'My homeland called me': The middle-aged soldiers called up in Ukraine's latest military mobilisation
Deborah Haynes reports from a training ground near the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
Saturday 27 January 2024 14:15, UK
Seemingly unsure about how to hold it, a Ukrainian recruit balances an anti-tank weapon on one shoulder.
"Fire!" shouts an instructor.
Boom - the trainee, who looks to be in his late 40s - blasts a round into a frozen hillside at a training ground near the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
Just a few months ago, he and a group of fellow new troops were ordinary civilians.
Now they are about to fight Russia - real examples of the kind of service the head of Britain's army says the UK public needs to be ready for in the event of war.
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A second man, rifle raised, ducks behind a column of tyres at the makeshift shooting range, as he practises an attack.
He pops up, opens fire, then sprints to the next pile of tyres to shoot again.
Serhiy - a gas worker until three months ago - is being sent to the frontline in just two days.
"How do I feel? How should I feel?" says the 40-year-old from Ukraine's 93rd Brigade, smiling nervously, when asked about the prospect of facing the enemy for the first time.
"Everything is ok. I feel like the guys need some help. That is why I am here," he says.
As to whether he volunteered to join the army or was caught up in a growing forced mobilisation drive by the government, Serhiy just says: "My homeland called me."
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing British army chief, made headlines earlier in the week when he talked about the need for "citizen armies" in the event of war, though he was not advocating conscription.
But if Ukraine's experience is anything to go by, forcing people to mobilise would only be a matter of time for any country in a national crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men, as well as thousands of women, volunteered to fight when Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022.
However, the number of willing recruits has dwindled and Ukraine is increasingly ordering its men to mobilise as casualties mount. Women are exempt from forced mobilisation.
New soldiers but old in years
The small group of trainee soldiers at the shooting range all looked to be middle-aged and inexperienced.
One recruit accidentally forgot to retrieve his rifle after the shooting practice.
Rumbled, the 46-year-old who is also called Serhiy, is summoned by the instructor and ordered to do ten squats as punishment.
A construction worker in his civilian life, he signed up to serve last August.
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"I want to defend my homeland," he says.
Serhiy, a short man with stubble and tired eyes, has just done his first frontline stint though he is still in training.
Asked what it had been like, he says: "It was scary of course."
The instructor, himself previously a volunteer who started fighting after Russia invaded, says he has one message for his recruits when they leave for the front: "Forward, forward."
Known by his call-sign Saint, the instructor confirms there is a requirement for more manpower but he is much more animated about the need for weapons.
In a message to Ukraine's western allies, he says: "We need more modern weapons, ammunition, artillery, more rifles, machine guns."
"We want to burn the land under their feet"
At an artillery position, just five miles from Russian forces, frontline soldiers describe their frustration at not having enough ammunition to hit every Russian target.
"We want to fire and fire more to burn the land under their feet," says Denys, the commander of the unit, from Ukraine's 22nd Brigade which is operating a Soviet-era Howitzer.
The aging weapon is hidden under a camouflage net in a snowy patch of woodland and is pointed in the direction of the occupied city of Bakhmut.
It had fired just three shells against Russian positions overnight.
A soldier called Yevhen, who was manning the gun at the time, is another civilian who was mobilised last year. He had had previous military experience though.
Asked why he was fighting, the father of two young children says: "If not us, who? We have to... We have to."
The threat from incoming Russian fire is high, so the unit spends a lot of time living underground in a collection of dugouts.
The commander shows us into one of them, accessed via three or four wonky steps dug into the earth and a short tunnel.
The subterranean chamber is about three metres long and the same wide, with sheeting strung up as wallpaper to give it a more homely feel.
Two mattresses lie on the floor at right angles, while a large, portable charger powers a light and the soldiers' mobile phones.
A couple of cats share the space, sheltering from the freezing temperature outside. Along with a large, stray dog called Lucky, they have become the team's pets.
Denys, 24, a professional soldier, describes how he feels with war about to enter its third year. "Of course it is very sad," he said, "but we are trying to kick the Russians out."
The most dangerous sound on the battlefield
As well as civilian soldiers and artillery, another defining feature of the fighting is drones.
One-way, suicide drones and loitering unmanned aircraft, capable of dropping munitions on targets and returning to base, are a lethal threat for both sides.
On the Ukrainian front, civilians who have volunteered to fight are more likely to have had experience with drones during their previous careers than professional troops.
It makes them ideal drone operators.
"Now, it's the most dangerous sound in the world," says a soldier called Max as a FPV [First Person View] one-way kamikaze drone is launched and buzzes across the AG百家乐在线官网 in a demonstration flight over a field in eastern Ukraine, rather than a genuine operation.
Max had worked with drones as a civilian before the full-scale invasion and brought his expertise to the Omega Special Forces, part of the Ukrainian National Guard.
The team is just back from a mission in the frontline town of Avdiivka - a key target for Russian forces and the site of major battles.
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Another drone operator, who goes by the call-sign Ruben, zig-zags the one-way drone around in the air, before landing it back on the ground.
He used to be a professional soldier before the full-scale invasion and decided to rejoin.
"It is because this is my country and in this country live my parents, live my friends," he says, speaking in broken English.
It is a core motivation in Ukraine and one that British military chiefs will be hoping the UK public also starts to feel if war returns once again to the whole of Europe.