In the autumn of 2026, the Khartiia brigade posted a video of a Russian saboteur from St. Petersburg who had shot five people during his attempt to infiltrate the city of Kharkiv. After spending nearly eight years in prison, the Russian saboteur went straight from his cell to the front, where he was sent on a solo mission following a route on his phone; he was later found by members of the Khartiia brigade between the village of Bobrivka and the neighborhood of Saltivka, where he was surrounded and apprehended.

The most northern part of the city of Kharkiv, a place known as Piatykhatky, sits just 13.6 miles or roughly 22 kilometers from the Russian border. Since the 2022 Kharkiv counter-offensive pushed out Russian forces, they have crept ever closer. Many areas of Kharkiv have seen a slow, yet continuous Russian advance—Vovchans’k along the Russian border, the areas surrounding Kupiansk to the east, around the village of Anyshchyne sitting on the border between both previously mentioned areas, and as of recently, a renewed excursion around Kozacha Lopan directly north of the city.

Now teams are working hard across the Kharkiv front to hold the land they fought hard to retake back in 2022, but that was four years ago, and this is a different war than it had been before. Drones have become the defining tool of modern warfare, battles underground in tunnels, and the attacks against civilians have never been higher. You may not have heard much from Kharkiv, but war rages on.

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“The larger the caliber, the more they fear us”

In the early morning light, we departed the city of Kharkiv, headed closer to the Russian border. The FPV drone threat remains high as drones already push deeper into the city. Jumping out of the truck, we quickly make our way inside, meet the crew, and see the system we’ll be working with today: a Czech-made 155 mm DITA is a self-propelled artillery system operated by the Khartiia Brigade.

Ammunition is loaded into the DITA artillery system’s automatic loader. Designed just a year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2021, the DITA, or Digital Integrated Artillery System, has all the modern-day updates an artilleryman could dream up. The turret has a magazine system that allows for pre-loading of shells, gunpowder, and primers; this—paired with the automatic loading—allows for the crew needed to fire being reduced to just two, although now they are accompanied by two more gunmen whose job it is to scan for drones and deal with any jams that may occur.

With an effective range anywhere from 14 to 40 kilometers, the gun is automatically set to fire based on calculations entered in from the intended firing coordinates. “Chucky,” the junior sergeant and commander of the DITA, lovingly refers to it as “our girl” when describing the system. “It’s a very good gun; with a solid Tatra-based chassis, it has good off-road capability and a smooth ride. [...] It’s very accurate—we hit the target on the first or second shot.”

Chucky’s journey through the military started within the same month as the full-scale invasion. Joining an engineering unit, he kept finding larger guns more attractive; transferring into a mortar unit, he says that he learned the basics there before moving on to heavy artillery—something he grew a fondness for. When I asked why he enjoyed heavy artillery so much, he got a smile on his face. “I like it when the “Pidars” (a typical slur against Russians) are afraid of us. The larger the caliber, the more they fear us! He says this while bursting into a hearty laugh.

Holding on tight as I am, sat upon the DITA’s turret, we rush down the forested paths towards the firing point. Jumping down my armor only makes the landing harder once we reach position, dashing to a safe distance as the cannon rises. A minute passes, and the automatic loader locks in both the shell and propellant. The primer magazine pushes it into place, and fire shoots out around us, the force of the blast making it nearly impossible for me or my camera’s internal stabilization to hold steady. Thirty seconds pass, another one fires off, shaking up the dirt around us, followed by another and another – that day would see nearly fifteen shots sent down range in only a couple of hours.

Khartiia has been a cornerstone of Kharkiv’s defense since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. It began as a DFTG unit of volunteers – DFTG, or “Volunteer Formation of the Territorial Community”, can be best understood as a civilian militia force given authorization to fight as military forces. While DFTG forces remain a part of Ukraine’s defense until this day – with prominent examples being the “Bucha Witches” or “Phoenix” – that I had previously reported with Khartiia remains the greatest success story of the programme. While many DFTG formations hold positions along the third line, Khartiia was one of the first units to reach the Russian border and was later deployed during the battle of Bakhmut.

Now, not only was Khartiia reformed into a brigade under the National Guard of Ukraine, but there is an entire corps that is home to brigades such as “Sloviansk”, “Spartan”, and the Latin American brigade “Rug”. When asking Chucky if he had any fear of another major breakthrough on the Kharkiv front: “Fear? I don’t think there’s any fear—we’re holding our ground just fine here. We’ve dug in well, built many positions, and are holding the line. Of course, there are suspicions that there will be assaults, and they’ll be major ones, but we’ll hold our ground—we’re ready to stand our ground to the very end.”

A war of drones

When thinking of police, you probably do not imagine them with advanced X-wing-style loitering munitions, silly you; the patrol police officers of the Khyzhak brigade have become well versed in the trade of mid-range strike drones. In the north of the Kharkiv region, they lay in wait among the tree lines, awaiting their time to strike and fight at the edges of the cornfields.

The crew operates the “Bulava” strike drone, which is similar in concept to the highly effective Russian lancet drone. They aim to hit high-priority targets further behind the zero line, such as anti-aircraft equipment and tanks, and as their target today, a drone pilot center inside of an abandoned home. Building the drone, it is nearly as long as the men are tall; racing against the oncoming storm, they load the drone onto a pressurized air launch system and fire it off. Reaching speeds nearing 100 kilometers an hour, it flies deep behind Russian lines, and with assistance from another brigade’s scout drone, it is able to maintain a signal through a localized mesh network. The village comes into view as the pilot sets the target on the drone center.

Right before impact, the Ukrainian scout drone is disabled, leaving the officers with no eyes on their Bulava drone; still, impact occurs. They review the footage and find that the drone hit near the target, but it’s unclear if it was a direct hit. Such is common with drone operations along the frontline. The mid-range strike drone campaign has been a great success for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as they have been able to cripple Russian logistics, target far behind Russian lines, and decimate Russian assault forces in a way that was previously the domain of Russia. However, such success comes with the same challenges that were faced by Russian efforts to do the same to Ukraine. The challenges include signal jamming, active air defense, and drone interceptors.

The Khyzhak brigade also uses drone interceptors to down Russian targets over the skies of the Kharkiv region. As we drive further east, we speed down a road flanked on both sides by stacked barbed wire and anti-drone netting. Passing defensive line after defensive line, there are multiple trenches, lines of barbed wire, and anti-armor dragon teeth installations lined up one after another.

Turning off of the main road, I am told to hold on as the dirt path bounces the truck up and down, side-to-side, before we hide it into the tree line. Doing our armor, we double-time it across the gap into the position. Differing from my time in Donetsk Region, this tunnel is not a hastily built hole in the dirt. This is a well-built tunnel system with walls lined with cloth and wire, the floor is gravel, and steel doors shut behind us. Aerial targets can be spotted heading towards Ukrainian positions or the city of Kharkiv from here, and the police officers are equipped to handle either. Different drones decorate the walls: simple FPV-style interceptors for Russian scouting drones and more advanced capsule drones such as the infamous P1-Sun for larger targets such as Shahed drones.

After a day’s work we begin to head towards Kharkiv, but as we make our way to the truck, we must quickly dash into the nearby tree line. Breathing heavily, we sit among the trees listening for the sounds of air cut by the small propellers. With the threat passed, we use this time to load up and peel down the road back to a city where, despite the war being so close, life goes on.

Ferroconcrete

The civilians in Kharkiv are tough and stubborn; I mean this in the most complimentary way. Ferroconcrete (iron-reinforced concrete) is the nickname of the city and is a fitting descriptor, as Kharkiv has the largest volunteer movement in Ukraine. Max from Dusha Kharkiv tells me that for many people here the war is very personal. Many people felt the hardships together during 2022 when Russians were at the gates of the city, and many more have lost people—family, friends, and other volunteers. he would continue; “We have a lot of death and destruction of the city that everyone can see, and they don’t look at it just from postcards.”

Dusha Kharkiv is an organization that started at the very beginning of the war with volunteers from a local restaurant shuttered by the encroaching Russian offensive and has since woken up at five in the morning every day to make fresh food to deliver to children’s centers, special needs homes, and internally displaced people. They also are part of the emergency response to airstrikes, as they would get the call and immediately load up their equipment to be able to provide survivors and rescue workers with a warm drink, food to eat, and blankets to keep warm. The effort all came at a cost, and Dusha Kharkiv found itself in debt of around $12,000. With government officials unwilling to provide help and the foreclosure of their space imminent, our team, consisting of Anastasiya Paraskevova and Devin Woodall, helped raise that money for them through an online campaign before East/West was founded. Anastasiya, a lifelong Kharkiv native would describe it as one of the most purely good things that she has done.

Resources: ERT offers training for civilians in tactical medical first aid. How to apply tourniquets on oneself or others, stop bleeding from shrapnel injuries, all the way to managing hypothermia, clearing airways, and even simulated scenarios of responding to an airstrike.

Shaman, the group’s leader, had been running evacuations from the first days of the war, originally using his Porsche Cayenne, which he would drive into highly dangerous areas and evacuate those in need, before later switching to a proper first-response vehicle. The crew of Resources ERT would also respond to strikes, and while paramedics are unable to enter an active scene and many firefighters lack the same knowledge, the team is able to fill the gaps and arrive when needed most.

Kharkiv is hit often with attacks, and many civilians understand the need to prepare themselves for the realities of war. In Ukraine’s second-largest city, they use FPV drones, cheap strike drones, larger Shahed drones, jet-powered Geren-5s, KAB bombs, and missiles. Their training classes are based on the real, lived experience of the instructors, and the wartime realities mean that classes are rarely empty.

Another night, another shaking blast

On October 13th a video posted by Brazilian GUR international soldier, Lucas Candido, shows the moment of impact an S8000 Banderol, a cheap jet-powered cruise missile, slammed directly into a civilian area of Kharkiv. Air raid sirens blare in the background as he hopes his building is not hit “The fucked-up thing here is, like, you don’t know whether you’re going to die, right? […] At the front, at least you can see the enemy. Here, man, you can’t see them. I could be here, sleeping, for fuck’s sake, and then—bam.”

I was the first journalist on the scene as emergency workers rushed to bring in fire trucks; fire raged on from the cars parked on the road. Soon a warning rang out, and we had to rush down into a nearby basement as the threat of repeated attacks reared it’s ugly head, these are clear attacks to target rescue workers and first responders on scene. Once the all clear was given, the firefighters started to work. As water shot out to douse the flames, the car batteries exploded into white sparks.

Civilians rush about in their nightclothes, trying to leave and get behind the safety lines; hours are spent fighting the flames, and such chaos is just another night in the city Kharkiv.

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Desperate for money, many log in to Facebook to search for job opportunities every day. For those in poor countries, that could now mean finding yourself trafficked across multiple countries with the promise of international work in places such as Poland, the Czech Republic, or Romania only to find yourself in front of a contract written in Russian and told to sign or disappear forever.

I was invited to speak with two recently captured POWs who recounted their time from poverty to being a combatant in a war they were unaware was even happening. Russia has shown a pattern of targeting impoverished individuals, both within the Russian Federation and abroad, as detailed in a September 10th Amnesty International report, by using deceptive tactics and threatening them to sign or face death.

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• Both men have given us verbal consent to record them as they speak openly about their experiences; however, it is fundamentally impossible to provide consent while being imprisoned as a combatant. For that reason, we have taken steps to hide identities and some personal information for their safety and dignity.

They cheated us

Located in the east of Ukraine, I arrived at a temporary building used to house these men before their transfer to a holding facility in the western part of the country. Both men were still in their uniforms and with hands tied with duct tape and a cover over their eyes. These two: ”Junior” and “Mario” lived very different lives.

Junior was a construction worker who also made comedy videos on Facebook with over 100,000 followers; familiar with the platform, he would search for work after losing his construction job and having his Facebook page taken down. A job picking fruit in Poland appeared, offering a monthly salary of $3,000, which Junior knew could support his longtime partner and child.

Likewise with Mario, Junior had never left his home country; however, he would be granted a passport with the help of the company and expenses paid to travel to the country’s capital of Bogota. From Bogota, he would meet with the same man that Mario did, a figure who goes by “Miguel,” handed him a ticket to Brazil, once there another figure, “Joana,” was coordinating South Americans to travel. Showering the men with food, alcohol, cigarettes, and a nice hotel, they were sent out five at a time from Brazil to Qatar. They were told that they would now be connecting from Qatar to Moscow and then driven to Poland. When asked if he knew that was impossible, he stated, “I didn’t know, because I, I mean, the first time I’ve traveled to all these places, from here to outside, because I’ve never left Colombia.”

Junior was met at the airport in Moscow with men wearing all black; some South Americans were taken in private cars, while others were taken onto a bus. Promised a fancy hotel to stay in, Junior understood something was wrong when they arrived at an abandoned, run-down building with no WiFi and constant guards. A contract was placed in front of everyone, all in Russian, and Junior was told the document was a contract for the work in Poland; he tried to use his phone to translate the page before being stopped and told to sign. Promised a tour of Moscow the next day; they were instead loaded onto a bus and brought to a military warehouse. As they watched the first person in their group walk in and then come out wearing military clothing, the rest of the group attempted to escape back to the bus, only to find the door shut and told that if the Colombians did not comply, they would be killed or imprisoned and made to disappear.

The men had been fingerprinted and fitted with uniforms; the Russians gave him WiFi access only once after signing to collect bank details for payment to be sent. The money never arrived, but Junior took this opportunity to reach out to his family. They offered to find a way to get him back to Colombia if the Russians let him go, that his daughter was sick, and that a previous injury would be a hindrance, but the request only led to his internet being cut off once again.

Mario had been a reservist in the Colombian military before running a set of bakeries with his wife, but business had slowed down. With no sign of being able to salvage the business, he moved in with family across the country to support his wife and children through working security only to find himself laid off six months later.

With no local prospects, he entered into a Facebook group where there were international job offers for such positions as kitchen staff, gardeners, and truck drivers—the latter being something Mario had a license in. However, seeing that these jobs were far from his home continent, he left the group. That did not stop the group from continuing to reach out to him. “I managed to leave the group, but they kept in touch with me[…]. I don’t remember the name of the girl who was doing the interview for announced employment in Russia. I was going to work as a driver, or I could also be a driver’s assistant to work in a fruit and vegetable company.” He entertained the idea despite his family’s objections. “One day, however, I told her, ‘no, let’s leave things as they are. I have my wife here. I have my daughters, and I don’t want to leave them. Because I am married and I would like to be close to them.’ So she told me, ‘Don’t worry about that because you can open an account and send money so that your family is well.’ Anyway, I tried to say no, but they insisted.”

