Standing on a steep grassy hill, a figure in uniform took aim with a rifle. Several shots pinged into a pile of tyres. Nearby, policemen took turns firing from a DShK heavy machine gun, mounted on a green-painted military vehicle. The rounds echoed around a rustic shooting range, scattering swallows. Down a track was a farmstead with cows.
The sniper was not a Ukrainian soldier but a 58-year-old British former marine called Alan, from Plymouth in south-west England. He is one of a small group of foreign volunteers currently fighting in Ukraine, more than sixteen months after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Alan declined to give his second name. He arrived last September. Soon he will go back to the frontline.
“You have to keep practising,” he said, gesturing at a row of targets, all of which he hit. “The Russians are not on the whole very good soldiers but they are not stupid. It would be foolhardy to assume there are no decent units or motivated troops. They are potent, very dangerous, and good at artillery and electronic warfare.”
Earlier this year Alan’s battalion, the Da Vinci Wolves Gonor unit, spent months in close combat with Wagner fighters. His task was to keep open the “road of life” – a crucial supply route to the eastern city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces at the time were battling with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries. The fighting raged street by street.
A veteran of the war in former Yugoslavia, Alan provided sweeping covering fire. He worked with another English-speaking volunteer, Steve, a 44-year-old former US marine and reservist from Texas. “We were basically in bunkers and trenches like in world war one,” Alan recounted. “It was very difficult. There was non-stop artillery from the Russian side. It was accurate. You had to keep your head down.”
Graphic video from one battle in April went viral. The Ukrainian soldiers advanced through a landscape of shattered Somme-style trees, using grenades to clear enemy trenches. There are explosions, the whistle of shells and the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire. All the Russians died. “What’s up orcs? It’s our field. Fuck off,” one Da Vinci fighter said, as the shooting subsided.
Alan said he had no qualms about firing at Russian mercenaries: “These people are going to kill my friends. If I happen to hit them with a bullet so be it.” He went on: “Some are completely untrained. They run at you without any concept of self-preservation. It’s as if they are drugged. Most of the Ukrainian guys directly on the frontline are young, in their early twenties. They are very, very good soldiers.”
A medic and former member of the parachute regiment, Alan fought in various conflicts and worked as a private military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan. He rarely visits the UK and lives in Croatia. It was the execution last year by Russian soldiers of civilians in the Kyiv region towns of Bucha and Irpin that made him travel to Ukraine. “I needed to do something to help, even at my age,” he said.
Russian state TV channels portray the war as a struggle against Nato and the west. In the weeks after the invasion men with military experience from around the world rushed to join Ukraine’s foreign legion. Some told “tall tales” about their battlefield prowess, Alan said. Most subsequently left. A few were killed. The number of outsiders fighting in Ukraine today was not large, amounting to “dozens” in each battalion, he said.
Steve said that since coming to Ukraine he had not registered with the US embassy in Kyiv, and tried to avoid fellow-Americans. “I’m an independent guy. I wasn’t sent here. I live in a free country and can leave Ukraine without any questions,” he stressed. And what about Moscow’s claim that he was an American Nato mercenary? “If Nato is sending my old arse over here they have got big problems,” he replied.
Neither volunteer has signed an official contract with Ukraine’s armed forces. Their commander covered day-to-day expenses, Alan said. The Kremlin alleges its “special military operation” is needed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and claims the Da Vinci Wolves group is a far-right nationalist outfit. Its leader, Dmytro “Da Vinci” Kotsyubaylo, died in March while fighting near Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and other senior government figures attended Kotsyubaylo’s funeral in Kyiv, which was screened live on national television, with the soldier’s open coffin taken from St Michael’s gold-domed monastery to the capital’s Maidan independence square. Zelenskiy called the fallen soldier a hero. “The guys I am with are patriots. I have yet to find a Nazi anywhere on this side of the lines,” Alan added.
He was optimistic that Ukraine’s counteroffensive would succeed, despite its slow progress so far. Its military command was searching for a “weak spot” in Russia’s entrenched defensive positions. “If there is a break Ukraine will pour everything into it. It’s like the ‘hedge war’ in 1944 after the Normandy landings. Something broke and allied troops made a mad dash to the Rhein. Sooner or later Russia’s logistics will fail.”
This has not happened yet. In May the Russians took control of Bakhmut, after eleven months of bloody fighting, with the city in ruins, and at a cost of large numbers of killed and wounded. “I don’t think it was a mistake to fight on there,” Alan said. “This was a huge battle. We did enormous damage to the Wagner group. It doesn’t exist any more in a fighting role. This was a Pyrrhic victory for Russia.”
His volunteer corps is currently on a break from frontline duties. Mornings are spent training on the shooting range outside the city of Dnipro, or at the gym. One day last week, Steve, who arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, checked weapons and took apart a Barrett shoulder-fired sniper rifle, tinkering with the firing mechanism. Other rifles kept in a spacious bunk room included an American AR-10, an AK-74 and an M14.
Alan said he hoped to pass some of his knowledge to novice Ukrainian soldiers. “I instruct them how to patrol, how to shoot and how to stay alive,” he said. “If you stop for more than five minutes you have to dig a hole.” He advises them not to use mobile phones in the trenches, which can be intercepted by the Russians and geo-located. And to stay off TikTok, a channel used by some reckless foreign volunteers to crowd-fund donations.
Neither Alan nor Steve have yet managed to learn Ukrainian. They order food in restaurants and cafes using a translation app. Most of their battalion do not speak English, with the exception of a radio operator. How long did he intend to carry on fighting? “I’ve lived in eastern Europe for most of my adult life. The people here are fantastic,” Alan replied. He reflected: “I’m nearly 60. It’s probably time to hang up my rifle.”
When might that happen? “This is my last war. When it finishes I will go home,” he said.
