Crowdfunding weapons as Ukraine soldiers fight, die

In his latest report from the frontlines, Ukrainian-American journalist-activist David Kirichenko shares his efforts to deliver crucial supplies, including high-tech surveillance drones, to Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast. He bears witness to the emotional toll inflicted on these troops after more than two years of war and reflects on how freedom for Ukraine remains the ultimate goal for those still fighting. This is the second of two parts. Read part one.

I had last visited my friends in the 109^th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade in the late summer of 2023, when their unit was stationed close to Bakhmut. A few weeks after I’d left, their base was struck by the Russians and they had to evacuate from Bakhmut. Norman, a unit commander, told me about that development in March of this year when I revisited the brigade, whose most recent fighting had been close to the Avdiivka front.

As they had done during my prior visit, the soldiers took me out to the field and deployed a new drone they had received from the Ukrainian government. This one was a Backfire K1. At one point in the distance, there was an explosion – it was the Russians bombing Ukrainian positions nearby – and the shockwave roared past us. I couldn’t imagine being on the zero-line, where soldiers receive the brute force of those bombs falling on them.

The soldiers from the 109^th also showed me a little radio-controlled car they were testing. They were in the process of making sure all its functions worked, as they were preparing to stuff it with explosives and send it into a Russian trench to detonate.

Resigned to his fate but still there, still fighting

I conducted drone warfare interviews with several soldiers from the unit,