One of the more surprising encounters I had in the outskirts of Kyiv today was with 50-year-old Alexander, who was manning a makeshift barricade at the entrance to one village with a group of other locals, brandishing whatever weapons they had.
Alexander was born and grew up in Russia, then moved to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, but left when Russian-backed forces took over in 2014. Now, he was ready to fight his own former countrymen.
If he were to capture any Russian soldiers, he said, he would have nothing to say to them, except to scream “Get out, occupier!” He said logic did not work on Russians because of the propaganda narrative dominant there.
He has stopped talking to his relatives in Russia, he said, as they simply don’t understand why he has become a Ukrainian patriot.
“I spoke to my own cousin two days ago and he doesn’t understand anything. That will be our last conversation. I asked him why are you so cowardly, your country is attacking us with ballistic missiles, your own father is from Ukraine, have you gone insane?”
He was, however, realistic about his makeshift team’s chances.
“Of course, if it’s a tank, in this terrain there’s nothing we can do and we need to run. But if it’s anything less than a tank, we will fight,” he said.