per year and there are many soldiers getting injured or killed.
Standing in a place with destroyed buildings, “Jimmy,” a Ukrainian soldier who has been serving in the military for a long time, thought about how he managed to stay alive. He said, “I’m fortunate. in my opinion, war can either protect or harm people. ”
His soldiers believe that the fact Jimmy is still with them, even though he has been injured several times, means he is very lucky.
His group, called the 24th Mechanised Brigade, has been around for a while and is a part of the older Ukrainian army. They have been fighting against the Russians since 2014. However, after the attack in February 2022, the army has grown more than three times its original size, the country has responded by mobilizing, and Jimmy’s unit has completely transformed.
We were in the Donbas, an area in the east known for its old factories, for two weeks in August. The 24th, which now serves there, is stationed between Bakhmut and Horlivka.
We visited the hometown in western Ukraine where the brigade stayed before the war and where lots of their families still live.
Jimmy leads a group of soldiers in the Ukrainian army. The army prefers we call soldiers by their nicknames instead of their real names. Jimmy took on this role as company leader last year. The company usually consists of around 120 soldiers. A police officer told me that none of the 15 leaders in charge of the company at the beginning of the war are still there. They have either been promoted or injured.
Before the war began, the 24th Brigade had slightly more than 2,000 soldiers. They would send their three battalions to the front line in eastern Ukraine for short periods of time. The Ukrainian army has grown to over 7,000 people, including five groups of soldiers, four groups of artillery, one group of tanks, and many other support units.
As more people were called to join the military force, both the experienced soldiers and many new recruits came together. Yurii is a young venture capitalist from Kyiv who is very talented.
At first, Yurii was given a rifle and sent to the infantry. But a few months later, he was moved to a new military team called the “start-up” in the 24th Brigade. This team specialized in flying strike drones. He sat at a table in a children’s playground and showed us new drones. These drones can carry explosives and be flown into vehicles, buildings, or bunkers where the Russians hide.
Yurii said that at first, his mother didn’t believe him when he wanted to join the military. However, when she saw him successfully guiding drones into the enemy’s trenches, she changed her opinion and became proud of him.
For now, they can take only 10 days off each year.
Yurii is different compared to the other men in the 24th. He makes £2,600 ($3,195) per month, with 80% of it being combat pay. However, his earnings from being a civilian are higher.
Yurii, who has a beard and is good at selling business plans, explained to me that our company needs to be more creative than the Russians because they have a lot more drones than us.
One of the officers said that even though Yurii has a lower rank as a private soldier, he is basically in charge of this unit. The pre-2022 army had a different hierarchy compared to the force currently fighting the Russians.
Another reason is that they are now willing to ignore age and other things that used to prevent people from volunteering before 2022. We encountered a sergeant named “Hryb” (which means mushroom) who was given responsibility for a self-moving big gun.
He is an older man, specifically 52 years old, who served in the army over 30 years ago. What does he understand or have knowledge about modern warfare.
The 152mm Akatsiya howitzers used by the 24th Brigade are very old. They are the same type that Hryb used in the Soviet Army in East Germany in the early 1990s.
The shells that we saw them shooting were made 40 years ago, and the crew has given the nickname Babushka or Grandma to the howitzer. Who else would know her old quirks better than Grandpa Hryb.
His family was not happy with his choice to volunteer. Hryb said that they were crying quietly. “They promised to wait for me and told me that they had feelings of love for me. ”
Many Ukrainian families are still facing difficulties and uncertainty as the war continues without any signs of ending.
At a place in Lviv where injured soldiers go to recover, I talked about how some soldiers, who weren’t hurt as badly, find it hard to tell their wives that they want to go back to the battlefront.
Pavlo, one of the patients, told me that a lot of boys, who were still alive but had lost a body part, also lost their families.
The man sadly says that this discussion has also happened in his marriage: “My wife believes I have fulfilled my responsibilities. ” Another man, who got hurt in a minefield during the recent counter-attack, tells me that Ukrainian society hasn’t fully realized how many injured people there are now.
The number of people who have died, gotten injured, or been taken captive might be discouraging others from volunteering. Ukraine does not share official numbers on recruitment.
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But, many of the men we filmed who were being trained at Yavoriv and a range near the front were in their 40s, and some were in their 50s. The police officers informed us that there is strong competition among different groups to recruit younger people.
In August, it was found out that many men were paying money or secretly leaving the country to avoid being called up for service. This happened after the officers responsible for the call-up were fired.
Many people who have become unemployed due to the economic crisis and are drawn by the high salary, willingly choose to go to the front line as volunteers.
In the summer, there were efforts to fight back against Russia and free the occupied lands. The Pentagon had high expectations for the Ukrainian military, but the veterans in the 24th Brigade had lower expectations.
“Jimmy said it’s impossible to make a simple and easy breakthrough. ” “We are preparing for a lengthy battle. ”
Another officer from the brigade, who leads one of its battalions, compared the conflict to the Vietnam War, suggesting that it might go on for a long time.
And as the battle continues, the defeat also continues. In Ukraine, it is not allowed to reveal the number of casualties because it is a very sensitive topic. The Pentagon recently said that about 70,000 Ukrainians have died in the war, most of them being soldiers.
Based on our study of social media and old news stories, it seems likely that around 400 people from the 24th Brigade have been lost. Around 120 of these individuals passed away during the conflicts from 2014 until the beginning of 2022, with the rest dying after the Russian incursion.
It has also caught many men, which is a problem for the authorities because they can’t make large-scale exchanges of prisoners.
The wife of a soldier who was captured during a war informed us that only 22 men from the 24th Brigade had come back until now. She also mentioned that all the government departments she contacted gave her the same response, which was to be patient and wait.
When the war ends, there will be many things to discuss and agree upon, including the return of prisoners of war to their home countries. However, the negative consequences and anger from the public over Russia’s actions have made it very difficult for Ukrainian politicians to come to an agreement for a ceasefire or peace agreement that seems like a messy compromise.
We went to a cemetery near Lviv with Natalia Nezhura. She put new flowers on her brother Andrii’s grave. “She said she did everything she could to prevent him from going to the dangerous area. ”
She starts crying as she tells me about how she feels like a failure because she wasn’t able to do it.
She kept Andrii’s call-up papers a secret. When that didn’t work, she used a connection to get him a job as a firearms instructor at the Yavoriv training ground. However, in the end, most of the boys were sent to fight on the front line.
Andrii died earlier this year during the fighting in Bakhmut, while serving in the 24th Brigade. We had a talk near the waving flags of different groups in the military area in Lviv. There were over 2,000 graves in that place.
People who think that experiencing loss and pain would make them want peace will be surprised. When I asked Natalia how she thinks the war should end, she said she wants all Russians to die because she really hates them. She asked how we can talk about peace when they have killed a lot of our people.
For many years, the experienced army kept a fragile peace and sometimes there were small fights near the border with the Russians. However, now everyone is involved in the conflict, and the way the soldiers and families of the 24th Brigade think shows how much the whole society is supporting the war. Only a definite win is seen as acceptable by Ukrainians.