Once they had convinced him, and with the next month’s bills close, he relented. They got him a passport and arranged his travel to Russia, where he was met with people dressed in civilian clothing, speaking with him only through phone translation. They handed him papers in Russia, papers He believed them to be for the company described to him as a truck driver. When Mario pointed out he did not understand the document he was signing, he was pushed to sign it anyways. Arriving at a clothing warehouse, he saw that these were not trucking uniforms but military ones, telling Mario, “[...] from now on, you are going to be a Russian soldier.” Mario released that he had been cheated and told me that; “In other words, it was all a trap [...] to have us in their hands and make us believe that we were going to work in a company, but it was all to take us to the war.”

Forward

Junior described himself as a problem for the Russians. They had refused to send him back home, so he did not want to comply. Promised 40 days of training, he was given only seven and never with live munitions. He was given no role and only assigned one command: “Forward”. Two Russians, communicating through phone translation, commanded a group of South Americans; Junior watched them fall one by one to the ever-present drone coverage enveloping the kill zone. When he had gone to rescue a fellow Colombian, the Russians pointed a rifle at his head, telling him not to help the man, as he could no longer move forward, and if Junior did not move forward, he too would be left there as a “legalized” kill.

Soon, all that remained from their squad was Junior and the two Russians. When they arrived at a forward position, the Russians locked him inside of the bunker. They had decided that the next day only Junior would march forward, as they had no desire to do so. However, when the next day arrived, Ukrainian forces had pushed close enough to assault the bunker. While the Russians packed, they handed him a sign that said, “You are going to die.” Junior claims to have picked up a couple of Russian phrases and sat there in a stunned moment before having rifles aimed at him. Moving around in the limited space of the bunker, eventually the situation got too hot, one of the Russian men kicking him onto the bed before fleeing from the approaching Ukrainian forces.

Turning off all of the lights and taking any remaining bags to surround himself with, grenades were thrown down into the bunker, smoke filled the space and fire spread quickly. Junior was able to put himself out and cover his mouth with a urine-soaked coat, something he attributes to his time in Colombia, where police would deploy smoke grenades often. After surviving and crawling out, he saw a group of soldiers; initially thinking they were Russian, he got their attention only to later learn they were Ukrainian and that he had surrendered.

Left for dead

Mario was given more training due to his history of military service in Colombia and was assigned the task of bringing supplies from position to position with another South American and a Russian to lead them. During one of these runs Mario and the others in his group would have to walk through a minefield; dead Russian soldiers lay around them. As they walked cautiously, a mine exploded, sending shrapnel into Mario’s left leg. As he spoke to me, he would continuously subtly rub his leg; “[...]when I felt that the mine hit me, I fell; I thought my leg was broken; I didn’t feel it; I told him Sánchez, ‘Please don’t leave me here.’ “ I gave him a rifle, and I said, ‘Pull me, pull me,’ and he said, ‘No, Mario, I can’t.’” being left for dead and with no response for help from his radio, Mario fashioned his own tourniquet, dragged himself through the minefield, and eventually found a Russian trench. After getting an injection and having his wound bandaged, he was told the next day that he could not remain and was forced to travel alone to a different position.

Mario had no idea where this second position was but was sent out anyway. Sleeping in the forest, he would wander the battlefield until encountering Ukrainian soldiers who were assaulting the area. The Ukrainian soldiers picked him up and told him to be calm. “They told me, ‘Calm down, we are going to help you.’ They gave me food, and they gave me water again. I was scared [...] I got scared because I said, ‘They will kill me’ because I was serving in the opposite army.”

Mario and Junior both express apologies to the Ukrainian people for having been in the Russian army and hope to return to their families back in Colombia. Mario would go further to make a plea to Colombian men. “For me, I would advise the guys who are now looking for a job, please be very careful. Don’t let them fool you. If they suddenly offer you a job in Russia, don’t accept it, because they are fooling you. They are simply using us to bring us to a war that is not our country.”

Job postings on Facebook now carry a high risk of individuals being trafficked through multiple countries into exploitative situations for Russia’s war of choice.


Meta declined to comment when East/West FM reached out to them about this Situation.

2 am check-up texts, shaking windows, getting use to going to bed while the world explodes around you. That is what many in Ukraine, myself included, got use to in 2025. This year alone would see more attacks that the previous three years combined--the kicker? 90% of attacks were against civilians.

Airstrike is a documentary created in partnership with Kharkiv DSNS, following journalist Devin Woodall as he documents the significant increase in Russian attacks that took place in 2025 and the harsh realities faced by courageous emergency service workers throughout Ukraine.

Airstrike offers a ground-level perspective as we report from eight different strike locations. The film includes exclusive access to Kharkiv’s command and coordination center, interviews with the commander of one of DSNS’s elite rescue units, and previously unseen footage from the archives of the state emergency service.

Featuring deeply personal stories from Ukrainian rescue workers, Airstrike aims to shed light on the personal struggles and perseverance of these brave yet often unsung heroes. It includes accounts such as that of a rescue worker discovering a family charred by an oil fire ignited by Russian attacks, finding solace in the love of his family back home, as well as the story of the youngest head of the State Emergency Services of Ukraine, who leads the only command and coordination center in the country. Additionally, you will hear from journalists who traveled weekly to cover these attack sites and reflect on how these events became routine in their lives.

Our aim is to expose the world to the hardships faced by these emergency service workers, the harsh realities of 2025 in Ukraine, and that, despite it all, there is still brightness in this world to be found.

I’m standing under anti-FPV drone netting outside of a fire station in the city of Kramatorsk, one of the last two cities remaining in the unoccupied Donetsk Region. Firefighters are arriving and departing as they go on and off shift. I am here so that I may follow these crews and document the attacks that have exponentially picked up in the past few months when a very familiar bussing sound starts to grow ever louder.

Meanwhile, my colleague, Dylan Burns, is traveling with a military brigade towards the town of Druzhkivka when they see two Shahed drones flying towards Kramatorsk. While the members of the brigade stop and attempt to shoot it down, Dylan says to the camera, “Huh, I wonder where they are going?” I do not have any questions because I am sprinting down the stairs with the DSNS workers as the building shakes and the lights flicker. Both Shahed drones have slammed into the fire station. Firefighters rush up the stairs to fight the fire that is now spreading through the second story of the building, only to be interrupted by the shout of “FPV!”

The firefighters and rescue workers across Ukraine have been common targets across Ukraine, from double-tap attacks to drones hitting their fire stations and trucks. Ukrainian DSNS workers have exceeded the expectations set for them before the full-scale invasion. However, as a DSNS Donetsk official would tell me about this region, “This area has been a frontline for over a decade now.”

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Rescue work from the ever growing front

War approaches the town of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region; half of the town was considered a “Killzone” already when I arrived at this fire station. Despite being in an area where movement is nearly impossible without drones attacking anything in sight, the firehouse still operates. Fire trucks are armored and equipped with anti-drone netting; body armor and ballistic helmets are now considered standard kit. Truly, DSNS firefighters and rescuers must take percussion in fighting the consequences of Russian attacks.

Loading up into a repurposed cash-in-transit van from the Druzhkivka station, I am embedding with the DSNS unit “Phoenix,” who are responsible for evacuating civilians out of dangerous areas. While half of this town is nearly impassable to vehicles, the civilian population is still in need. Anti-drone small arms fire rings out around us nearly constantly, accompanied only by the drone detector’s warning of a nearby threat.

The intercepted radio signal from the FPV made it clear that the drone was flying near us and that we needed to take cover. Pulling off in an alleyway, we filter out of the van and dash into the tree line. Kyryll, the Donetsk police officer in charge of security for the unit, stays closer to the vehicle, scanning the sky for an aerial threat, sunglasses on, shotgun in hand. “It’s best we aren’t close to the vehicle; that is far bigger a target than we are,” a rescue of Phoenix mentions to me.

Having loaded back into the van, we traveled down the roads of Druzhkivka. Signs of Russian attacks and military actions are all around us. Eventually pulling up to the approximate address, we exit once again and start our search for the correct building entrance. A man meets us at the door, a former municipal worker for the town, who had requested evacuation for himself and his elderly parents. The family had remained here as long as their son had a job, but as the war had started to fully engulf the town, his job was no longer possible. Walking up the flights of stairs into the elderly couple’s apartments, it is difficult to see scenes such as these. Their lives were packed into just a couple of small bags, while their home remained furnished with items from their soon-to-be former life. Memories, hard-earned possessions, and a space to call your own—all stolen away by Russian forces.

The men of “Phoenix” assist the couple and bring their bags down. It is a quiet ride back to Kramatorsk as the son sits with his arm around his mother—a quiet moment understanding that the life and home where they had lived for countless years has now been turned upside down.

When we returned to Druzhkivka with Phoenix, there had been no evacuation requests for this day; their work now focused on encouraging those who remained to leave before it became too late. Walking through the town, we navigate through rows of stacked barbed wire and crumbling buildings. The last remaining bazaar market now hosts fewer than a dozen shops, offering only the most basic items and easy-to-get food items.

The overwhelming majority of the remaining population consists of elderly individuals who either feel they have nowhere else to go, do not want to leave, or await the Russians. Propaganda is strong in frontline areas and can come disguised in many forms. Groups such as DSNS “Phoenix” and the police unit “White Angels” are the subject of a lot of Russian propaganda in hopes of keeping people in the line of fire; many turn away from reputable evacuation resources in favour of sketchy alternatives or remain in their homes as they are slowly swallowed by the kill zone.

Coming across a couple sitting on the curb of the main road, they say they are awaiting evacuation. Despite having paid a private taxi the equivalent of $50 U.S. to drive them twenty minutes up the road to Kramatorsk, the driver had not yet shown up.

Air alarm fire

Kramatorsk comes under near constant attack; as I sprint out of the apartment towards the smoke rising from the center of town, I can overhear a woman sitting and crying on the phone about how scary the attack was. Two KAB bombs had flown directly above us, shaking the entire building and rattling the windows before the shockwave rippled out.

The attack’s direct results become evident as I arrive at the scene—the courtyards of two apartment blocks bear the scars of destruction. Windows are smashed in, cars are burnt to their metal frames, and passing civilian and military personnel are rushing in to remove bent and broken doors in an attempt to rescue any survivors.

Firefighters running through the grassy areas between buildings with hoses in hand, filling the courtyard with steam, focusing on the cars and trucks engulfed in flames. My field producer is itching to get what we need and leave as soon as possible; he mentions that, “The Russians see all of us here.” The reality is that the firefighters, rescue workers, and anyone in the area are in danger as spy drones are used to confirm hits and see the reactions to these strikes from both sides. If a large group of people were to hang around an area for too long, more bombs or drones could be sent. So-called “double tap” or repeat attacks are a very common tactic used by the Russians to target and kill first responders both on the frontlines and in cities far from them.

Civilian infrastructure in Kramatorsk is often hit; the public market has been hit multiple times both during the night and during the day while busy with shopgoers. The intended effect has been noticeable, as shops and foot traffic have been reduced over the past few months. Shops around Kramatorsk have closed, gas stations have been targeted by drones—often turn to rouble—and restaurants have either shortened their menus or moved further west to Pavlohrad, as the war means that any space could potentially be a target.

Drone netting has nearly become a constant presence on all city roads, despite the drastic drop in civilian traffic. At the end of summer, the DSNS Phoenix evacuation efforts began in Kramatorsk as the war creeps ever closer.

No safe space

After coming back up from the basement of the Kramatorsk fire station, we climbed onto the roof to see the results of the Shahed attack. A German volunteer had brought a substantial amount of medical aid that he had spent months fundraising for and delivered personally; because of the fire, almost all three thousand euros of it were ruined, with only a handful of supplies remaining. The smell of smoke fills the station as I watch these firefighters climbing in and out of windows, pulling off burnt rubble, trying to reinforce what they can, and putting out the fire that had come home.

This location is not the first fire station I have been to that was attacked in Kramatorsk. Back in November of 2025, I arrived at a station in the eastern part of Kramatorsk immediately after a KAB attack. Evacuation vehicles and windows had been destroyed while the buildings’ integrity had been damaged but ultimately remained standing.

In truth the firefighters of Donetsk have faced war for over a decade, and as the war draws ever closer to the last free cities in the Donetsk region, they have become only more of a target. Direct attacks by FPV drones while fighting fires in Kramatorsk have become common; the “Phoenix” evacuation team had been hit multiple times since I last worked with them, and body armor is now a standard part of their kit. Yet they continue to wake up every day and choose to fight for the people of Donetsk.

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Just outside Dobropillia, the men of the 15th National Guard Brigade “Kara-Dah” are quickly putting on their armor. The situation quickly changed from having tea in the bunker to manning the gun as reports of a Russian advance began to come in. Fire coordinates are radioed in and logged as the team loads their Soviet-designed 2A65 Msta-B artillery gun. Five rounds are shot downrange, the walls of the dug-in gun position shake, and dirt falls into the tunnels that we take cover in. Smoke-filled canisters drop from the artillery gun as another is quickly loaded. All five find their target as we hear “plus” reported back on the radio.

Following the 1st Azov Corps being part of the operation stabilizing the area around Dobropillia in late 2025, National Guard forces have been holding the area here. While Russian forces target Kramatorsk via Kostyantynivka and Lyman, this axis protects the Dnipropetrovsk region, southern Kharkiv, and western Kramatorsk. One of the brigades working to hold off the Russians is the “Kara-Dah” Brigade. I would be joining the “Kara-Dah” Brigade for a day of fieldwork in the town of Bilozers’ke, a town just six kilometers from Dobropillia.

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Movement is risky

Rotation in and out of position is always the hardest part of any embed. A lot of rotation is done now by foot and with the assistance of electric bikes, scooters, and electric-powered wheelbarrows. An armored vehicle is a risk, and soldiers have often described them to me as “FPV magnets.” Rotating into Dobrapillya, I join Kara-Dah’s 4th battalion as they will be dropped off and hike the rest of the way as we work in the Bilozers’ke area.

The atmosphere is tense as the engine roars and those inside prepare for their mission. Arriving, we are given the order to exit. Two men take up positions with rifles aimed at the sky in search of FPVs as wheelbarrows and backpacks are unloaded. These troops must carry everything they need—sleeping bags, clothes, personal effects, and their equipment. Screeching out of position, the armored vehicle once again roars and bolts as quickly as possible back down the road. We say goodbye to the 4th battalion team and make our way to the center of town.

