‘I have to be here. My family understands’: Christmas on the frontline with Ukraine’s drone brigade
In the two years since its formation, Ukraine’s 13th National Guard Brigade – called “Khartiya” – has gained a reputation not only for prowess in battle but also for its culture of respect and innovative approach to technology.
Khartiya helped to halt Russian forces who launched a surprise incursion last May that threatened to overwhelm Kharkiv, from where many of its original members come.
The brigade was deployed to confront the Russian incursion around the village of Lyptsi, north of Ukraine’s second-largest city, last June; the forested area has since been a pivotal battleground.
And it was there last week that the Khartiya announced it had fought a battle for the first time using only drones – both unmanned aerial vehicles and robotic ground vehicles that sprayed the enemy using remote-control machine guns and laid anti-tank mines, inflicting large casualties and preventing a Russian attack without the loss of a single Ukrainian life.
The brigade’s spokesperson, Sergeant Volodymyr Dehtyarev, said Khartiya is committed to creating a “new Ukrainian army” using Nato standards of training that, unlike the Soviet-style hierarchical structures that still linger in many parts of the Ukrainian military, show respect for every member of the fighting force and use education and discussion to cultivate, rather than suppress, individual initiative.
He said that the brigade had particularly benefited from British training that emphasised the need for every soldier, of whatever rank, to be able to take part in the planning of a mission or battle and, if necessary, to take over leadership from a superior trank.
On Christmas Eve, The Independent was taken in a four-wheel-drive vehicle to one of Khartiya’s drone units covering a section of the brigades’s trenches and bunkers in the Lyptsi area.
After leaving the highway northwards from Kharkiv, our vehicles headed along country roads and largely deserted villages cloaked in fog as the temperature dipped toward freezing.
Along the way, we visited two bases where Khartiya brigade members were resting for a few days before returning to the front lines.
As in many other European countries, Ukrainians have their main festive meal on Christmas Eve rather than 25 December. Dinner traditionally consists of 12 dishes, one for each of the disciples. All 12 courses were not a practical proposition in the spartan conditions of the village houses being used by the resting soldiers. But the brigade provided some dishes while the soldiers themselves prepared others.
An essential ingredient of the traditional Ukrainian Christmas meal is kutia, an ancient sweet dish of grains, honey and poppyseed. Dehtyarev, accompanying The Independent, distributed some.
The mood was subdued but not sad. A company commander with the call sign “Czech” said: “Of course tonight everybody is thinking about the families they have left behind. I have a wife and a girl aged 18 and a boy 14 years old. I miss them and this is the third Christmas I will not be with them. But I have to be here as long as is needed and I know my family understands that.”
Czech said he and his men spent seven days at the front followed by seven days rest. Many of the Ukrainian soldiers have occupied trenches and tunnel networks abandoned by Russians they have driven out. Others they have dug themselves.
In a pattern repeated everywhere along the front lines, small groups of Russians, sometimes brought close to Ukrainian lines in armoured personnel carriers, or riding off-load bikes or quad vehicles, try to press forward despite horrendous losses.
