I’m not sure what made me do it. Living in a war zone, you get used to the emotional ups and downs. But there’s growing uncertainty here in Ukraine, and finally, something prompted me to act.
I woke up one morning a few weeks ago with a new sense of dread and urgency. What if things really were going sideways? What if the Russians managed to break through in Chasiv Yar, a pivotal battle on the eastern front that could unleash a cascade of additional Russian wins further to the west? And what, if anything, could I do to make a difference? What was the point of writing another op-ed piece?
So I started calling around. Did friends have any ideas? A few hours later, I decided to buy a drone for a unit fighting in Chasiv Yar.
I’m an American living in Ukraine, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s New Ukraine Project, and I write about the war for the Washington Monthly and other publications. I like to think my work is clear-eyed and objective, and I’m far from an arms merchant. But the Russian missiles aimed at Kyiv threaten me too, and there’s part of me that wants to provide more than just humanitarian assistance.
Drones come in all shapes and sizes. Some are made here in Ukraine. Others are imported from Turkey or China. Iran supplies the lion’s share of Russia’s deadly drones. Some fit in a carry-on bag, while others are as big as rowboats. Many are designed for reconnaissance. Others are lethal weapons that carry explosives or explode on impact, some with a big bang and others smaller.
They make Russia’s war on Ukraine different from any other. The battlefield in Chasiv Yar looks and feels like the trenches of World War I, except that neither Verdun nor the Somme had a swarm of drones buzzing constantly overhead. This makes life much more difficult and deadly for both attackers and defenders—every move you make is visible to the enemy.
Also unique to this war, the Ukrainian armed forces get much of their equipment from civilian supporters. Two years into the fighting, over three-quarters of Ukrainians donate regularly or volunteer to help the armed forces, and several well-known volunteer groups specialize in pooling money to purchase drones. But I wanted to do more than send a check to a charity. I wanted to buy my own drone and send it to a unit I could follow. So, once again, I started calling around.
It wasn’t easy to connect with fighters in Chasiv Yar, where a fierce but largely static battle has been raging since early April. Ukrainian troops are outnumbered and overburdened; the situation in the trenches can be dire. A friend who called a friend on the frontline on my behalf was cut off mid-sentence by incoming fire. When we finally got through to a soldier, it was to someone severely wounded in the east, recovering in a hospital in central Ukraine. But he sent a name and an address in a village near Chasiv Yar: an outlet of Nova Poshta, the Ukrainian FedEx.
The purchase itself was at once thrilling and ordinary. I had expected to spend a few hundred dollars, but this unit wanted a much more expensive reconnaissance drone with thermal vision to detect enemy troops approaching at night. So, I found a few friends to go in with me, and one of them searched online for where to get the best price.
The discount electronics outfit where we bought the drone sells mostly earbuds and cell phones—more Radio Shack than John le Carré. We picked up our device at a mall and carried it in a plastic suitcase to a nearby Nova Poshta.
The U.S. aid approved by Congress in April is finally showing up in Ukraine. Artillery shells, so crucial in this war, are arriving at the front. But neither the much-welcome shells nor a new U.S. policy allowing Kyiv to use American weapons to strike enemy staging grounds across the border in Russia have done much to change the stalemate on the eastern front.
For Ukrainian civilians, life is grim. Months of missile strikes, ever more intense, have destroyed more than half the country’s capacity to generate electricity. There are outages every day in many buildings, and often, no power is available for several hours a day. A new mobilization law kicked in late in May, and fighting-age men who haven’t yet enlisted are steeling themselves for what lies ahead. Meanwhile, the air alerts continue as Russian drones and missiles strike cities across the country.
Ukrainians are incredibly strong and determined. No one panics, and there has been no uptick in Ukrainians fleeing to Western Europe. Still, everyone is weary of this Russian war.
I’d never bought a weapon before, not even a toy weapon. Like many Boomers, I grew up uncomfortable with war. I opposed the military-industrial complex and believed that arms buildups cause conflicts, making escalation inevitable, to the detriment of all.
Now, my only regret is that I bought a reconnaissance drone, not a lethal weapon. After more than two years of living in Ukraine, worrying that an incoming missile would destroy my apartment building or kill someone I know, I wanted to do some damage to the enemy. Even this small step made me feel so much better; finally, I was more than just a sitting duck. This will not be the last drone I buy; the next one will be lethal.
A few days after we sent the drone, a message arrived from a phone number I didn’t know. It turned out to be a video from the soldier to whom we had addressed the package, a Ukrainian drone operator in the 41st Separate Mechanized Brigade. The soldier was a thoughtful-looking man with a shaved head, a full, graying beard, and a no-nonsense manner. Dressed in fatigues, he stood before a camouflaged SUV and showed off my drone, now fully assembled.
“Thank you to our American friends,” he said and cracked a small smile. “This will cause a lot of trouble for our enemies.”
