Ukraine: Israeli volunteer fighting in the Ukrainian army: Hamas attack reminded me of what I saw in Bucha

The Hamas attack on Israel reminded me of what I saw in Bucha, says an Israeli volunteer fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces to the Ukrainian editorial office of Voice of America. A former policeman, 58-year-old Ariah Ben Yehudah, has been fighting for Kyiv against Russia for a year and a half.

"When I saw footage of the war in Ukraine and heard President Volodymyr Zelensky's appeal to foreign fighters to come to support Ukraine, I thought that I had the knowledge and experience that I should go and help"

the Israeli said in an interview published on Thursday.

As he says, the Ukrainian embassy in Tel Aviv assured him that he was suitable to volunteer, having completed military service and over 22 years of service in the Israel police. A few days later he was in Ukraine, and shortly afterward - on the front.

First, he fought in the International Legion, and then in an ordinary Ukrainian brigade. He was in Bucha, Irpen, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Avdiivka. He says that the Ukrainians welcomed him "with open arms", even with love.

"The closer you are to the front line, the more Ukrainians appreciate what you do for them. You cannot compare the reaction of the people you liberate with the attitude of people in Kyiv or Lviv, where there are sometimes bombings, but there is no threat of occupation"

says the volunteer.

"When we liberated Bucha in 2022, the old people brought us food to repay us in this way. It was the last food they had. We knew about it and refused, but it was very touching because they knew well that we had come to liberate them from Russian tyranny. They didn't care what color your skin was, whether you were a Christian, a Jew, whether you were from England or Israel. Any help was valuable to them"

reports Ben Yehudah. He was born in England and moved to Israel as an adult, after converting to Judaism.

He describes that he is fighting in a unit where the soldiers – Ukrainians – are not professional soldiers, so any military habits he could pass on to them were useful to them. All this – maneuvers, weapon handling, coordination during combat – was new to them, but they had to learn quickly.

Comparing the customs in the Ukrainian Army with the Israel army, he says that first there were rules known from Soviet times – the soldier should not ask questions, but obey orders. But when Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers began to ask their commanders why they acted the way they did – and they would do the same in the Israeli army.

Ben Yehudah recalls that at the beginning of the Russian invasion, support in Israel for Ukraine was strong, and then the media began to “forget” that people there were still fighting for freedom. And after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 this year, there was a lot of talk about it in Ukraine.

"I heard about these events on Saturday morning, half an hour after the attack. They reminded me of what I saw in Bucha. I saw the same crimes there"

says the Israeli.

He describes being impressed by the fact that Ukrainians perceived the news from Israel as they perceived their own war. When he informed the unit commander that he should go home, he understood and took the next Ben Yehudah plane to Israel. However, he was soon back in Ukraine because his unit in Israel had not been mobilized.

The Israeli is convinced that both countries are fighting "the same enemy". He mentions, for example, drones – in his opinion, drones were used in the attacks on Israel in a similar way to the way the Russians use them in Ukraine. He then adds:

"after seeing how Hamas is fighting, I can say that they were definitely trained by the Russians. (The Palestinians) get military support from Iran, which also supplies drones to Russia, so I think everything is connected".

An Israeli volunteer was injured three times in Ukraine – most recently in the summer, when he almost lost an eye. For his participation in the battle, he was awarded two combat decorations – the Golden Cross (badge of the Commander-in-Chief) and the Order for Courage (3rd class), awarded by the President of Ukraine.