At first the destruction around us is minimal: broken windows, charred walls, and overgrown grass. However, a different picture appears as we head south. Buildings hit by KAB aerial guide bombs gape open like an abyss, apartment blocks are reduced to a concrete shell, and the buzzing of more drones—sometimes it is difficult to tell if they are Ukrainian or Russian. You feel the isolation of a town filled with people now barren and devoid of most signs of human life. Human life is all around you, with people’s belongings scattered from their apartments due to blasts, looted for survival by those who remain, and old advertisements on shops that once represented these individuals’ entire world.

We arrived just after an aerial bomb had been dropped on an apartment block, dust filling the air, fire still raging at the heart of the impact site. The entire middle part of the building collapsed in on itself; this area is the worst of all the destruction in Bilozers’ke. The rare civilian can still be seen either on a bike or on foot; like in every war-torn town, they are mostly in basements and shelters. There are probably a few civilians still left here in this section of the town—either hoping for safer days or awaiting Russian occupation.

We ran into the same soldiers from Kara-Dah’s 4th battalion—the ones we had arrived with—along with an additional unit of men. with an additional unit of men. It’s not a good idea to ever be in one large group, as that makes you quite an enticing target for FPVs and pilots seeking to up their kill count. Sure enough, moments after converging as a group, we take turns running through the section of open field that separates us from the cover we will use to head toward our next position as the familiar buzz of FPV rotors hums to life.

After documenting the work of Kara-Dah’s artillerymen, we soon started to make our way back to Bilozers’ke. After firing five rounds of artillery, drones are sent out to see if they can identify where those shots came from in hopes of doing anti-battery fire and robbing Ukraine of both an artillery spot and a crew. This time was no exception; we heard drones circling above us while we remained in the bunker, only leaving when it appeared that the sky was clear. About midway between our route back and the artillery position, we stop and search the skies.

I was the first one to see an FPV drone barreling down on our position. “Run!” our press officer yells out as we dash into the treeline. It doesn’t matter if it’s roots, twigs, or larger branches—you should put as much distance as possible between yourself and anything the drone could hit. As it approaches us, I dive to get as low to the ground as possible. It flies over us and off to another target—is it Ukrainian or Russian? Would you want to risk being wrong?

“Let Grandpa Show you how it’s done!”

When back in town we join a group of what I have coined as “anti-drone infantry”, though other names such as “micro-PPO” or “counter-UAV” are strong contenders for second and third place. Bilozers’ke is not a frontline in the same way Dobropillia, Druzhkivka, or Kostiantynivka are, but FPV range has grown exponentially in just a year and now threatens the areas that might have been considered “safer” before.

We try to remain under the cover of trees as friendly drones take off around us, those bringing supplies via vampire drones and range-extending drones to boost the friendly FPV range to hit the Russians from angles they don’t expect. One vampire team sends their drone out with a bag of FPV bodies to resupply a seemingly busy position and requests our help for the return trip, as it seems a Russian drone had taken notice of them.

Our anti-drone infantry team starts to fire at the Russian FPV as the vampire team grabs their drone from the field and runs back towards their position further away. The team, however, just can’t hit the drone. That’s when an older soldier comes out with a lit cigarette in his hand. “Bad snipers!” he quips. “Let Grandpa show you how it is done.” Placing the cigarette behind his ear, he flicks his AK into automatic and, with three bursts of shots, knocks down the drone. “Call me if there is more!” he tells the crew before heading back where he came from.

An ATV equipped with a jammer, along with a man on the back holding a shotgun, quickly located us; our team provided cover as they drove through yards and worn-down dirt roads while FPVs pursued them on their return from the mission. In total, the team engaged a dozen or so FPVs while we were with them.

Anti-drone infantry is a position for which you must train your eyes, ears, and marksmanship sharply. You are a shield for many other units and a last line of defense if things go sideways. FPV cameras are not high-resolution, 4K, or detailed-filled image sensors. It is often better if you stand still under tree brush and blend in. With every shot you risk exposing yourself, and those in anti-drone infantry take on that risk to save others. Every drone shot down has the potential to save five men and an armoured vehicle.

Making our way back to the meetup point, we have arranged for transport out of town – another armoured vehicle. We sprint towards it as it pulls in to offload supplies and troops. Driving through the streets we had walked earlier provides a greater appreciation for the logistical challenges that FPVs have created for soldiers, even in terms of simply coming and going from their positions. ISR, or “Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance” drones, can detect you long before you detect them; therefore, lingering in one place for too long or being seen unloading troops may raise Russian suspicions that a position is nearby, potentially leading them to launch an attack.

You can only do your best and take as many precautions as possible.

Backline hunters

Kara-Dah forces are not just on the defensive—the “ghosts of Khortytsia” battalion are using the Hornet drone for midrange strikes to hunt Russian logistics in hopes of choking the lifeline to the front in this area. Weakening Russian positions and leading to a possible Ukrainian pushback.

When you’re in a war, attacking always comes at a greater cost than defending. Russia has advantages in both manpower and resources to spare for feeding, watering, and supplying their soldiers. Even if they only use these men as meat shields, with less-than-ideal weapons, to try to overwhelm Ukrainian lines, they just have the men to spare. If there was a way to beat them without risking Ukrainian lives and forcing the Russians to either starve or retreat, these drones are the way.

Launching from an air-powered catapult, you might know the Hornet drone from videos published by the 1st Azov Corps highlighting flights over Donetsk and Mariupol. Kara-Dah isn’t able to reach deep past the front like the brigades shown in those videos, though. They are seeking funding to purchase Starlink mobile internet systems to equip these drones, allowing them to fly past an analog signal.

AI powered drones use complex algorithms to search for targets while the team behind the controls guides this drone past the zero line and further into the occupied territory. I saw Pokrovsk for the first time in a year through the lens of this drone. They hunt Russian trucks hauling fuel, supplies, armored vehicles, anything to rob the front of what they need.

The brigade’s name, “Kara-Dah,” comes from a mountain in Crimea of the same name, “Karadah.” I told the commander of the drone position that he might one day be able to fly these drones over Crimea; he chuckled and said, “Maybe.” A week later, a video showing Hornet drones flying over the Crimean peninsula was posted. Kara-Dah still seeks to upgrade their Hornets even with the capabilities of a base model of this drone being impressive.

More than one man, but only possible because of them.

It is impossible to fully impart how these places feel—every movement carries a risk. The buzz of drone wings cutting the air fills you with adrenaline even if you know it’s friendly, and it is constant. For troops, you watch as the town where you are stationed is slowly and systematically destroyed while you hold off the Russian advance. You and your comrades find moments to smoke, laugh, and bring “precious supplies,” such as a fresh bottle of Coca-Cola, between positions when the skies are clear. You rely on each other; those who will draw the attention of FPVs lean on anti-drone infantry. Soldiers closer to the front rely on Vampire drone logistics and midrange strike drones to both maintain supply lines and take away the Russians’ supply lines, respectively.

I see it through the eye of a visitor to places like this. The defense of a town nearly 13 kilometers from the Russian advance is brutal and bloody, and with the encroaching nature of drone technology pushing the zone of risk, or “kill zone,” further back, what a “frontline town” is must be reexamined. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the largest free cities in the Donbas, are nearly as close as Bilozers’ke is now, and that area is under a tremendous amount of pressure as Russia throws manpower and a lot of their “elite units” in that direction.

Brigades like Kara-Dah work hard to hold their positions as the Russians slowly advance towards Dobropillia and Bilozers’ke. They work as a machine, each part working off the other for a greater goal.

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While facing Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian state emergency services are facing ever-increasing drone attacks, “double-tap” strikes designed to kill first responders, new weapon systems, and an emergency system that has languished for years. The city of Kharkiv suffers heavily from all of these things but has met the horrific conditions head-on by creating the first of its kind command and coordination center. The first not only in Ukraine but in all of Eastern Europe, the command and coordination center is a groundbreaking modernization of Kharkiv’s civil protection system—done all under wartime conditions.

In this three-part series I will be showing multiple perspectives and responses to airstrikes from those of civilians on the ground, journalists reporting on strikes, the DSNS firefighters who have faced frontline conditions, and even exclusive access inside the Kharkiv command and coordination center.

Today I will show an exclusive look inside the Kharkiv command and coordination center and sit down with the man responsible for the center’s conception and implementation, Bohdan Hladkykh. A look behind the curtain into how these systems are saving lives and the brutal realities of “double tap” attacks and how this center has worked to save rescue workers’ lives.

Given a righteous task

32-year-old Bohdan Hladkykh, Director of the Department of Emergency Situations of the Kharkiv City Council, was not a rescue worker but rather a lawyer by study. Bohdan spent his career working with IT technologies to help in Ukraine’s digital transformation before being personally invited by the mayor of Kharkiv to bring Kharkiv’s Civil Protection system to a new level in 2024. He would tell me, “I’ll be honest, probably since childhood, one of my dreams was to become a rescuer. Let’s say it didn’t fully come true, but it still led to the need to reform the civil protection system that existed in the city at that time.” A task was set for Bohdan to come up with a proposal to modernize the civil protection system.

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This would be an incredibly difficult task, to rectify a civil protection system that had been neglected for years and underfunded as a matter of state policy, and to do so in the middle of the largest war in Europe since WWII. Convincing the mayor and seeking funds from domestic and international partners, Bohdan went about implementing this concept into reality. He would tell me, “Not sure how it may come across, but I can say this: But thanks to the war, the state emergency services and overall the civil protection system got an entirely new life. Just like the police and all rescue services.”

This was all coming off of the back of 2024’s intensive bombing by Russian “KAB” aerial glide bombs launched from jets that were kept just out of range of the U.S.’s limit on “Deep Strikes” into Russian territory. These attacks, sometimes reaching as many as 15 bombings a day, were the new terror of the city. Launched around the clock, they found particular prominence during the daytime when mobile anti-air units are not allowed to leave their position in fear their position would be identified. Many residents remember this time just as badly as the attacks in 2022, at the start of the full-scale invasion. With a colleague writing to myself and others they are close to, they knew that during this time that they believed they would die if these strikes continued.

I experienced these attacks myself whilst reporting from Kharkiv in early 2024.

Double tapped

The Epicenter attack of May 25th, 2024, was a particularly horrible day. Russians launched two D-30 UMBP “KAB” aerial glide bombs at a supermarket on a busy Saturday afternoon. I was on scene shortly after the second explosion and could document the uncontrollable fire that ensued, as was DSNS crew lead Turgut Asif-Ogku Abbasov, whom I had interviewed in the previous part of this series. Turgut arrived to assist in the rotation of the first firefighters who had arrived on the scene. He would help extinguish the extremely hot fire and begin the long process of body recovery; three would be identified while on his shift, but a total of nineteen people would be confirmed dead with over fifty injured in the attack.

This was a “double tap” attack. Double taps, or repeat strikes, are a tactic adopted by the Russian military so that they may kill as many first responders as possible on an emergency site by delaying a second attack just long enough for rescuers to arrive on the scene.

Turgut would talk with me about that Epicenter attack. “There were two KABs, yes, it was two KABs. So in 2022, the threat was from MLRS. And then, of course, they started terrorizing and killing us with KABs. Unfortunately, that’s our bitter experience. These repeated strikes—we fell into those traps. They double tap with either KABs or Shaheds. Second strike about 15-20 minutes later, when there was already a gathering, lots of rescue services, police. Firefighters arrived, and they repeated the strike, double-tapped.”

Turgut knows the loss these strikes cause, as his friend and fellow firefighter Oleksandr Podolskyy was killed by a double tap attack in March of 2022 when a Grad missile struck Kharkiv’s Barabashovo market. Turget would tell me that hearing the Grad missiles landing, everyone on the scene had taken cover and that, “when everyone started to get up, two of our men stayed on the ground. They didn’t get up. One had a shoulder injury, a fracture in the humerus. He had surgery and is doing fine now. But Sasha got a shrapnel wound to the head, and he didn’t make it to the hospital. He is gone.”

These double-tap attacks are one of the areas where the Command and Coordination Center needed to quickly adapt and find a solution to minimize the impact of, to give advanced warnings of these repeated attacks and save lives. Bohdan tells me, “Starting from, as you correctly said, when KABs began to hit the city, at first we didn’t see them at all. Then there was a situation when we didn’t see the “Molniya” drones (lightweight, fast-moving suicide drones), which were used for the first time against Kharkiv by the enemy. Now we see them.”

I was given an example of this in the aftermath of a “KAB” aerial glide bomb strike in the Kyivskyy district of Kharkiv, where over a hundred people were on site. Utility workers, rescue workers, municipal services, and even the heads of departments were there when the call came in that two Iskander missiles were launched at them. With the new advanced warning system provided by the command and coordination center, every single person on site was able to get into shelter. Of over one hundred people, not a single one was killed, and I am told that as of today in Kharkiv, injuries from repeat strike attacks have been minimized, and fatalities from these double taps have been eliminated.

The priority is not just the rescuers on site but also those who have been rescued and those still present on site of the emergency in need of help. Bohdan tells me that “in almost 90 percent of cases, civilian infrastructure is attacked. Things that have nothing to do with the military or military units. That’s why this component is so important.” A number echoed by Ukrainian diplomats and UN council meetings.

A brave new world

As I stand in the main room of the command and coordination center, I am told about all the desks set around the room and what service they correspond to. Electrical services, police, anti-air military coordination, and DSNS rescue workers all sit at desks no more than 10 feet apart from each other so that they may communicate without delay. On the floor-to-ceiling monitors I am shown recordings from all over Kharkiv of Russian airstrikes—all taken from a new network of cameras scattered around the city. I am even able to meet the person responsible for pushing the infamous air siren button that sets off the air alarm warning system for the city. Even this system has been updated with the changes Bohdan and his team have implemented—sirens now also speak a specific threat type, be it drones, aerial bombs, or missiles.

There was truly nothing like this before in Ukraine. typically, all emergency services worked separately from the others, and that would often lead to necessary services not being on-site for even something as simple as a house fire. Frankly, the new coordination center it looks like a set from a TV crime show.

