DESIS IN THE DONBAS

Meet the Indians who are fighting for Ukraine

- BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA

Trying to meet Indians fighting for Ukraine turned out to be tougher than I thought. Through my research and constant communication with the International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, I had found that there were three Indian fighters here. But till the last minute, there was no confirmation that they would agree to talk to me. I got the confirmation only a day before the scheduled interview, which was slotted for only 20 minutes. I was in Kramatorsk in the Donbas region then, and the three Indians were supposed to meet me in Kostyantynivka, which is just 27km from Russia-occupied Bakhmut.

So, my translator Yehor Konovalov drove me in his red Nissan Juke to Kostyantynivka, a small frontline town with 18,000 residents. As we were passing Soviet-era vintage cars, olive-coloured military pickups and armoured personnel carriers, I realised that our car’s tyres were making a strange sound. It was probably because roads leading to frontline villages had become coarse and non-motorable owing to the movement of battle tank chain wheels. As we neared Kostyantynivka, the sound of explosions increased and the intervals between the explosions decreased. It was clear that the battle for Bakhmut was happening nearby.

As we waited near a school destroyed two days ago by a Russian missile, a pickup truck arrived and two average-bodied men alighted. They were dressed in combat gear, and held machine-guns. But where is the third one, I wondered.