Volunteer’s journey in Ukraine trenches
A 21-YEAR-OLD Welsh YouTuber has told how he spent a “surreal” two months in war-torn Ukraine – drinking tea in trenches as shells rained down nearby and taking rides in trucks at “ridiculous” speeds to avoid being shot in contested territory.
Cameron, whose day job is analysing body language on his YouTube channel Enigma, left his home in central Cardiff to give first aid training and hand out medical supplies to people in Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.
He spoke to us about his experiences, from camaraderie with Ukrainian troops to a “very tense” confrontation with checkpoint guards after he was reported for taking pictures.
“When the invasion first happened I stayed up all night watching it,” said Cameron, who did not want his surname to be made public.
“There hasn’t been a big conflict since I was an age where I could do anything. Because of the media coverage in this war you can see people’s lives being shattered first-hand. It just hit me.”
Cameron, whose channel has 202,000 subscribers, decided to answer Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for support from foreign volunteers – despite the UK’s Foreign Office advising against all travel to the country.
“My family and friends really didn’t want me to go but they know what I’m like. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. They have been amazing.”
Although he had spent a couple of days on an emergency first aid course in the Brecon Beacons, he had the least medical experience among the volunteers he joined up with – the Task Force Yankee humanitarian group, which is largely made up of army veterans from a range of countries. “They trained me up so I could help others,” said Cameron. With the help of his YouTube platform he raised £2,000 to fund the trip.
He caught a bus from Sophia Gardens to Gatwick airport, flew to Poland and travelled with Task Force Yankee to several of the group’s safehouses across Ukraine, forming a close bond with two American volunteers, army veteran Jay and Swat medic Dan.
They spent a couple of weeks training soldiers and civilians in Lviv, where three buildings near them were hit by missiles and air raid sirens felt relentless. “We would always sleep with our ballistic helmets and soft armour next to us,” said Cameron. “On the first day we took the sirens seriously, we got the gear on and went to the basement, but after that we gave up because it was every night and two or three times a day.
“It was the same for civilians. Families would take their children to the basement but everyone else would stay where they were.”
Cameron, Jay and Dan headed in a van from Lviv to the capital Kyiv, but their journey was complicated by Ukrainian forces’ demolition of Irpin bridge to halt the Russian advance.
“We had to go around it on backroads filled with mines,” said Cameron. “They were not designed to kill, they were designed to maim. We drove through the minefield and up to that point it was the scariest thing I’d ever done.
“Luckily Jay had experience in Afghanistan where IEDs are commonplace. He drove in the middle of the road with Dan and me looking out on either side. Whenever we saw anything we’d stop, analyse ‘what is it’ and go. I remember saying to Jay, ‘What’s the chance of us dying?’ He just said: ‘Don’t think about it.’
“You learn to cope with the danger. There’s no use in getting panicked. I have social anxiety so I was more afraid of going into shops in Wales than I was driving through minefields. You just kind of accept it.”
While driving in a rural area near Kyiv the group got out of the van for a break and took a picture of sunflower fields.
“Someone called the checkpoint guards on us and we soon had three or four guys with guns standing in
front of us on the road,” said Cameron.
“They were treating us like we were about to shoot them. It was a very tense situation. Luckily Dan spoke Ukrainian and diffused the situation. They were called by someone saying we’d taken pictures of their checkpoint, which we knew we were not allowed to do. We were actually taking a picture of the beautiful fields which looked like the Ukrainian flag.
“They checked our phone and said, ‘OK fine’. We were chatting and laughing. The guards told us that two days earlier they’d captured an American taking pictures of where they were sleeping and sending them to the Russians.
“We were buddies by the end. We gave them a first aid kit
and had cigarettes together. They gave us Velcro patches showing a Ukrainian flag and I gave them one with a UK flag.”
Following a week giving training in Kiev, the group headed to Zaporizhzhia in the south-east where brutal trench warfare was taking place. Cameron described it as “the front front”.
“There’s a large area of contested territory,” he said.
“Anywhere you go there could be Russians. You’re not allowed there unless you’re with a military unit. They took us because we wanted to teach first aid on the frontline. That’s where it got wild.
“At that point we were acting independently to Task Force Yankee because we had to be given AK-74 automatic rifles to defend ourselves, although we didn’t use them. The second we left there were unexploded missiles everywhere, sticking out of the road. It was windy and there were cones blowing towards the missiles. That’s the moment I felt scared. We had to move the cones back to where they should be.
“The fields and roads had huge craters in them. The weird thing was there were Ukrainian farmers still farming cattle in the contested territory.
“We were driven by a unit with a machine gun on the back of the truck. We went at ridiculous speeds, probably 100mph, so we wouldn’t get shot at. The guy driving us had fought for a long time in the Donbas.
“He was an insanely good driver. Sometimes he’d see a mine or a pothole around a corner and go round it almost like a rally driver. The whole time the unit was scanning the trees at top speed.
“There was a guy lying down in the back of the truck, I assume he was the machine gun operator.
“At one point we hit a huge bump, and looking in the back mirror we saw this guy flying into the air, higher than the machine gun. He looked terrified but he laughed afterwards.”
The group went into a trench containing about 200 Ukrainian troops and handed out around 40 first aid kits. One of the soldiers told Cameron: “The Russians start bombing at 11.”
Cameron recalled: “They literally had organised times to start shelling which was really strange to me. It was very loud.
“They were flying drones over us but we had a special tarpaulin over the top. We were only 200 to 300 metres away from the Russians.
“The soldiers boiled a kettle and everyone was drinking coffee. When they found out I was British, the guy in charge came up to me and said, ‘Ah – cup of tea.’ He made a big effort insisting I must drink the tea and they gave me a massive chocolate bar. There were lots of cats in the trench too.”
The troops took the volunteers out of the trenches to see a Russian tank which they had destroyed using a missile.
During their outing there was a moment when Cameron feared he would lose his life.
“We thought there was a missile,” he said.
“We all hit the deck. Then we saw it was just a farmer opening a gate to take his tractor out. They really were operating like the war wasn’t there.
“We spent just over a week in the trenches. They gave us jam and one of them knitted a traditional Ukrainian doll for us. When we left everyone was shaking our hands. They appreciated us so much.
“We were on a 24-hour train ride back to Lviv when we found out that two of the guys in the trenches had been badly injured, I think by a mine.
“I believe one of the two lost both his legs and the other had a hand blown off. The kit we’d given them saved their lives.
Cameron said it felt strange coming home after the “surreal” two months.
“Two days after being on the frontline I was sitting at my computer playing video games. It puts everything in perspective. I know my problems are nothing compared to other people’s problems.”
Cameron said he could “potentially” go back to Ukraine but he is concentrating on helping Task Force Yankee get supplies into the country. He also wants to raise the profile of the group – which is mainly funded by members – to encourage donations.