An opponent of Putin from Russia leads the fighters against his homeland

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine – The ground below the Ukrainian positions was blackened, burned by flares dropped from Russian jets. The verdant wheat fields beyond were carved out by craters carved into the ground by Russian artillery attacks.

“This is such a beautiful sight,” said the unit commander, looking out over the desolate countryside Friday morning, “and they ruined it, pig.”

The commander, who has been asked to be identified only by his codename, Kandalaksha, leads a volunteer unit camping in the hills of eastern Ukraine. For two months, this unit held part of the line south of the city of Izium, preventing a Russian attack to encircle and capture the area east of Donbas.

Kandalaksha is something out of the ordinary. He is from Russia, and describes himself as a political refugee. An opponent of President Putin’s government, he left his homeland in 2014 when Moscow annexed Crimea and began supporting the separatist war in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

“I fought against the Putin regime,” he said, “and I understand the hottest place to go against the Putin regime is in Ukraine.”

Soon after arriving in Ukraine, he went a step beyond politics and joined a volunteer military unit in 2015. “I was searching for myself and looking for a way to be useful,” I said. “I think it’s the most honest thing to fight for the country.”

When Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, he volunteered to return and fight in the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv for a month. Later, when Russia withdrew from Kyiv and concentrated its forces on the battle for the Donbas, his unit was also sent east.

“We didn’t see them but they surrounded us,” he said of his first countrymen, Russians about 10 miles from his outpost. “There is rarely a day without being shelled. They try to bite us, but our forces are holding their position and not allowing them to advance.”

Ukrainian forces are under increasing pressure in eastern Ukraine as the Russian military switches tactics. It concentrated its forces and fire on a much smaller target with a more limited goal: to encircle the last crescent of towns and villages in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Every few days, soldiers from this unit of the 95th Air Assault Brigade came out to the front lines, what they called the ground, to give the others a respite from the pounding artillery fire. Soldiers are complaining about the kind of war they are experiencing in the open country of eastern Ukraine. They described themselves as cannon fodder, and were reduced to “cotton” or filler under the artillery’s heavy barges.

But their morale seemed high and, as volunteers, most said they were convinced of the need to stand up to Russian aggression.

One of the volunteer soldiers is the director of the theater, the other is a lecturer at the university of economics.

“It’s much harder to sit and do nothing,” said the lecturer, who goes by the codename Academic.

Maksim Bulgakov, 40, the theater director, said he never wanted to join the army. “My father, brother and grandfather were artillery officers, but I never wanted to be,” he said. “But it was time. You have a problem and you have to decide”.

The men and one woman, lying low, slept in a farm building and away from Russian drones during the day. They operate artillery guns from the trees in the area but do not allow visiting reporters to see them in use.

Russian planes bombed the area, leaving huge craters 10 feet deep and damaging several villages and farms. A shell landed close by but some soldiers at the outpost didn’t seem to care, gathering weapons and chopping wood under the trees.

They sleep on wooden boards and camping mats, sharing a cage with two small cats; they named one of them Hitler because of a black streak on his face reminiscent of the Nazi leader’s toothbrush mustache. The cats climbed over the sleeping bodies, as soldiers came and went throughout the night, taking turns on guard duty for several hours.

The commander, Kandalaksha, also took turns on duty. “Our spirits are high,” he said. “All fighting men understand that the whole world depends on Ukraine right now. We will do what we can.”

An electrical engineer by training from Murmansk in the far north of Russia, the commander became interested in politics around 2008 or 2009 when he watched a video of opposition activist and politician Alexei. Navalny. This segment exposes the embezzlement and embezzlement of billions of dollars of state money by the Russian leadership.

“Then I understood that all this money would go to the president and the top people,” he said. “I started asking questions and became quite active. He began handing out leaflets and evading police roadblocks to join a massive protest in Moscow around the time of the 2011 legislative elections.

But he was quickly monitored by Russia’s secret service. He worked at a hydroelectric power station but felt his political activism made the management refuse to promote him. “They wanted me to go,” he said.

He found a job in southern Russia in 2013 and when pro-democracy protests began in Ukraine – eventually leading to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych – he began thinking about leaving Russia altogether. whole. Family members objected to his move, but they understood, he said.

He asked not to identify members of his family to protect themselves.

He said he did not regret leaving. “I don’t think I’ll go back,” he said. “I feel very good here. I am at home.”

He is both skeptical and hopeful about the possibility of change in Russia. He said Putin had calculated that the West would not oppose his imperial ambitions.

“His hunch was that he would face little reaction,” he said. “But if you fight him, anything is possible.”

“This is a time where a lot of things will be worked out,” he added.

He doesn’t believe a change of leadership will change anything. “If Putin goes, the system will stay,” he say. “We need to change the system.”

He said he was appalled with Recent comments of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger suggests that Ukraine cedes territory in a potential peace deal with Russia. An editorial in The New York Times interpreted as the same suggestion.

“It was a horrible thought,” he said. “The whole world must destroy Russian cancer. It is the quintessence of evil and needs to be defeated by all of humanity.”

He said the large-scale Western support for Ukraine will help change the opinion in Russia as people see the improvement and development of freedoms. Young Russians already understand how unfair their system is, he said.

“I hope Russia will change and not be what it is now,” he said. “It’s not that I want it destroyed, but I hope the Russians will change their minds.”