War Stories: A Belgian Legionnaire’s Experience in the Ukrainian Conflict

2023-09-05 04:00:00

Wolf is a 22-year-old who served in the Belgian army. He joined the Ukrainian International Legion, from the first days of the war. Back in the country for the time of a leave, he granted an interview to our journalists. He spent more than a year at the front, he recounts his experience and the traumas that inevitably ensue.

Wolf, wolf, that’s his nom de guerre. The name by which he has been called daily for a year and a half now in Ukraine. The young man must be ready at all times. He must be able to be at the front in 48 hours. 2,000 kilometers from here, life is very different. Wolf lives the horrors of war and… he feels them: “The main smells we have are smells of rotting corpses. We never get used to it“, he says. When it is not a question of putrefied human beings, the ambient air has”the smell of sulfur and gunpowder“.

The legionnaire remembers the first time he entered war-torn Ukraine, following “a quick formation as there was a mission approaching“: “It hit for the first time in a village. I had an indescribable lump in my stomach and I realized at that moment that we are men and that we can die.” He then utters a sentence that sends shivers down the spine: “War is ugly, but we get addicted“.

His job is “mostly” has “storm previously lost positions and try to push the Russians back“. In “trying to capture them or…“to kill them:”It happens to us, unfortunately, it’s part of the job.”

“I worry”

Just over €3,800. This is what Wolf earns to do this job, which is very difficult, physically and mentally. “Even if there was no salary, I would continue to fight there“, he specifies. If he considers that the war “did not affect his psychological health“, the Belgian recognizes that it has changed him: “It affects my family. When I left, I was less direct and less abrupt in my gestures than when I came back.“

The Legionnaire also explains “to worry (sic) when there is a loud noise in his sleep“, and that, even if he is in Belgium.”It happened to me to be on high alert all the way through a walk in the woods because I fought in the woods and saw certain things that reminded me [ce que j’ai vécu] there and made it trigger it in me“, he says. He says that the return to civilian life when he is on leave, as it is at the moment, is rough: “The main concern I have is that I’m often staring at the sky at the moment, compared to the Russian drones which often scout us to hit us with artillery.“

For the rest, he says he has “absences“. Times when “we think back to what we lived there“. “These are things that are hard to get out of memory, even if you wanted to.“, he testifies.

The respite is only short-lived for Wolf who wears his military uniform, even during his leave. He concludes by talking regarding his reward when he completes a mission: “The greatest gift is when families and children jump into our arms when we come back from the fighting, when we have liberated a village and they thank us with tears.“

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