Bohdan shows a digital map of Kharkiv with icons over every home and apartment block. Clicking on one of these shows an apartment’s occupants, the floor they are on, the number of their apartment inside the building, and their phone number. A digital map of people across the city allows emergency service workers to understand who could be under rubble, who to call to check, and if there is no response, who to search for. “We were the first to do this during the war. Under the conditions Kharkiv lives under, no less. And now many cities in Ukraine, and even in Europe, are adopting our experience and implementing it in their own communities with a coordination center model.” This system is setting a standard for this part of the world—it is not lost on anyone involved here or those in other parts of Ukraine.

Plans were made to implement command and coordination centers across Ukraine based off of the Kharkiv model; however, these systems are mighty expensive. The truth is that this center in Kharkiv was largely funded by USAID. I would be told by Bohdan, “There is a significant contribution from USAID in building such a modern security center, our emergency center here. And if not for international partners, it would have been extremely difficult for the city budget.” While other partners such as Poland Helps and Kharkiv IT contributed quite a bit, USAID would make up around half of the total funding.

Due to this command center, the emergency response time has dropped from minutes to seconds. When an emergency occurs, the surveillance operator detects it and provides the location to every service in the command center; they are on the same page about the type and location of emergency and what is needed as new details arrive. A quick dial system means that at any moment those at the command and coordination center can contact any of their crews across the city to get involved or relay information. When asked about his role, if Bohdan stays at the command center or goes to the scene of these attacks and emergencies, he tells me, “Well, of course, I also go out. We have rotations; all our guys work 12-hour shifts. The command post works 24/7, as does the emergency. All the people here right now also work 12-hour shifts and rotate. So of course, I’m present at every shelling incident.” Utilizing a mobile command center, he is able to fulfill his role and be on scene to personally oversee the emergency situation.

Bohdan speaks very passionately not only for those of the emergency service workers but also for his team. With an average age of 29 years old, the emergency center is quick to adapt, and as circumstances change, I am told the policy is “minimum bureaucracy, maximum innovation.” “As you know, we have built the center, tested it in wartime mode, and continue to test it. If there are moments where we need to change, or we have to introduce some innovations, we do it very quickly and learn just as fast. Because we don’t have time, you know, for all those bureaucratic things.” Bohdan tells me.

Reflecting once again on his team and how proud he is of them Bohdan tells me, “One thing I can say—I’m often asked, ‘Where did you find such a team? Where did you get such people, especially young ones?” Well, first of all, I want to say they all have fire in their eyes. They love their work. And most importantly—you know, I’ll say this: You don’t always need to have a specialized professional education in this field. What unites all of us working at the center is one thing—an incredible love for the city of Kharkiv. And it makes extraordinary things happen.”

Worth fighting for

War creates the need for innovation, and many from the “Maidan generation,” those people who challenge the bureaucracy inherited from the old Soviet system, continue to do so during Russia’s full-scale invasion. They see areas in their country where they can improve for the benefit of their people, where they can truly make a difference and work to implement said change. This doesn’t mean that all problems are solved, but just the fact that people today are continuing the dream of a better world that many held tightly to in 2014.

That same colleague who messaged me accepting that she would probably die under Russian KAB attacks, now, upon leaving the command and coordination center, said that this type of innovation and breaking of the old Soviet system is why she fought for and became a Maidan revolutionary back in 2014.

During my time gathering reports and information--if that is being out of patrol with Anti-aircraft teams, sitting inside of a fire station, deep inside the command and coordination center, or on the action sites of Russian air strikes for this series of articles I have seen a fair share of horrific things. The fact is, I can never make you understand the feeling of terror that those sitting under sirens feel. How mothers, fathers, sons and daughters feel to wait in their hallways with their families feel as their building shakes from impacts close by. You will never understand it unless or until, dear reader, you experience it--and even then those here in Ukraine have been experiencing it for what is now nearly five years.

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Prior to the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022, DSNS firefighters, rescue workers, and the state emergency services as a whole were just not taken seriously. The State Emergency Services lingered in limbo after the 2003 reforms that removed firefighters from being considered Ukrainian Army reservists. “The State Emergency Service today has become a completely different structure during the war compared to before,” said Bohdan Hladkykh, Director of the Department of Emergency Situations. During the full-scale invasion, Kharkiv updated nearly all of its firefighting equipment and saw to it that rescue workers, whose salary was previously 10,000 UAH (roughly $245), had it increased. Bohdan continued, “The fact that the State saw the real need for serious reform to get to the European standard in Ukraine is very good.”

In this three-part series I will be showing multiple perspectives and responses to airstrikes from those of civilians on the ground, journalists reporting on strikes, the DSNS firefighters who have faced frontline conditions, and even exclusive access inside the Kharkiv command and coordination center.

Today is the experience of one firefighter operating on the frontline of Kharkiv’s most destroyed district of Saltivka. These are not the stories of saving kittens from trees but the harsh reality of identifying the charred-to-ashes bodies of women and children, working under the threat of artillery, and risking it all to save someone.

When they arrived

Turgut Asif-Ogku Abbasov is a Ukrainian-Azerbaijani firefighter, the head of the crew for the 22nd fire and rescue unit in the Saltivka district of Kharkiv. Prior to the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022, nearly half a million people lived in this district with a thriving community, but within the opening week of 2022, the frontline had pushed to the gate of Kharkiv, and thus Saltivka became a battlefield. Turgut would tell me, “Well, at times me and my crew question ourselves on how we even managed to survive that year (2022). Because now it’s already the third year of war, and we pretty much have all the data about MLRS launches, missile launches, etc. Back then, there were no drones. Back then there were no alerts. No one warned us; we didn’t know if something was flying our way or not.”

On February 24th, at 6:30 in the morning, on the first day of the full-scale invasion, Turgut’s team got a dispatch to head to the nearby village of Bobrivka. While returning to Kharkiv, they were stopped at the main crossroads just outside of the Saltivka District by an armored column of Russians preparing to assault the city. Caught behind Russian lines, they saw the mass exodus of people trying to get through, trying to escape the war zone that they had woken up in. Approaching the Russians, Turgut would demand that his fire crew be allowed through to return to their firehouse. He said, “I didn’t yet understand the full seriousness of the situation. I was still a bit like, “So what are we supposed to do? Just stand here?” I wouldn’t have spoken to them like that today, knowing what they are. But back then it wasn’t clear who they were, what they could do. That stuff happened in Donetsk and Luhansk. But we hadn’t seen it firsthand.”

Staging an escape, Turgut and his men would route their bright red fire trucks through fields and tree lines to smuggle themselves past the Russian blockade and back to their station unharmed. A column of smoke rose from the direction they had escaped from. Urban warfare had started, a street battle not far from the main crossroads. The gates of Saltivka had become the frontline.

Though Russians would be held off from taking Kharkiv, the threat of MLRS, artillery fire, and tank rounds persisted until the late 2022 counteroffensive that liberated the vast majority of Kharkiv Oblast—though attacks from missiles, aerial bombs, and drones on civilian infrastructure still happen to this day. It was during this time, before the Kharkiv counteroffensive, that Saltivka would be slowly killed by the Russian attempt to take the city. High-rises were bombed out, many were killed, and the equivalent population to the State of Wyoming was forced to evacuate or bunker in place as their homes, businesses, and community were turned to rubble.

Turgut recalled “starting on the 26th, the first call to a high-rise building. The stairwell was damaged, and people couldn’t evacuate. Stairs—gone, elevator—gone. Our training, like rescue drills and knot tying for rescue loops, was all put into practice right there. Grad missiles were incoming; it all happened so fast.” He would tell me many stories he has from this time. They worked directly under artillery fire and close enough to the frontline that Turgut and his men learned the distinct sounds of outgoing Russian artillery fire and the experience of the incoming round just being seconds away. Turgut added, “We kept working, and at one point, the whole building just shook. When I came out, I saw—we were working in the third stairwell, and the strike landed in the fifth, just one or two entrances over. That was at the very beginning. It was brutal, because we weren’t prepared for war—we weren’t prepared.”

-the strike on Heroiv Pratsi Street-

“The scenes were just terrifying. The destruction went from the 4th to the 1st floor. Everything was burning inside. Everything was burning outside. Cars were on fire. It was like a mini-apocalypse.” This was the scene of an attack by a KAB aerial glide bomb, as described to me by Turgut. In 2024 KAB bombs became the Russians’ preferred way of attacking Kharkiv—particularly districts in the northern part of the city. Old Soviet stockpiles meant that these were a cheap and easy way to strike terror into the citizens of Kharkiv in a way that Ukrainian forces hadn’t yet figured out a counter to. With U.S. restrictions on American weapons striking “deep” within Russia, the bomber jets firing them could operate in safety. With sometimes fifteen or more KAB strikes a day, they were just another way to kill and terrorize a city that would not submit to the Russians.

Chaos was everywhere when Turgut arrived on the scene. “In such situations, the most important thing is not to lose control.” He would tell me. Masses of people had gathered and all looked towards the emergency responders to solve every issue instantly. There were so many civilians on the site that the fire trucks could not get through to the site of the fire, and Turgut had to run over 900 feet (300 meters) to the site of the fire. “People running up to me and crying out, ‘My child’s there,’ ‘My mom’s there,’ ‘My dad’s there,’ ‘Please help,’ and I’m basically alone.” Arriving in two trucks, there were only a total of eight people there on site, with two more teams arriving later. The trucks could not get past the narrow yard passages, so Turgut ordered his crew to grab hand tools and run to the fire. He said, “Let the cars burn outside. Because the top priority is to break down all doors and evacuate people.”

After they believed that they had rescued all those on site, Turgut grabbed a flashlight and began his last sweep of the area to make sure all those who needed help got it. “I couldn’t go in at first. Because the heating system was damaged and boiling water was pouring out. But I had to go in regardless because I had to check if anyone was still there. So I went in, with boiling water pouring down on me.” Braving this, Turgut started to shine his light around; he saw a woman at least two floors below, eyes staring back at him, not making a sound—but she was alive.

The woman was trapped under concrete slabs and rubble, and hanging above her were an old cast-iron bathtub and a block of concrete, both holding on by wires. There was only a small space around her, barely able to fit Turgut, her body twisted and in shock, but she was alive and in need of help. “There was a staff officer standing behind me. He said, “Turgut, what are you going to do?” “Well, I can’t just leave her like that; I can’t wait for the others to come. I’m going down there. Stay behind me and keep the light on that bathtub. If that tub falls, I’ll die with her.”

He could barely fit himself in this cramped position, but he started to move the stones and scoop rubble off of her. He felt as if he was making progress and that something was working. Men from the fire unit worked to try and clear rubble from the floor above and clear a tunnel to get to Turgut and this woman. He describes this as another moment in his life where he almost lost control. Panic had set in. “I had to pull her out. She was alive. I don’t know; maybe if she hadn’t been alive, I wouldn’t have had this kind of drive to get her out. Wouldn’t have been there, maybe. But I had to get her out. I start digging, digging, digging,” he told me. She was lying there in silence as he worked to free her arm and shoulders, but she was fully limp, a dead weight, and even with his impressive strength, he could not move her an inch.

Eventually forced to stop digging as exhaustion set in, he realized that his strength had left him. “I can’t do anything; I simply can’t,” he said. “At one point I just started hitting the slab, and I began screaming in desperate rage. And honestly, I didn’t know what to do. I sat down and just started wiping away the snot, tears, and drool. And I told myself, “Fuck it, Turgut, get it together. You have to do this.” So I started again, stone by stone, stone by stone.” His persistence paid off as his crew opened a tunnel, and they were able to make their way in to help him. With slabs of concrete hanging above them, they were able to pull her free.

Once the woman was free and with the medical team, Turgut took to the street, removed his mask, and sat down. Director Bohdan Hladkykh was walking by and told him, “Good job, Turgut.” “Those words, man, it was like a wave of strength hit me. I sat down, and I felt such relief.” Turgut said with pride.

He hadn’t known it at the time, but that woman that he saved from the rubble, Tanya, was an ambulance driver and close friend of the wife of a driver of his fire crew. Tanya’s husband later came to the fire station and hugged Turgut for his actions but informed him that while Tanya was saved, they had lost their son in the attack.

That speaker saved us

When asking about the morale of the crew, Turgut would choose to tell me about a loudspeaker that a store owner had gifted to him: “Honestly, every time we went to those fires, I don’t know about how others do it, but everyone always wanted to be on duty with my crew. Because our team was just so wild. When we went to places like Tsyrkuny or Northern Saltivka, we were rolling.” His crew went out in a positive mood, music blaring through a city that was empty, nothing working, only those remaining who could not leave, and filled with military positions. Laughing, he said, “Just imagine the scene: I’m driving down Heroiv Pratsi, and there were checkpoints every 300 meters. I blast “Vova, Fuck Them Up Blyat” on the loudspeaker, music blasting. Soldiers showing us thumbs up. We were in such high spirits, I’m telling you. That speaker saved us mentally.”

They would drive past tractors, local farmers, and people would come out to see them. Turgut said, “I’d throw on ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ through the speaker.” And everyone would turn around and go, “Glory to the heroes! We had fun. Never once were we down or afraid heading to a fire, like, “Oh no, what now?” We always went out fueled by adrenaline.”

In the summer of 2022 When the Russians pulled out just a few kilometers away from the northern border of the city, Turgut and his crew would once again start taking emergency calls from the suburbs like those they had gone to back in February, when they then found themselves behind Russian lines. At first the soldiers would not let them into these hot zones but started to understand that this crew was serious. “We’re standing there, waiting, and they go, ‘Are you serious? You really want to go there?’” Well, yeah. Turgut would recall, “These dudes (said), ‘Guys, you’re just, like, mental. How can you just go like that? Much respect to you.” So not only did civilians start loving us, but even the military started to love us.”

The reputation of the firefighters grew immensely during the war as people saw them working and giving their all despite going through hell. “Of course, I wish it hadn’t come at such a cost, through war, for people to realize that firefighters exist. And really work. They really do. And I think I’ll keep working in this field, probably.” You know, dear reader? I do believe him.

Watch our full documentary on the subject of DSNS rescue workers here:

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While reporting on the location of seven airstrikes across three cities and over a year and a half of gathering information, a collective of 75 people have been killed and 396 people injured in just these seven attacks. This is not the total number of people killed or injured at this time, but rather a small snapshot of a topic so broad that it requires multiple viewpoints to truly comprehend.

In this three-part series I will be showing multiple perspectives and responses to airstrikes from those of civilians on the ground, journalists on the scene, the DSNS firefighters who have faced frontline conditions, and even exclusive access inside the Kharkiv command and coordination center.

Today is the experience of reporting on multiple strikes around Ukraine through the eyes of reporters on civilians.

