“My nom de guerre is Sicily. Today I have 364 days in combat. I am currently a platoon sergeant of the 2nd battalion of the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine. I deal with drone operations and I am the team leader of the ‘Split’ group. In My team is an Italian, a Spaniard, a Finn and three Americans. We deal with corrections for enemy artillery and surveillance and intelligence for a sector on the front line between Lyman and Kupiansk”.
Unlike the other Italians who came to fight, ‘Sicily’ is shy, he doesn’t have much interest in showing himself to the media and has only done so in recent months because his unit needs to raise funds to buy drones and machines. The oldest of the group is 38, the youngest is 22.
“I made the decision to come and fight one of the first days of the war: I was watching the news showing the fighting in Kyiv. And then there were the images of this young mother who had had a baby girl inside a bunker. That made me he pushed. I only moved after a year to reach the front again. I didn’t consider myself ready on a physical level, I weighed 125 kilograms and I tried to get back on track by going to the gym and going back to training I spent six months in Syria with the Kurds in the international YPG brigades.”
Together with Sicily, in the little house they rented in a village about thirty kilometers from the front, there are other kids: Vixie, Kat, Scooter, Lorax and Koli.
“Kat means executioner in Ukrainian, but I didn’t know that before I came here. Years ago I was dating this Ukrainian girl. She had one of her accounts on my phone and her name was Katya. So my friends started calling me Kat. And now I use this name in battle. I come from the region of Galicia, in Spain. For me, being here is a moral issue: democracy, the freedom of a nation, self-determination. My grandfather fought in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (Cnt) during the Spanish Civil War. I’m the youngest of the group and it makes sense to think that I might die while I have my whole life ahead of me. My problem is that I’ve already done a lot of things, unfortunately, not all of them good at my age in Mali working as a contractor. I thought it was a good job, but there are things beyond money that you can get if you are truly convinced that you are doing the right thing and that you can make a difference. If you die doing it, it was worth it sorry.”
Kat of the group is the one who seems the most reserved. She always speaks in a low voice. She has a camouflage jungle hat always pulled down on her head, her rifle is the most refined one. The group met recently. Koli, the Finn, has just returned. He was a carpenter. If you ask him the reason for his presence here, the first is to defend civilians, the second the memory of what the Russians did to his country and the fear that all this could happen again. It is his fourth and final mission. Then he will return home, forever.
Sicily has to leave for Pavlograd the next day to get a new vehicle. Theirs was destroyed a few days ago while they were returning from their positions. They buy everything: equipment, vehicles, petrol. Sometimes living together isn’t easy. “We try to maintain a human and social relationship with each other and with the outside world. Life at the front can be difficult, it means spending more on basic necessities, not sleeping well at night because there is a missile hitting close to you… it’s stressful, but my teammates and I manage to stay together.”
Scooter went to Sloviansk to buy a dirt bike, a ‘Minsk’. He goes around dressed like a biker when he is in civilian clothes: bandana on his head, jacket and long, well-groomed red beard. He comes from the United States, from Texas. “Seeing maternity wards being blown up, kidnapping people, raping children. I was sick of what the Russians were doing. I saw an opportunity to do something and I’ve been here for two years now. I think if anyone needs your help, help him. If I’m driving down the street and I see someone with the hood open, and I have tools and cables, I feel responsible. And I think that if you see these things happen and you allow them to happen without intervening, you are as guilty as they are As far as I’m concerned, I would much rather die doing this than live to be a hundred and have to face my creator and explain to him why I didn’t do anything. I’m a believer, and that’s very important to me. My wife he didn’t understand me, he said, well, go. I’ll be here when you come back. I said okay, I’ll do it with or without you. We were already in a difficult place in our marriage, things just weren’t working.”
People totally different from each other, coming from the most disparate places, find themselves here, in Donbas, with a weapon in their hands. Yet I am here, with the sole purpose of helping the Ukrainians in this very difficult war. The Sicily group adopted a cat. His name is Maria, but he is a boy, they realized it after some time. Kat has black nail polish.
“I like them. I used to go to a lot of underground raves in Galicia. Painting your nails with different types of clothes is very common there. It’s an aesthetic thing. I’d like to go here in Ukraine too, although I don’t know where they make them. I have a girlfriend in I live now, and I like the country. I wouldn’t want to leave if I can find something to do. I love animals very much, I would like to work, after the war, in the countryside, creating a refuge for them. But there is something in the army which is very unique. You can’t replicate that with anything else. It’s a feeling of brotherhood with your guys and the kind of work you do. It’s something I’ll probably miss when I leave.”
Sometimes living together isn’t easy, Sicily says. “We try to maintain a human and social relationship with each other and with the outside world. Life at the front can be difficult, it means spending more on basic necessities, not sleeping well at night because there is a missile hitting close to you. It’s stressful, but my teammates and I, despite some small clashes, manage to stay together.”
Scooter went to Sloviansk to buy a dirt bike. He goes around dressed like a biker when he is in civilian clothes: bandana on his head, jacket and long, well-groomed red beard. He comes from the United States, from Texas. “Hospitals being blown up, people being raped, children being kidnapped. I was sick of what the Russians were doing. I saw an opportunity to do something and I’ve been here for two years now. If you see these things and allow them to happen without intervening , you are just as guilty as those who do them.” Lorax on the other hand is from Missouri, has a weapons shop and is always in the gym when he isn’t going on missions. He currently has two people working for him and managing his affairs. He doesn’t know if he’ll come back when it’s all over. “I like Ukraine and I like its people.”
Life suspended due to war
Each of them has left a previous life, suspended, awaiting their return. “When I left I told my family that I was going to Belgium for work reasons. Today my relatives know that I am in Ukraine, but they think that I deal with humanitarian aid. The only person who partially knows the truth is my mother : I told her I’m an instructor in the West.”
Sicily and his men take turns covering a drone position in the middle of the woods of the Kreminna forest. In some places they are so close that you can sometimes hear them talking, the Russians. It depends on the direction of the wind. They kill by throwing FPV drones at them. The Lorax says that he will never be able to forget a Russian soldier who slowly died while he watched him with his drone. “He IS the enemy, if we don’t kill him he kills us, but he is still a man.”
Sicily says that he has always been obsessed with becoming a soldier, but due to physical problems he was never taken, both in the Italian one and in the French Legion and Ukraine, for many, becomes a place of redemption where they can test themselves again. Here Sicily has become a sergeant and is responsible for seven men who trust in him and his methodical meticulousness in defining plans and organisation, finding vehicles, ammunition and explosives. “Do I have nightmares? No. Speaking of post-traumatic stress disorder, I can say that I haven’t had it here yet. After my first combat experience in Syria, I was seeing a psychotherapist for about eight months. Even here, when possible, I do online sessions with a psychologist. Through therapy I’m also understanding that I can’t have control over everything around me. But if I go into crisis, the group goes into crisis. And I have their lives in my hands.” .
The hardest experience that Sicily had was in Bakhmut. An operation to ‘clean’ a shopping center of Russian soldiers. “The assault was very quick. Inside the shopping center there was this strong smell of rotten meat. It’s the smell of corpses. We split into five groups. Shortly afterwards the ceiling collapsed on us. Twenty-five of us entered and five of them left.”
