In Ukraine with soldiers from the International Legion
Outsiders fight in trenches while battling drones
EASTERN UKRAINE — The bullet-scarred pickups raced the sunrise along a rough dirt road wending through a dense pine forest. The men inside them — Ukrainian, Brazilian, Colombian, Polish — spoke different languages, but few words. It was not a moment for small talk.
They had come to fight Russians.
The trucks barely came to a halt to discharge their passengers before speeding off again. Armed drones might appear overhead at any moment, and so as the men continued on foot, they, too, did so with urgency.
The soldiers of the 2nd International Legion had arrived.
The path of the soldiers, among thousands of foreign fighters who signed up to help Ukraine after Russia invaded, told a story of war.
The Serebrianka Forest in eastern Ukraine was badly scarred from months of fighting. Now, on this February morning, the bears, deer, foxes, and birds that once lived here undisturbed were nowhere to be seen. Many of the trees and plants that sustained them had been toppled and burned by artillery, mortars, and tank fire.
As the men walked, they saw bomb craters, some old, others so fresh that a green confetti of shredded leaves lay underfoot. They passed a makeshift cross, two sticks crudely bound together, marking where a Ukrainian soldier had stepped on a mine.
Then they were there: the snow-dusted trench line that would be home for their rotation.
The soldiers they had come to relieve were waiting for them and quickly moved off. Within minutes of their arrival, the fresh fighters came under attack, fired on by Russians from a nearby tree line.
Led by their Ukrainian commander, Tsygan, the 2nd International Legion soldiers answered with a barrage of their own, and the incoming and outgoing small-arms fire made for a confused, staccato orchestra.
Thirty minutes later, the fight tapered off, and the soldiers lit up cigarettes. They were going to be on their own at this outpost, with the Russian infantry as close as a football field away.
In many respects, the position had a feeling of timelessness.
A network of dugouts and log-covered bunkers was linked together by a crude labyrinth of hand-dug trenches, some strung with camouflage netting. Ahead was nothing but Russian soldiers.
Snow, rain, wind, and war crumble the trenches and bunkers that help keep soldiers alive in this war. In the lulls between fighting, the soldiers constantly fortify, repair, and deepen them.
But for all the similarity to Europe’s trench warfare a century ago, much has changed.
One soldier raised not a Mauser to his shoulder but an antidrone weapon that he aimed at the sky. It was silent, directing an invisible signal intended to disable enemy drones and send them crashing to the ground.
This type of weapon has become increasingly common on a battlefield where it is nearly impossible for either side to move without detection, with drone operators unceasingly surveying and directing bombing from a laptop as far as 6 miles away.
There are many reasons a foreigner might enlist to fight a war that has nothing to do with him.
One, of course, is money. The open-ended contracts in Ukraine pay, on average, about $2,500 a month, a tempting sum for some of the men who came there from countries with few good economic opportunities for them.
But some fighters at the post in the woods for the 2nd International Legion, which was created at the direction of the Ukrainian president in the days after Russia invaded in February 2022, said they were looking for something more.
One soldier, a Pole who goes by the call sign Konrad 13, described the war as a calling, even a blessing. Back home, he said, he had a troubled upbringing. Then, at age 41, he felt as if he was at a dead end.
Yes, the pay is appealing, Konrad 13 said, but so was feeling a sense of purpose.
“When I came here, my life changed,” he said. “I started to grow here. It’s been an evolution, and I have felt my life returned to me. I’ve changed and become a different kind of person. This is my family now — my true family.”
Over the course of their rotation — the Ukrainian military forbids saying how long it lasts, and how many fighters are in the unit — the men were involved in repeated engagements with the Russians across the way. During the day, fighting flared up every three or four hours, generally lasting an hour. At night came the bombs.
At the end of their rotation, with a fresh group of soldiers arriving to relieve them, the soldiers prepared their packs for the journey out. But they had to hold off: A Russian drone had appeared overhead at the end edge of the last trench.