Odesa under fire

Since the start of 2025, Russia has launched a total of 28,597 drones against Ukraine. Russia has destroyed over 200,000 homes, adding to the more than 1.4 million households that have been either damaged or destroyed—this directly affects over 3.4 million people. With a reported 90% of Russian missiles, drones, and bombs hitting civilian targets, these disaster sites become so frequent that they become commonplace. It can border on routine and “old news” for some, but this disengagement leads people to look away from the horrors that millions face on a daily basis and causes many in the Western media to stop paying attention to these tragedies.

There is a phrase here in Ukraine that has replaced the standard “Good night” or “See you tomorrow,” which is “Have a quiet night.” I almost did on July 3rd, 2025, whilst in the Odesa countryside. I had stayed up all night with the men of the 11th National Guard, based out of Odesa. Stationed on a sea cliff overlooking the Black Sea far from the city, I was there to document their work; however, Vitaly, a soldier in the unit, would tell me, “We’ve had more days off than days on recently.” He and his unit played a group game on their phones as the night passed.

The Russians have found that traversing their drones over the water or violating Moldovan airspace has allowed them to strike at Odesa with greater efficiency, bypassing land-based air defense operations entirely. With 90% of Russian aerial attacks committed against civilian targets, anti-aircraft operations have long stood as the shield protecting a somewhat normal life in major cities across Ukraine. This does make them quite the target, though. A pattern that only shines more true in speaking with multiple anti-aircraft teams across Ukraine, from the 113th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade, the Ukrainian Navy, and even this National Guard unit.

By the time 2am rolled around, it was looking as if no drones would cross this mobile anti-aircraft team’s range, although a few were flying towards the city. And by the time I arrived back in Odesa, drones were already there above the city, and anti-aircraft tracer rounds danced through the sky. The danger was not with the military embed but rather within the city, it seemed. A civilian building had been hit.

Speeding through the city, following the fire trucks and the smell of smoke, I see fire come into view. Sprinting from the car to the sounds of crackling flame and falling glass, I get a front-row seat to the results of this attack: A nine-story civilian building with an inferno raging on both sides of the impact zone. Just before my arrival, a woman had been captured on video screaming out of one of the apartments: “Do something! I don’t want to die!”

A Shahed drone punched a hole straight through the building with its impact, causing the older-built apartment block to crumble and catch fire quickly. Emergency responders quickly couple hoses and talk into handheld radios. Medical crews, firefighters, men in body armor, and civilian aid organizations race around to deal with the situation at hand.

A Shahed-131 drone is not a small thing; it is a nearly 300 lb (136 kg) drone with a wingspan of 7 feet (2.1 m) and a height of over 8 feet (2.6 m). These are the smallest versions seen in attacks like this. The larger Shahed-136 drones weigh a whopping 440 lb (200 kg) and have a much longer range. Both are considered cheap and easy ways to conduct these mass strikes, as they can overwhelm anti-air teams with sheer numbers.

Shahed drones are preprogrammed with geocoordinates before being sent off. That means there is a person typing in precise coordinates that the Shahed-series drone will use before the engines even start to spin up. Hits into civilian buildings are often seen as tragic accidents by those who don’t know this or the fact that these drones can carry out complex maneuvers and directional changes mid-flight. Sometimes a person is targeted an hour or more before the drone slams into them, and they would never know until impact.

Searchlights scan across the building as water is sprayed into the fire, causing mist and smoke to fill the air. Civilians await below in this dense, uncomfortable air; some wait for words of their loved ones, others watch as their apartment gets caught up in the flame and spray. Search teams on the ground call out, and the basket of the fire crew’s aerial platform slowly swings to the apartment just to the top left of the fiery hole. Rescue workers enter the damaged building just to come back out with a woman and two children wrapped in a blanket. With soot covering their bodies, one boy is fine as the other is quickly carried over to medical teams on-site as their family surrounds them.

As 5am rolled around, the fire was still burning, but the forensic teams began to gather the bits and pieces of debris, and those providing civilians with coffee and tea were now in full force. I walked back to the car mentally exhausted. This was not the first strike that I had covered on the ground, and it would be far from the last.

Mobile Rescue Center

Missile strikes are markedly different from those of Shahed drones. Missiles provide less warning, have higher payloads, are more precise, are harder and more costly for anti-air teams to shoot down, and are often far deadlier when striking civilian targets. The attack on June 23rd was just one of these missile attacks. Confirmed to me by a source on the ground, a North Korean Hwasong-11A struck directly into a civilian apartment building that is just a kilometer away from the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, the nation’s capital.

A week prior, on June 17th, a Russian missile had hit a civilian high-rise just a ten-minute walk from this position; that strike would see that building nearly split in two. That was a week ago though, today though, I stood in the courtyard of this building that is now torn up by the tires of emergency service vehicles, debris from the collapse, and the burned remains of trees. Concrete dust and asbestos filled the air, old construction methods still affecting those working to clear the rubble and find survivors or bodies.

Six stories collapsed in on themselves from the direct impact, and working to find people or bodies trapped under this rubble was a team of DSNS specialists—the Mobile Recuse Center. In their dusty blue jumpsuits they work around the clock, sometimes 24-hour or longer shifts, to clear bodies, find those buried in rubble, recover lost items, and clear a site to make it as safe as possible. This same unit was deployed to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant to extinguish the flame caused by a Russian drone hitting the infamous nuclear reactor’s sarcophagus on February 14th, 2025. Considered DSNS’s most elite units, their skills found new purpose when the full-scale invasion began. Though this comes at a cost, due to the massive increase in attacks on civilian infrastructure here in Kyiv, there is more need for search and rescue teams, and when asked about when they have time off, all I got in response was a laugh.

Repelling down from a crane, members of the Mobile Rescue Center start attaching anchor points to a large slab of concrete that collapsed over the remaining debris. Hoisting up the concrete slab reveals the shattered remains of an apartment—a life that had been built over the years is now nothing more than ruins. It is soon announced that they have found a person.

Removing the rubble that killed them, the unit lifts up and places the body onto a gurney, the 7th confined dead on that day— though the number would later be increased to 9. Both the deceased and the unit would come down from the building. Seven of them would act as the initial pallbearers to carry this person off-site and one step closer to their final resting place.

Burn out

Having been to the vast majority of attacks over the last few months in Kyiv, it becomes part of your weekly routine. It is routine to arrive on-site and smell the distinctive smell of burnt memories and fine concrete dust, and it’s routine to see people who have lost everything watching what little they have left be disassembled without a clue of what tomorrow brings.

Many journalists may find themselves disconnecting from the humanity of the situations they find themselves reporting on to a degree just to do their job effectively. “I think what’s kind of interesting for me is actually how much I’m able to, I guess, sort of unfortunately, disassociate from some of the individuals that are impacted by these strikes,” said Jeremy Dirac, deputy head of News at Kyiv Post. Jeremy continued, “Because for every one of these that you see, there’s real tragedy that’s happening. I think it was the first one that we had gone to together. They had been waiting all day for their son to hopefully be okay. And it turned out that he wasn’t okay. He didn’t make it out of that. I hope that... I’m glad to be, you know, doing this work. I think it’s so easy for people to lose sight of what’s happening here.”

I am frequently joined on location by Jeremy and Corrie Nieto, the lead video reporter for EuroMaidan Press.”To me it’s so surprising how commonplace it’s become. It feels like there’s been five attacks, you know, one every week, and we’ve been to maybe like the last three or four, like all of us together. Sure, we hang out besides this, but it’s so wild to me that this is like one of our meetup places these days,” Corrie would reflect with me as we packed our camera equipment and made our way to our usual co-working space.

Many civilians who in 23’ or 24’ may have found themselves growing apathetic to the threat of airstrikes are now themselves sleeping in the Metro once again, taking the advice of having two walls between you to brace any potential impact, and checking the Telegram channels with more frequency. On one partially loud night, Corrie would tell me, “It was so scary. Last night was the first time I was actually in the shelter. It was so loud. I heard the ballistic missiles go off, shahed drones flying above. It’s such a surreal thing. But in Ukraine, especially in Kyiv these days, it’s become normal, right? It’s not supposed to be normal. It’s fucking crazy.”

As mentioned earlier, from January to July of 2025, Russia launched a total of 28,597 drones against Ukraine, double the previous year. News is only news when it comes rarely, right?

Despite whoever is paying attention, these are the everyday experiences of those who live in Ukraine. Parents rushing their children into metro stations in the middle of the night, couples holding hands in their beds hoping the attack will spare them, children’s cancer hospitals bombed into oblivion, a train full of women and children in Dnipro that was struck by the blast of a missile, the terror campaign of sending imprecise KAB aerial bombs to attack Kharkiv in late 2023 and the majority of 2024, and the woman in Odesa screaming for her life—hoping she did not burn alive.

The rare luxury of a quite night

The skies above Kyiv had become quiet again over the month of August 2025, this not met with any relief, though, just suspicion about what could be a very loud autumn. A suspicion that has proven true as on September 7th, 2025 a new record of over 800 drones were launched against Ukraine Though what can be done in everyday life? Shops stay open, people go to sleep tired, and coffee shop owners wheel out their espresso machines to serve their community even if their storefront is no more. What is often said in the West as “Ukrainian resilience” is simply people needing to get on with their lives despite the circumstances. True resilience is experiencing all this and still getting up to fight for the dream of a better world—as is the case with the majority of Ukrainians.

On July 20th, just 10 days after I was on-site of a Geran-2 attack in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv, Russian state-owned media published a video of the secretive Yelabuga Plant near Kazan, in the Tatarstan region of Russia. Using teenage workers, this plant produces the Geran-2 drones—the Russian domestically produced version of the infamous Shahed-136 drone. Showing off a capacity to produce thousands of these drones a month, and with record-breaking numbers of drones being used against Ukraine with more and more frequency, this could lead to an escalation of terror in Ukraine, and until both the “arrow” of drones and missiles and the “archer” of strategic aircraft and drone launching sites can be adequately destroyed or stopped, there is no end in sight, no clear skies over Ukraine.

Airstikes against Kyiv have only picked up since the writing of this article into the ending months of 2026. New threats, new tactics, and new counter-measures are ever evolving and still the lack of coverage remains. In January of 2026 we released AIRSTRIKE, our documentary focused on the work documented in these article, if you wish to watch you can here:

But all the same, I wish you a quiet night.

“It was inconceivable, for our brains, for our minds, that (Ukraine’s independence) would be an irrevocable fact."

This is what Gennady Burbulis, adviser to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin, said when remembering the 1991 vote for the independence of Ukraine. For Russians back in the late 90s, it was a universal truth that Ukraine was just another part of Russia. High-ranking Russians, from military officers to the then-Mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov, would push for the Yeltsin administration to play up historical revisionism. Luzhkov would advocate muddling with the territorial integrity of Ukraine and push for the “recovery” of Crimea against the will of the population on the peninsula.[1] Luzhkov would later be banned from entering Ukraine in 2008 because of his long standing efforts to claim the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol as part of Russia.[2] But of course, In 2016, Vladimir Putin would honor Luzhkov by awarding him with the “Order of Merit of the Fatherland. for active public work."

It should be no surprise that the current President of Russia would honor men like Luzhkov, as Vladimir Putin is one of the most prolific historical revisionists. The annexation of Crimea, the subsequent illegal invasion of the Donbas, and the entire justification coming down to the belief that Russia is the rightful ruler of Ukraine. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a majority of Russians today feel the same unitary belief regarding not just Ukraine but Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova [3] Why, though? What would drive the Russians to hold onto this belief for centuries? 

Today I want to take you through one of the most defining moments in Eastern European history and the agreement that would set the stage for modern-day Russian imperialism in Europe.

Before the play, we must set the stage.

The Kyiven Rus’ was an ancient state. The easiest way to understand it is as a collection of principalities. With it’s capital in Kyiv (A city founded in 482 CE (AD)), these principalities would grow to stretch over massive parts of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and parts of Poland, with small parts of the Baltic States included (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). Eventually, the Kyiven Rus’ would find itself with a problem: too many princes. This would lead to more land being incorporated into the state and would lead to land claims in the swamps of north-east Europe. Founding Moscow along the Volga trade route in 1147 CE (AD) as little more than a minor trade hub. However, less than 100 years later, the Mongol Empire would reach the borders of the Kyiven Rus', and in 1240, they would put an end to the vast majority of independent Kyiven Rus’ principalities—not the people in them though.

For the sake of time, let me jump through some very complex history and cut it down to the main players.

Eventually, after the great hoard shattered from the Khan’s death, many of the scattered principalities would start building themselves up as either independent nations or vessals with greater autonomy. The Grand Duchy of Moscow (also known as Moscovia) would form from absorbing the fringe areas of the Kyivan Rus’ territorial expanse. The Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia (also known as Ruthenia) would equally form from the core territories of the old Rus’ state that managed to actually fight back the Mongols. In a surprising twist for most, the line of Genghis Khan would survive in Ukraine. The Turkic people, led by someone directly descended from The Great Khan’s line, would soon be known as the Crimean Tatar, having taken control of Crimea and the less populated southern parts of modern-day Ukraine. 
[4][Subtelny - slides 50 through 58]

Skipping forward again to 1648.

The Crimean Khanate would become a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, notable for having some extra respect and leeway given for having that direct connection with the big papa Khan himself. Most in the lands of Rus’ feared and hated them as not only Muslim infidels but for their brutal slave raids. In fact, the word “slave" comes from these very same enslaved “Slavs.”

Moscovia, under Tsar Ivan III, or more commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, expanded over the northern principalities of the former Kyivan Rus’ and colonized vast swaths of Siberia. But it was also only 35 years past the time referred to in Moscovia as “Smuta” or the “Time of Troubles,” where Moscovia would find itself without a Tsar, overflowing with intense political instability, and under temporary Polish occupation.

Ruthenia, having found itself in a classic succession war death spiral, would also be conquered by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Only instead of it being temporary they were incorporated and the far reaches were colonized by the Commonwealth and forced into Serfdom. These already sparse lands of Ruthenia, the border regions often referred to as the “Wild Fields,” would find themselves more of a frontier than a former regional power. However, a new power base had been building in the “Wild Fields” - The Cossacks.

