They came in from the darkness. Almost two dozen Ukrainian soldiers in full battle gear converged on the dilapidated barn where we were hiding in Kherson, a Ukrainian city about 20 miles north of Crimea, which Putin invaded and annexed in 2014. We were cowering under a cacophony of vintage 20th-century weapons that these men—Ukrainians and Russians—were using to kill each other.
They had all the Cold War classic brands: Grads, SCUDs, R.P.G.’s, AK-47s, Shilka mobile AA systems, BMP-1s, 2s, 3s, and shells from pristine T-72 tanks painted with chalky-white Z’s to distinguish invading Russian tanks from the Ukrainian ones.
