Author’s note: This article is a going to be part of a new book entitled This I Will Defend: A Ukrainian Legionnaire’s Strategy to Fight Fascism, Racism and Dictatorship and Save American Democracy. Coming in 2023-ish.

Photo credit: Malcolm Nance, 2022

Welcome to Ukraine, Bitches

The Gas Station of the Damned is what I called it. What was once a clean white filling station just on the east bank of the Oskil river in the Ukrainian city of Kupiyansk. It sat unused but not actually abandoned as it still had its customers. I was there at dawn on a crisp fall morning as part of a reinforced special forces team made up of NATO-trained foreign soldiers in Ukraine’s 3rd Battalion International Legion.

When I got there, the gas station had several clients that would remain forever waiting for its services to be restored. That is because strewn about the s…

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