[4][Subtelny - slides 107 through 108
[5][Snyder - slides 129 through 130]

A well disciplined military order of free men, legendary warriors, and largely anti-polish rebels. Between 1591 and 1638 there would be a flare-up of unsuccessful uprisings against the Nobles of the Commonwealth. This is not a surprise though, the freedom of a frontier can do funny things to people, and the Poles quickly developed a system of “might makes right.'' Often believing that "Ukraine is ruled by the lack of rule.” In fact, the recent colonization of the eastern areas of Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Bratslav—these were so uniquely brutal, not just within the Commonwealth but all of Europe—that the Polish historian Orest Subtelny believes them to be the stage for this rebellion. Subtelny writes:

“They were the domain, on the one hand, of some of Europe's most powerful and wealthy magnates and, on the other, of a population that was willing and able to fight effectively for its interests. In other words, in newly colonized Ukraine, some of Europe's most exploitive feudal lords confronted some of its most defiant masses.” [4][Subtelny - slide 152]

Ukraine’s greatest poet, Taras Shevchenko, would later put it:

“The Cossacks punished the nobles, for the nobles ruled poorly.”

The Ukrainians were not only unaccustomed to the brutal hardship of serfdom; they were utterly unwilling to accept it, with many still believing themselves to be free. However, the father of Ukrainian Rebellion, and arguably even the modern state of Ukraine, would be a man of this same noble system.

Bat’ko

Bohdan Khmelnytsky, or "Bat’ko," (the Ukrainian word for father.) To quote from Subtelny again: 

“Rarely do individuals dominate epochal developments as completely as did Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the great Ukrainian uprising of 1648. Because of his great personal impact on events that changed the course of Ukrainian and East European history, scholars consider him to be Ukraine's greatest military and political leader. Yet, his debut as a major actor on the historical stage occurred late in life and was almost accidental.” [4][Subtelny - Slide 154]

In his 50s, Khmelnytsky had lived a full life. The son of a minor Ukrainian nobleman, he had a good education in a Jesuit school, enlisted in the legal “Registered Cossacks,"  and successfully avoided being involved in any Cossack rebellions to this point. Even at one point having chancellorship of the Zaporozhian Host (the Cossacks living at the very fringe of Commonwealth control who were considered semi-autonomous).  By the time he reached the age of 50, he was a Cossack captain with an estate and a fairly successful career. However, Khmelnytsky, even in his high position, was not immune to the arrogance of Polish colonizers. 

In 1646, a wealthy Polish man would make a power play for Khmelnystky’s estate and, in the process, murdered his youngest son and kidnapped his lover. As many Ukrainians that have lost something to Polish ambition, Khmelnystky found the courts utterly unwilling to aid him. With numerous unsuccessful appeals, Khmelnytsky could either back down or fight against a system he had served faithfully for years. 

Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a man who was often described as calm and reserved, a lifelong loyal Cossack, and hell, even a Polish noble. And yet he chose to fight back.

[5][Snyder - Slide 131]

[4][Subtelny - Slides 154 through 156]

This “Great Revolt” started very similar to those Khmelnytsky had avoided earlier in his career. An enraged Cossack comes to the Zaporozhian Sich and convinces them to fight in his war, but perhaps Khmelnytsky’s age and experience with the Cossacks (Both registered and Zaporizhian) gave him a different prospective for what to do next. Khmelnytsky, with his loyal Cossack regiment, met with many Cossack leaders to gain allies. Perhaps his biggest departure and greatest advantage would be approaching the Crimeans with ideas of an alliance against the Poles.

In January of 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky would be unanimously voted as Hetman. The highest military leader of the Cossacks. The Khan of the Crimean Khanate would also send forces to aid in Khmelntsky’s Rebellion. Tuhai-Bey, a highly recognized Crimean commander with a large dispatch of Crimean cavalry. Indeed, the Hetman would wage a mighty war against the Commonwealth, even setting up the Cossack Hetman as a form of higher government (Known as the Cossack Hetmanate). These forces nearly captured the Polish King in 1649; however, the Crimean Tatars played both sides. From Orest Subtekny:

“...the Tatar khan betrayed the hetman. Bribed by the Poles and worried by the growing strength of the Ukrainians, Islam Girei withdrew his forces and demanded that Khmelnytsky reach a negotiated settlement with the Polish king. Under the circumstances, the hetman had no choice but to comply.”
[4][Subtelny Slide 158]

The Cossack Hetmanate would enter into a cycle of war and peace with the Poles, but by 1651, it was clear that the Hetmanate would need a foreign power to intervene on their behalf. 

[4][Subtelny slides 155 through 158]

While their alliance with the Crimean Tatars was a long-standing one the Khan had made his intentions of making sure a Christian nation did not gain too much power known. Not to mention the Crimean tendency to take slaves where they could find them, Polish or Ukrainian. So Khmelnytsky looked to the Crimean’s overlord—the Ottoman Empire. A powerful and feared international player who was also far enough from the borders of Ukraine to allow for some breathing room. At first, it seemed promising, as a treaty was written up and signed. One that would allow both the Hetmanate and Zaporozhian Host to be taken on as vassal states of the Ottoman Empire. This treaty was never implemented, though, due to changes in the Ottoman government and the Ukrainian resistance to an “infidel” overlord.

There would be a third option though. Enter, Moscovia.

[4][Subtelny - Slides 162 through 163]

Signing the damn thing - the Pereyaslav Agreement

When Hetman Khmelnytsky was first fighting the Polish, he had asked the Tsar to come to the Cossacks aid on the biases of their shared Christian Orthodox faith. However, the Russian tsar was wary of entering into yet another war with the Commonwealth; the deep and bloody wounds from the war with the Poles in the “time of troubles” had not yet healed. The Muscovites seemed content to allow the Ukrainian Cossacks to wear down the Poles and vice versa. This changed when the Hetmanate approached the Ottomans for overlordship. Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich decided that, "for the sake of the Orthodox Faith and God's Holy Church, the Monarch should accept them under His High Hand." 

On January 18th, 1654, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky would call to the townspeople of Pereyaslav and explain that there were four options for a Ukrainian overlord. The Ottoman Sultan, the Crimean Khan, the Polish King, and the Muscovite Tsar—the crowd cheered at the announcement that they would be allying with the Tsar. And as they cheered, the most pivotal moment of Eastern European history would be made.

So, what were the terms of this agreement exactly? What was it that the Hetman and the Tsar came to agree on? Past the higher principles of Ukrainian protection from the Poles and the acceptance, in some way, of being within “the sphere of Russia” we don’t know. And I mean, we truly do not have a solid idea of what was actually put on paper and signed. Perhaps the Cossacks themselves were not even aware of what they had signed. Some Russian and Ukrainian historians say that the recreations of the original document were forged, so why not just look at the original document? Well, that would be grand but the original document, once signed, was taken to Moscow and was not seen again. While the original document we cannot speak on, we can speak on the effects that this agreement would lead to over the next hundred years.

[4][Subtelny - Slide 163 through 164]

The Ukrainians, for their part in this agreement, would see some victories at first but would soon watch as the Muscovites disregarded the Ukrainian Cossacks on the negotiation table, attacked their allies and interfered with the Hetmanate administration. Eventually even giving over large swaths of Cossack land back to the Polish in clear violation of the founding principle of the agreement. Over the next hundred years, Ukrainian independence would be chipped away at , The Tsar would even break his promise to protect Cossack land from the Poles by signing half of the Hetmanate away in a treaty with the Poles. Eventually the Cossack Hetmanate would be fully incorporated into Moscovia. Annexing the old lands of Rus’ and giving birth in full to the Russian Empire. 

Moscovia went from an isolated nation that had been a tributary to the Mongol hordes for half its existence, one that had barely survived a succession crisis less than 50 years ago, to taking the large step into becoming a superpower. They gained overlordship over the traditional lands of the Kyivan Rus’ and opened a door wide for Moscovia to “rebrand” and come face to face with the empires of Western Europe.

Now, you might have heard the term “Rus” a lot in this article. and think to yourself... “Gee, that does sound a lot like “Russian.” The part you might not know is that it is by design. What I haven’t told you yet is that “Russian” is a Greek pronunciation, whereas “Ruthenian” is the Latin pronunciation. Both mean “an inhabitant of the land of Rus.”[10] A distinction that only census takers of the early thousands and those wishing to claim a legacy would be interested in. The principalities around Moscow were a part of the Kyivan Rus'; this is true. However, as the Polish colonization of Ukraine did not make the people there Polish, the Kyivan Rus’ colonization of Moscovia did not make the people there Rus’. 

Moscow had only been burned down 91 years after its founding and then became a close partner with their Mongol invaders; they worked closely with them and even collected tribute from their own people[8]. while Russian President Putin skips this part in his interview with shamed American-pseudo-journalist (and bread sniffing extraordinaire) Tucker Carlson, Moscow’s rise to prominence was under Mongol overlordship and its eastern connections. The Muscovites and their new tsar, however, longed to be seen by and associate with European empires. Their past as a Mongolian vassal was inconvenient and now they would be given this perfect opportunity to take on the legacy of medieval Europe's largest state. 

[5][Snyder - Slides 136 through 139]

American historian Timothy Snyder would write in his book “The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus”

“One Ukrainian churchman invented the idea of the “transfer” of the Kyivan princely seat to Moscow, an idea which came to organize Russian national   myth and historiography. In the 1670s professors of the Kyiv Academy were   ideologists of the new regime. In these ways, the absorption of eastern   Ukraine put into practice a transition from a limited geographic and political   notion of Russia as the territory of Muscovy(Moscovia) to an imperial idea of Russia as   Great Russia (Moscovia), The Embattled Ukrainian Borderland Little Russia (Ukraine), and White Russia (Belarus). Such political concepts, developed in the early modern period, took on new meaning in the modern age of  nationalism.” [5][Snyder - Slides 135 through 136]

Indeed Russian Nationalism 

 My long-winded yet somehow painfully brief explanation of Ukrainian history—that I have, admittedly, only recently come to know myself—serves an important purpose. In fact, I believe my recent studies have left me wanting to include as much as I did in this article. Ukrainian history is often discarded, told from the Russian perspective, or simply not given a fuck about.

Yet at the same time, it is weaponized against it, as shown in the aforementioned interview between Putin and Carlson. Even in my day-to-day life, I hear the Russian propaganda about this. Prior to 2022 I would often hear about “the Ukraine” when referring to the sovereign nation of Ukraine. I have since heard of Ukrainians being “truly Russian” because a part of the population has Russian ancestry and speaks the language. I have had many westerners ask me, “Isn’t it the case that Ukraine was never really a state prior to 1991?” They are often shocked as I lay out everything, starting, of course, with the fact that Kyivan Rus’ built Moscow.

If you wish to hear a little more about the later history of Ukraine, I have done an entire video with historian Andriy Maslyuk that you can find here (link)

While it is not their fault, referring to uninformed westerners I mean, they do play a part in perpetuating imperial Russian ideas. The beginning of this myth-making of this “Great Russia” would be built on the back of the Pereyaslav agreement. However the ramifications of the agreement would truly come into contemporary history in 1954. Orest Subtelny, in his book “Ukraine: A History,"  would describe the five major interpretations of what the Pereyaslav Agreement really was. I wish to focus on the fifth interpretation mentioned: 

“The fifth interpretation of the Pereyaslav Agreement belongs in a class by itself. In 1954, during the elaborate celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Ukrainian-Russian union in the USSR, it was announced - not by scholars but by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - that the Pereyaslav Agreement was the natural culmination of the age-old desire of Ukrainians and Russians to be united and that the union of the two peoples had been the prime goal of the 1648 uprising. In the official Soviet interpretation, Khmelnytsky's greatness lay in the fact that he understood that "The salvation of the Ukrainian people lay only in unity with the great Russian people.”
[4][Subtelny - Slides 164 through 165]

Subtelny would also ask the question: “Adherence to the party’s interpretation of the agreement remains mandatory for all Soviet Scholars.?” Speaking on the fact that a Soviet scholar challenged this new state-sponsored interpretation of history and saw catastrophic backlash and a loss of his career.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, when the Yeltsin administration faced such pressure to rewrite what would become a free and independent Ukraine, it was due to decades of this propaganda. These calls, these ideas, and these people did not die down; they only grew.

When history is weaponized

“During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people—a single whole.” This is how Russian President Valdimir Putin chose to start his July 21st, 2021 article entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians." In this article, Putin attempts to draw a picture of history over the lines of reality. Putin would claim many odd things about the history of Ukraine in this article, and I would like to highlight a couple:

“...the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the (Ukrainian) intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions, which went as far as to claim that the Ukrainians are the true Slavs and the Russians, the Muscovites, are not.”

and

“Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of ”Ukraine is not Russia“ was no longer an option. There was a need for the ”anti-Russia“ concept which we will never accept. The owners of this project took as a basis the old groundwork of the Polish-Austrian ideologists to create an ”anti-Moscow Russia“. And there is no need to deceive anyone that this is being done in the interests of the people of Ukraine. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth never needed Ukrainian culture, much less Cossack autonomy.” 

Putin, in this article, would say many other nonsensical things, such as, “We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians’ desire to see their country free, safe, and prosperous.” It is notable to mention that in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, there is an active effort being made to ban the teaching of Ukrainian altogether.[11]

Indeed, the historical revisionists, the ones who urged the “recovery” (as the Russians put it) of Crimea, did not go away; they gained power. After this article from Putin, the former president and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, would pen an article in support of Putin’s arguments. Even going farther to compare Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a member of the Jewish intelligentsia asking to serve in the SS. Of course this perpetuates the major Russian historical revisionism of “Nazi Ukrainians"—the same excuse the Soviets used to ethnically cleanse the Crimean Tatar people out of Crimea. Medvedev would go on to criticize Ukraine’s efforts to help highlight the current plight of the Crimean Tatar people, who have been under Russian occupation since 2014. Referring to it as “idiotic” and “created to fool the country’s population...” Medvedev would end his article by highlighting his opinion that a Ukraine focused on “building equal and mutually beneficial relations with Russia. Only with such a leadership of Ukraine is it worth dealing. Russia knows how to wait. We are a patient people” This article came out three months before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.[13]

On February 15th, 2022, a man that The Atlantic describes as “The Hidden Author of Putinism,” Vladislav Surkov, would chime in on his thoughts about the current borders of Russia: 

"How could it be otherwise, if it is cramped and boring and awkward... and it is unthinkable for Russia to remain within the borders of the obscene peace. (Referring to the Brest peace treaty that saw Russia's departure from WWI) We are for peace. Of course. But not for the obscene one. For the right one” … “And indeed, the peace was downright insulting. According to its terms, Russia gave up the vast territories of the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine that had previously belonged to it. The western border rolled back far to the east, pushing the country back to the pre-Petrine, or even pre-Romanov, times. It couldn't be more obscene," [12]

 Surkov would ominously end his article with:

"And what next? Definitely not silence. There is a lot of geopolitics ahead. Practical and applied. And even, perhaps, contact." And on February 21, 2022, Putin would, in a speech, declare that: “Modern Ukraine was wholly and fully created by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.” [12]

Three days later, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine would be enacted.

