Serhiy drove like a maniac. Before the war, the laconic Ukrainian was a lawyer. Now he sat in the front of a Mitsubishi pick-up, barrelling along a dirt road at 65mph (100km/h).
Three of us were crammed in the back and the seat belts didn’t work. But that was the least of anyone’s worries – up ahead lay our destination, and it was being shelled by Russian artillery.
The car swerved to avoid a spent Russian shell stuck in the earth. “Cluster bomb,” said Serhiy. It felt as though it could be a marker – a warning to travel no further.
“Do you want to see the village first, or our bunker?” he asked as the green pickup lurched to a halt. “Bunker,” cameraman Darren Conway and I said in unison.
Bare bulbs lit the dark space in the bunker – the new home to the group of volunteer fighters who are part of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence.
It could have been a scene from earlier wars, except it was pimped by technology. A widescreen TV showed live feeds from powerful spy cameras trained on Russian positions. “A gift from our friends,” one commander told me, indicating they had come from western governments.
The men sat around scrolling through Instagram and Facebook, messaging wives and lovers. If frontline troops have their way, Elon Musk will be made a hero of Ukraine. His Starlink satellite network provides free internet to men across the battle space.
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