When the Hetman fell

In September 1657, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky died at his residence in Chyhyryn. Having seen the Tsar attack his ally of Sweden, signing a peace treaty with the Polish during the Cossacks ongoing war against them—without even consulting the Cossacks, mind you. And all while on the heels of a crushing military loss and subsequent revolts in the Cossack army—this was simply too much for the aging Khmelnytsky. The realization of who they had made an agreement with had fully sunk in. A year before his death, Khmelnytsky wrote to the Russian Tsar: "The Swedes are an honest people; when they pledge friendship and alliance, they honor their word. However, the Tsar, in establishing an armistice with the Poles, and in wishing to return us into their hands, has behaved most heartlessly with us."

[4][Subtelny - Slides 166 through 167]

When I first arrived in Kyiv back in early 2023, I came across this park with a covered set of statues (a common practice in Ukraine of covering monuments to protect them from Russian missile, bomb, and drone attacks).  A year later, I returned to this same spot and found a crew removing these now-uncovered statues—statues I had never seen before. While I was still unaware of what this was a monument to, I knew it was important. Slapping on my press badge and cocking the shutter on my camera, I went to work documenting. This monument, I would later find out, was to honor the “reunification” of Russia and Ukraine. It was installed in Soviet times to help instill that historical myth-making of Ukrainians and Russians being “one people.” It depicted Hetman Khmelnytsky, the Tsar’s envoy, and Ukrainians pledging themselves to the Russian Tsar in the ceremony that followed the signing of the Pereyaslav Agreement.

Now going into the third year of warfare against the Russian invasion, I have personally seen de-russification, de-communization, and de-colonial efforts underway all across Ukraine. This process had even begun as early as 2014. Street names, Soviet monuments, and Communist symbols were torn down or renamed. Somehow this monument to the “Original Sin” of bringing Ukraine into the “Russian Sphere” remained through it all. The making of the monument was as much a declaration that “you are ours and always have been.” A symbol that stood to face the city that was the entire reason for Moscow’s existence and fueled by historical revisionism that Putin and his lackeys subscribe to—this was finally being dismantled.

Today, in Ukraine, Khmelnytsky is not seen in a negative light by a majority of Ukrainians. That might come as a shock to some, but the term “Bat’ko” was often a loving if not positive word used to speak about him. Indeed, without Khmelnytsky, many believe there would be no Ukraine. The idea of a Cossack nation, the legacy of Cossack democracy, a notion of a nation to harken back to, and hell even the regalia involved with choosing a Ukrainian president. For Ukrainians, these all harken back to the Hetmanate. The Ukrainian poet Pavlo Chubynsky would highlight the “Brethren of the Cossack Race” in his 1862 poem, Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia. Quote:

   Ukraine has not yet died, neither her glory, nor her freedom.
   Still upon us, young brethren, fate shall smile!
   Our enemies shall vanish like dew in the sun;
   We too shall rule in our beloved country.
   Soul and body we'll lay down for our freedom,
   And show that we are brethren of the Cossack race,
   Hey, hey dearest brothers, onward, take to battle
   Hey, hey, time to rise, time to gain freedom!

This, of course, would later be put to music and become the starting line of the Ukrainian national anthem.

Criticism of Khmelnytsky is not hard to find, though. Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish historians, poets, and professors all have differing views of the man. The Polish see Khmelnystky’s rebellion as a prelude to what is referred to as “The Deluge” of the Commonwealth and would lead to the eventual collapse of it. Some Jewish historians see Khmelnytsky as a villain, as his uprising would lead to a massacre of Polish Jews who moved into Ukraine to rule over the Ukrainians. Other Jewish writers, particularly those in Israel, would see Khmelnytsky and the “free frontier life” as something to aspire towards in the early days of Jewish migration to Israel. The Soviets/Russians would see him as a reasonable man who brought Ukraine and Belarus back to the Russian fold, A tentative heroic ally. Ukrainians of the late 1800s living under an increasingly oppressive and anti-Ukrainian Russian Empire would often not be so favorable about him though. The aforementioned Pavlo Chubynsky would write: 

    Oh, Bohdan, Bohdan
    Our Great Hetman!
    For what purpose did you give Ukraine,
    To the evil Moskals?”

Famed Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko would write:

    If only you could, Drunken Bohdan
    See Pereyaslav now!”

As for modern Ukrainians, I would like to quote from the introduction to Amelia M. Glaser’s book[12], Stories of Khmelnytsky Competing Literary Legacies of the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack Uprising,

“As Mykola Borovyk showed in his 2012 study of shared authority, although twenty-first-century schoolchildren overwhelmingly ranked Khmelnytsky as Ukraine’s most important historical figure, when listing the most tragic events in the nation’s history, they also place Khmelnytsky’s signing of the Pereiaslav treaty near the top, second only to the Holodomor under Stalin.”

I would highly recommend Amelia’s book, as I believe it gives a very fair understanding of Khmelnytsky from multiple points of view. It was partly the reason I chose to quote and base this article mostly on Orest Subtelny’s work. A Polish historian who has deeply studied Ukrainian history and grew up under the Soviet Union.

Outro

This article, was originally just going to be about this historical moment: the Pereyaslav agreement and the removal of the monument. But I soon found myself deeper and deeper in the rabbit hole of Ukrainian history. Devouring books, articles, and theories, I soon realized that my original scope for this project was painfully small. In fact, I am currently on page eleven of this and am only sparing you more out of the knowledge that most may not get this far.

Many Ukrainian leaders of old had declared the Pereyaslav Agreements broken by the Muscovites (and the Muscovites did very much break the very foundations of the agreements), from Khmelnysky himself to Mazepa in 1708. If there is one thing drowning myself in the flood of Ukrainian history this past month has taught me, it is that Ukraine has always fought for its freedom. Against the Russians/Soviets/Muscovites they fight In spite of being often alone, betrayed by allies they had, or just discounted by the rest of the wider world. They fight on. It is not something to wonder about why Ukrainians of today are wary of support for their defense drying up or their military aid being delayed by those who see Moscow and the Putin regime as something to aspire towards. The Ukrainians of the late 1990s and early 2000s put their trust in the greater international community. They handed over their nuclear stockpile and largely disarmed, and for a decade now, we have failed them. 

So while taking down this monument in Kyiv will win no battles, arm no troops, and it is not going to be considered anywhere such a monumental moment as the signing of the Pereyaslav Agreement. To be looking death in the eye and choosing to spit in it. Something about that feels very Ukrainian to me.

Sources

1. Article referencing the pressure on the Yeltsin administration

2. Luzhkov Again Raises Russian Right to Sevastopol

3. Kyiv Independent reporting on a Russian poll showing 77% of Russians support war.

4. Orest Subtelny - Ukraine: a History [Full Book]

5. Timothy Snyder - The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus [Full Book]

6. Amelia M. Glaser - Bohdan Khmelnytsky as Protagonist: Between Hero and Villain [Intro]

7. Article on Banning Ukrainian language in Russian occupied territories

8. Russian friendly source claiming Russia was a tribute state and loved to work with Mongols) (WESTERN OWNED wink wink - but offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg)

9. Ruth and Rus lingual roots and variations

10. Stealing History: How Moscovia is stealing Ukraine’s history

11. Vladimir Putin - On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians [Full article, not on a Russian website]

12. Web Archive of Vladislav Surkov’s article

13. Web Archive of Dmitry Medvedev’s article

14. Article on Putin’s speech from from February 21, 2022

With two thirds of that 10 million fleeing the country altogether, that leaves 3.7 million people displaced within their own country. Ukrainians who are displaced within Ukraine often struggle as the small government payments given to them is barely enough for food, let alone a stable place to live. This is not even to mention the fact that there are few jobs to go around even for the original residence of a city. I believe this is something most Westerners do not understand: the life of a refugee, even within one's own country, is a hard one and not an easy choice to make as some make it out to be. This is part of why I believe projects like WildDwarf are important — to help these artists, these Ukrainians, and to showcase their country, culture, and spirit through their work. It is important to remember that while Ukrainian art is in the spotlight like never before, Vitaly remarks that the cost of this was all-out war.

I was lucky enough to speak with Vitaly and tour the grounds of the residency before it was opened to the public. I must admit, the workshop is a bit of a spectacle in and of itself! Antlers hang from the wall, furniture is nailed to the ceiling, a shining case of jewelry is opposite a wall filled floor to ceiling with books, film cameras, knives, and what Vitaly calls “magic wands,” walking sticks embedded with a crystal and an RFID chip. His artistic style is to mix the wild and untamed elements with elegant gems or metals and then add “magic” into it. To turn whatever he is working on into something of an artifact — something you would imagine spending a lifetime looking for. This creative idea bleeds into the man himself. Vitaly is a character in the best possible sense of the word. The truest sense of the word “Artist”, very knowledgeable about geopolitics and a true patriot.

Vitaly would tell me about his brief time living in Russia long before the full-scale invasion. He talked with me about how he would go to local museums and see a massive amount of stolen Ukrainian artifacts on display. I imagine that number has increased exponentially as Russian forces have been stealing art and cultural artifacts at a rate not seen since Nazi Germany. Vitaly would tell me that in Russia he saw people trying to survive against each other, the police acting as a lawless gang, and having many connections with criminals they were supposed to stop. When I asked him about the character of the Russian nation, he said, Quote:

Vitaly: “Russia often works as a snake. They are backstabbing people, their tactics are very treacherous, and they never work in just one direction. They often work in several directions, and one of them is to take key leadership positions inside of the country they are targeting; for example, Georgia has the same problem. Also, we have this problem.” 

“In Georgia recently, they voted for a pro-Russian proposal and people are protesting, but still, politicians did it — they sold their souls. Similar things are happening in Ukraine. Still, in Ukraine people we are calling them “Werewolves.”

Andriy explains: “There is a good word for werewolf in Ukrainian and a bad word. This is a bad word.”

I asked Vitaly to expand a bit about Ukraine. Quote:

 Vitaly: "We have the situation where the whole Ukrainian people, the whole nation, are on the arena. There are three sides to look at it. Like, on the one hand, we are responsible ourselves for those people take power, so we are not protesting enough against them; on the second hand, we should deal with the situation that is right now, so deal with what we have. But on the third view, the people who know what’s happening they are afraid because of the situation we have.” 

“I can’t understand why people had no choice, why people would wake up in the morning and they had nothing - there was no preparation. Here we are far away from the frontline, remember, we had time to prepare, and when this invasion started we were making Molotov cocktails, we were making other equipment (in the WildDwarf courtyard are forged spikes meant to stop vehicles of war), anti-tank and anti-vehicle hedgehogs to stop the Russians. We were prepared, but those brave people here organized themselves …but the other regions of Ukraine, people had no time.”

“...Basically, Russians just appeared and they found them naked. But Ukrainians, Ukrainians are strong, if they had time to prepare, they would have met Russians with fire - they would burn in hell.”

“So if, let’s imagine, only ten percent of Ukrainians decided to stay and fight and 90 percent would leave, it's very unrealistic because Ukrainians are very brave, but let’s imagine. If every person will throw one Molotov cocktail and if you imagine this whole column of Russians, they will burn in 60 seconds.”

“We also have a problem with our internal situation. The factory or facility can be the best in the world - they can have the best specialists, the best equipment, but if the top management wants to shut it down, nothing will save it. So we need better-quality leadership in this facility. And in fact, good management can save a bad factory.” 

Speaking on US/Ukraine relations:

Vitaly: "Also, our allies guaranteed our security when Ukraine agreed to give away its nuclear weapons, its strategic bomber force. We were just offered protection and security guarantees but now our allies, the United States, they do not guarantee our security fully but I can understand the American government too. During the meeting with our president, the Americans asked for two things to be ameliorated: get rid of corruption and get rid of people influenced by Russia in your team (people under suspicion of having some ties with Russia.) but our president said he trusts those people. So I understand why they are hesitant but I am still disappointed. If it was up to me, I would not give money either, just weapons.”

(It is important to note that the majority of aid to Ukraine stays within the US for weapon production and the replacement of gear we give Ukraine to defend itself. My time with Vitaly was also during the great US holdup, the congressional blocking of any Ukrainian aid bill.)

Vitaly: “Very important thing is to have enough weapons, we don’t have enough weapons. Our soldiers, our worries they need it. We have enough soldiers but they don’t have enough weapons and most of the weapons they are old Soviet designs. We don’t have enough modern weapons and we don’t even have enough Soviet weapons! That’s what I meant by saying I’m a gladiator in the arena. This is the fight where all the odds are against you.”

Devin: “And somehow you need to find a way to win.”

Vitaly: “We are working on it (laughter).”

Did I find a way to turn an article about art and artist residency into a perspective on Russia’s war against Ukraine? Well, not quite. You see, war has a profound effect on artists, as their way of expression is a reflection of their own psyche. I notice this even within myself and my own work.

I very much look forward to returning to WildDwarf and sitting once again at a small table with a cup of tea in my hand, speaking for hours in a dusty workshop with friends.

”Art is an instrument in the war against the enemy.” - Pablo Picasso

Vitaly’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/wilddwarf

Two years ago, I remember watching the coverage of Ukraine when we knew something was about to happen. The biggest piece of evidence war was on the horizon was the Blood bags being moved to the border with Ukraine as part of their “training exercise." I remember looking at a notification on my phone and running to power on the TV as if to see if it was real. War had come for Ukraine. That feels so far away now. I would not sleep that night as the world watched the kick-off of the largest war in Europe since World War II. And while I was safe in my U.S. home, the people who I now consider my close friends would wake up to the dark reality that war had come for them. 

The Russians, led by Vladimir Putin, had declared a “Special Military Operation” that would only take three days to reach Kyiv. Now in the third year of their three-day "Operation,” we see the bravery, sacrifice, and sheer determination of the Ukrainian people to fight for one another, their democracy, and all of Europe. The world has witnessed the devastation of Miropol, the battle of Kyiv, the Bucha massacre, the Kharkiv counter-offensive, the mass grave of Izyum, the recapture of Kherson, the siege of Bakhmut, and most recently, the fall of Avdiivka. 

   While this rally memorialized the two years of full-scale invasion inflicted onto Ukraine since 2022, I would be doing a disservice to not remind you that this war has been happening for a decade now. The Russians and their proxy authorities in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk have waged war against Ukraine since 2014. 

   The world failed to act at that time and chose appeasement for the Russians, who at that time had gotten away with this before in Moldova and Georgia. The United States failed to uphold its treaty-bound commitments as written in the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed “independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

Today, the United States is once again failing on its duty.

UN Document: The Budapest Memorandum

The Reality of today

The consequences of U.S. Republicans denying aid to Ukraine have already started to show on the frontlines of Ukraine. I mentioned the fall of Avdiivka, a city that had been held for a decade since its recapture from Russian separatist forces in 2014. While it is impossible to know if the Ukrainians would have successfully held the city even with the dripfed U.S. aid packages, one thing is for sure: They withdrew from the city in part due to ammo shortages. 

The entire frontline of Ukraine is currently being attacked and pushed as the Russians are using the shortage of ammo to try a major breakthrough. European nations are doing what they can; however, there is no immediate replacement for U.S. aid, and the majority of elected Republicans show an unwillingness to stop playing politics with global security.

The Rally

I know that for myself, coming into the rally, I had been disheartened by the past few months of worried messages from my Ukrainian friends, congressional inaction, and the growing presence of Russian propaganda being regurgitated by those without a clue. That feeling changed when I approached the Lincoln Monument. Arriving an hour before the event, I could already see many people there with Ukrainian flags, signs, and Yellow and Blue standing out bright on the otherwise drab day. Those meeting up with friends for the event happily ran to hug each other in anticipation, smiles gracing the faces of people sharing in the same amazement I felt, and the event organizers setting up our backdrop. The speakers backdrop would be The Reflection Pool, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building, the very same in which the Republican senators and congressmen have denied aid to Ukraine for nearly six months as of writing. The message wanting to be sent was clear: Arm Ukraine, now!

 As the next hour passed, I saw the stairs leading down to the reflection pool filled with supporters of Ukraine. Yellow and blue were draped over the shoulders of the crowd, and flags were raised high in the sky to be met with the American flag in a show of solidarity. Something that the majority of Americans still want. 

I found many political signs dotted the landscape of people as I went around shaking hands and speaking with those present. From the NAFO fellas, those American-Ukraine servicemen, one sign demanding the release of the Defenders of Chornobly, and those of Russian birth showing their solidarity, "I am Russian, and I stand with Ukraine."

I would even meet up with members of the press who have reported from Ukraine, like Andrew Mercado and Dylan Burns. Together, Dylan and I would venture around the perimeter for any sign of a counter-protest. And to our shock we would find no one. Not one person out of this massive crowd was here to let their voice be heard against Ukraine. Dylan and I joked that we were a little disappointed to not find a group to scream at on this day.

In fact, Dylan would tell me that his coverage of the prior year's “Rage against the War Machine” rally not only had fewer people than the crowd gathered today but that they failed to even get funding for an event this year.

 It is easy to see why there were no counter-protesters there. The energy of the event was unmatched. Seeing this crowd cheer on and be engaged with aid to Ukraine was frankly heartwarming. Seeing people from all walks of life coming together to make a sea of people demanding justice could raise the spirits of anyone. In fact, everyone there knew what is at stake, and they wanted their voices heard. I would send my Ukrainian friends simple iPhone photos from the event as if to say, “See! Not all hope is lost; the people still stand with you!” While also knowing that is rather hollow when our government stands to screw them over.

The March

Following the rally, we were told that a march was set to happen. I knew of the march ahead of time, but not to where our destination would be: the Russian consulate just up the road from the Whitehouse. With the streets cleared, we marched through the heart of Washington, D.C.. Chants echoed throughout the crowd, nearly as loud as the patriotic Ukrainian folk-pop songs that have become synonymous with my time in the country. 

Demands for arming Ukraine, for Russia to immediately leave internationally recognized Ukrainian land, and the question “How many civilians will it take?” blared through the streets of D.C. Those old and young marched together, waving the Ukrainian flag, as we approached the White House. We would soon encounter a small protest in front of the White House by a pro-Palestinian group. Despite what some online would have you believe, myself and many others witnessed both groups cheering each other on! Those on the Palestinian side were shaking hands with protesters marching, and vice versa. It should be noted that Ukraine is one of the few countries in Europe to recognize the state of Palestine.

Myself and Dylan were with the very first group to arrive at the Russian consulate. Approaching, we were heralded in with the classic chant of Maidan: "Putin – khuylo!” or “Putin - Dickhead!” The frustration of the crowd would be unleashed here, with a clear target. A digital projection of the Ukrainian trident would cover the front of the building as the chants would ramp up. I saw no movement from the covered windows of the consulate, but I am sure of one thing. Any true Russian patriot hiding away inside would not be having a good evening.

The impassioned cries of the stolen children of Ukraine to be returned and the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem would leave tension and emotion in the air as thick as the mud. A final emotionally charged chant was led by the woman who had led the charge all throughout D.C. Her voice was clearly strained with emotion from the day and dripping with the desire to make sure their message penetrated the walls of the consulate: “You will burn in Hell!”

Slavutych is a small town located about two hours drive north of Kyiv and roughly seven miles from Belarus. You would be forgiven for not knowing about this town, but you absolutely know about its reason for existing: Chornobyl. Being the last planned Soviet city, Slavutych was constructed to house the now homeless residents of Pripyat and the surrounding area. It was also home to those who would still work at the Chornobyl nuclear power plants remaining three power cores. This lasted and was still in operation until the year 2000, when the final core was taken offline. Because of its unique founding and demographics pre-2022, sentiments in Slavutych have been described to me as something distinctly Soviet.

However, on February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation would mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, opening a new front through the southern border of Belarus. While being under occupation, thousands of people would make themselves known, openly protesting the invading army and after the early weeks of the war, Slavutych would be liberated, but the war would leave its marks on the world's last Atomgrad.

That brings us to Victoria, a young woman I met during my time in Slavutych. When we sat down to talk, she was very passionate in telling her story of occupation, growing up in war, and how her and her friends lives have been forever changed due to the full-scale invasion. While unable to conduct a video interview in person, she agreed to a written one online. Please enjoy.

Interview:

Devin: Thank you for sitting down and taking the time to talk with me. Would you mind introducing yourself?

Victoria: Thank you for the opportunity that you gave me, I really appreciate that. So my name is Victoria, I’m 16 and I’m a student of Slavutych Lyceum.

D: Slavutych is a fairly small town. What was life here like for you as a young person before the full-scale invasion?

V: Slavutych is a small town with big opportunities, not gonna lie. Before the full-scale invasion, I was a member of the Youth Council. I worked with different people, organizations, and created a lot of projects. So my life as a student and mentor was full of activities. I even planned a lecture for teenagers that was to take place on February 24, but we didn’t know what was going to happen.

D: The thoughts and opinions of teenagers often go unheard when we talk about war and how people are affected. How has this affected you and your friends?

V: Most of the teenagers, including me and my friends, were supposed to become adults too early and quickly at the beginning of the full-scale war. We were supposed to be strong and hold our emotions well, not only for ourselves but also for our parents and grandparents. Our opinions about the situation in Ukraine are mostly unheard; that’s true. But it doesn’t mean that we are going to stay silent, because we are the future of this country and if we need to fight for our freedom and be stronger than ever - nothing could stop us.

I also had to stay strong and calm. It is simply impossible to explain the feeling I had because there are not enough words. But anyway, I stayed positive and didn’t cry at all. I had to stay strong for my mother when my father went to the frontline (and for him too). I had to stay calm for my grandparents too, because I didn’t want to be a burden to all of them.

My friends also had a hard time trying to stay in shape, not only physically but mentally too. I have a friend whose father has been in captivity for a year now. He’s a defender of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and we don’t know anything about him. We don’t know where he is; is he alive? How is he? Especially when he’ll return home, Literally nothing. And he’s not the only one there, that’s the scariest part. They don’t get enough food and water, some of them are injured and can’t take care of themselves, but no one cares there. I have a lot of acquaintances whose fathers are there and that’s horrible.

D: You mention the defenders of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Most of the world might be unaware of the fact that Slavutych is still heavily tied to the infamous power plant. Can you speak more about the Defenders of Chornobyl?

V: You are right, many people do not know about the defenders of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant or about civilians that also came under Russian occupation. But there is a lot of information that everyone really should know. 70 soldiers finally returned home after a year of imprisonment, but today more than 100 people are still in captivity. Their wives are fighting to bring them home, but most of their attempts are unsuccessful because it’s a very hard and long-lasting process.

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are not allowed to visit the prisoners, so we know about the conditions of detention only from the words of the prisoners who have already been released.

Before the full-scale invasion, the National Guard of Ukraine was defending the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, and on February 24, they were all still there. Unfortunately, the Russians occupied the area, and the soldiers were surrounded. The important part is that they couldn’t attack them to protect that territory because the Russians could start to fight back, and there was a risk for the whole of Europe that radioactive substances from the power plant could lead to terrible consequences due to damage to any mechanisms and so on. Therefore, combat operations on the territory of the power plant are prohibited. So remember that they sacrificed themselves to avoid a new man-made disaster.

Link to the “Free Chornobyl defenders Instagram: instagram.com/freechornobyldefenders

The Russians were doing terrible things on the power plant, even dressing up as workers and telling the TV that everything was fine and that their soldiers were actually "saving us." But we were informed about that. When Slavutych was left without electricity, the ChNPP (Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant) was also threatened. There was no telling when the power would be restored, and the generators at the plant cannot run forever. But after the longest nine days of our lives, the Russians finally left, but they took the National Guard soldiers with them. And since then, they have been held captive.

This is only a small part of the full story. The children just want their parents to finally come home, as well as their wives. We remember them, we are proud of them, and we will fight until the last prisoner returns to his family.

Link to the full story Provided by Victoria: https://mipl.org.ua/en/how-russia-seized-the-chnpp-the-reconstruction-of-events-and-names-of-responsible/

As of this convo 5 Defenders of Chornobyl have been freed. For Updates you can follow the Free Chornobly Defenders Instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/freechornobyldefenders/?hl=en

D: Switching gears back, it seems that the younger generation tends to be fairly patriotic when it comes to their country now.  Did you see much pride in being Ukrainian before 2022?

V: To be honest, no, I didn’t. And I’m talking about myself too. I wasn’t such a patriot before the full-scale invasion, just like everyone else. I knew about the war in 2014 and the Maidan, but no one around me talked about it. I didn't read the news, I didn't know much history. We used to read Russian literature and learned Russian at school. It's terrible, but it's true. I didn't really like it, I just didn't care. After the full-scale invasion, a lot of people started to speak Ukrainian, including me and my friends. Before 2022 everyone used to speak Russian and it wasn’t a big deal. But now it’s a big problem because the reason was a massive russification of the Ukrainian people.

D: When we spoke in person, you told me a lot about that first day of the full-scale invasion. Would you mind recounting what you had said for me today?

V: The first day was really crazy. I woke up at 6 AM in the morning because of explosions outside. At first I thought that I was going mad and then I was like “What? Right now? Seriously?”. I texted all of my friends and they also were confused.

I was nervous a little bit, but started to get ready for school anyway. Then I received a message from the principal that we should stay home and study online. And what do you think? Our teachers really started teaching us and even gave us homework online. We really thought it would not last longer than two or three days. We hoped that everything would fall into place.

When I saw my mom she was really upset and I realized that dad wasn’t at home. I heard her crying while talking to my grandma on the phone. But I still tried to stay calm, positive, and listen to all the news carefully.

D: How did life change during those first few days of the invasion?

V: I remember the first siren, when I was carrying a lot of bags to the shelter and laughing about it. I remember six days without electricity and an eternity without internet connection. I remember the days of the humanitarian catastrophe when food wasn’t brought to the town because the town was surrounded, when we tried to make bread from corn and potato flour (that was the tastiest bread ever). We studied, supported each other, and tried not to lose our minds. Life has changed. Times have changed. We were all born again the day when the war began.

D: Slavutych, unfortunately, came under occupation for nine days. It was a rare case as the people came out to protest the Russian occupation. What were those nine days like?

V: It was stressful and scary. It was that feeling when you don't know if you're going to live to see the next day. But fear helped us to get together and start doing something. I saw the protest when I was running to my grandparents' house, which was in the city center. There was heavy fog and many machine gun bursts were heard. The day before that, I was going out with my friend. Then we heard a siren that warned us about the artillery attack and we immediately went to the nearest shelter.

When the Russians were in town, I was already ready for any situation that could possibly be. I wasn’t panicking at all, I had to protect my family and myself too. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to finally go back to school, I hadn't seen my friends for almost 2 months.

When the Russians left Slavutych, we were afraid at first that they might come back and attack us. But, thank God, this didn’t happen.

D: A lot has happened over the last two years; I obviously don’t need to tell you that. How has your view of the world changed over these formative years?

V: The world has finally seen the true face of Russia and how scary it is to be a neighbor of terrorists. I felt the support and care of many countries. I felt that it’s time to show us to the entire world, because they shouldn’t associate us with the war only. Look at our culture, history, and people! The world has seen what is real terrorism and genocide in this century, unfortunately with our own example. But we need to prevent this in the future, we don’t need our kids to fight with it again. So my view of the world has changed considerably. I realized that it’s very cruel, unpredictable, and everything needs to be changed because we don’t know what is gonna happen tomorrow, and I know very well that politics is always placed above all of the social norms.

D: What are your hopes for the future of your home and your country, and do you believe it is possible?

V: Many countries do not really want us to win. This is not a secret. If you study the history of Ukraine, you will realize that we are always fighting for our freedom.

We are fighting just to exist in this world and we will do that until we get our way, I promise. In spite of everything, I believe that my country will win. Although we will never return to our normal lives, I hope that in the end everything will be fine, and this is only possible when other countries stop being afraid of Russia, because we are not.

D: Finally, is there anything you would like our readers to know? Anything I’ve not asked about or something you’ve not seen the world take notice of.

V: Dear reader, I know that life can be difficult and rough nowadays, but you don’t actually know what day may be your last. We don’t know what is gonna happen in the future, we don’t know when our lives can be in the balance. Just don’t be afraid to live and enjoy every moment of your life, because it’s really important. Love yourself and everything that surrounds you, live every day like it’s the best day of your life. Because, after all, life goes on, don’t forget that!