Since the invasion, Ukrainian councilor Ivan Mishchenko has exchanged his toga for a Kalashnikov. In his hometown of Kyiv he is hunting Russian infiltrators. They have already entrenched themselves in the city weeks before the invasion.
40-year-old Ivan Mishchenko cannot remember the last day he went to work in a suit as a judge of the Supreme Court in Kyiv. Was it a Wednesday, a Thursday? The days and their names no longer matter. He watched the news in the office that morning, consulted with his colleagues, and knew it was war. He went straight home, packed his wife and three children, and took them across the border to a safe place.
That was part one of his plan. Then came part two: returning to Kyiv and helping to defend his hometown.
So now he’s been walking and sleeping in military clothes for a week and a half and has a gun around his neck for the first time in his life. He’s had a few days of training, the basics. Taking apart, cleaning and reassembling his gun is now easy for him. You get used to it quickly, Mishchenko says on the phone. He speaks three times last week with de Volkskrant and appt short messages. Dry and factual, he tells in English how his life has changed.
In Kyiv he joined a unit made up of men from all backgrounds. Some have fought before, in the Donbass, for example, in eastern Ukraine. A few worked at the court, just like Mishchenko, a number of IT specialists are among them, a representative in television screens, in short: everything. They are in two groups of six people. Their base is in a secret location. Mishchenko has not been to his own house in Kyiv since.
Secret Russian Codes
Their day usually starts at 6:30 am, after restless nights. Every so often the air raid siren goes off and bombs fall. Usually that is around 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, the hours when your body prefers to be asleep as deeply as possible, even the men who operate the anti-missile installations have a hard time.
Then they set out in search of Russian infiltrators and looters. Keep the city as safe as possible. That’s their job. The infiltrators have been hiding in the city for a month or so, he now knows. They asked all apartment rental companies for lists of men between the ages of 25 and 65 who rented a house two weeks before the war started. They also receive tips from residents.
This often concerns locations close to important buildings, such as ministries, the office of security services or power installations. On those buildings they sometimes find markings with fluorescent paint: ready to be bombed by the Russians. So they drive around with paint, regular wall paint, which they smear over it. Every now and then they manage to arrest a Russian, who they hand over to the secret service.
He started smoking again, actually right after the war started. Anyway, his wife Nina won’t blame him. Problem now is he can only get Winston cigarettes, pretty nasty stuff. He has never been able to find a pack of Marlboro anywhere so far, he says on Wednesday. Of course that’s not vital, but he would still love to smoke a real Marlboro cigarette.
His latest case
The city is deserted, says Mishchenko. At almost all intersections there is rubble to stop the Russian vehicles they once expect. Dogs and cats, abandoned by their fugitive owners, are everywhere looking for food to survive. Sometimes the men stop to feed the animals.
There is still electricity and hot water. Some shops are open, such as pharmacies, supermarkets and a single gas station. For the time being, new supplies are still coming into the city. ‘Kyiv is big. It’s almost impossible to completely shut down the city.’ Some people even go to work.
At night they also look for looters. There is a curfew in the Ukrainian capital, so anyone walking the streets is suspicious. They use passwords that Russians cannot pronounce for mutual communication. Randomly chosen words that Russians immediately stumble over. Listen, he says, an example from a few days ago. In Ukrainian it sounds: ‘Bookstore nonsense.’ No Russian can say that.
The last case Mishchenko worked on as a judge involved the bankruptcy of a bank. Just before it went bankrupt, the owners had sold their possessions away or quickly sold them on. The creditors were left empty-handed. A complicated matter, he says. Because did the buyers of the assets know that they were illegally buying something from the bankruptcy estate? He couldn’t help but think about it the last few days. But hey, it’s all completely unimportant now.
Patriotic songs
Of course he is having a hard time. Especially when he thinks of his wife Nina and his sons Mykyta (12) and Danylo (3) and daughter Maya of almost 11 months. ‘I’m not a soldier, am I? I’m just a normal boy too.’ Every day he has telephone contact with his family. They are safe, in a European country, that’s the most important thing.
He likes to travel, see the world and get to know other cultures. He has a movie club with friends. They were last together two months ago. They watched the Korean movie Burning, based on a book by a Japanese author. ‘Very good.’
With his new ‘brothers’ they try to keep the morale up. They often sing old Ukrainian songs, about the motherland, struggle and victory and about a heroic death. “Personally, I’m more into love songs.”
Mishchenko became a judge five years ago, after a career as a lawyer, mainly representing companies. He applied because he felt that the legal system was in need of reform. Since last year, he has also been a member of an international committee of lawyers, which assesses Ukrainian judges on their independence. In that committee he works together with the Dutch lawyer Robert Hein Broekhuijsen, known as a public prosecutor in real estate fraud. Well, that’s all quiet now. While doing their best to reform their country and tackle corruption, the Russians are now tearing it to shreds.
Roast Chicken and Marlboros
He never thought they would actually do it. They often talked about it, with friends. That the Russians in Donbass would try something, okay, but bombs on Kyiv? Impossible. Mishchenko stops talking for a moment and puts his phone in the air. ‘Do you hear that?’ The air raid siren goes off again. But they never actually go into the bomb shelters again.
Everything gets used to quickly, he says. First there was disbelief and anger, and of course fear. But now there is acceptance. It’s so. He lives by the day. Last week he spoke to some Russian friends. And then he suddenly felt a deep hatred. But that too has disappeared. ‘I don’t feel anything anymore. They don’t exist anymore.’
He would like a good meal. Usually they eat reheated fast food from the microwave. He washes it down with energy drinks. What if he could just choose? Then he would have a nice piece of fish. He doesn’t find it easy to keep his spirits up, but he has to. “I have nothing without it.”
In the evening Mishchenko sends another text message. They tracked down a Ukrainian traitor who supplied the Russians with food and gasoline. The betrayal does not surprise him. That’s how it goes in wars. They hope to catch him tonight.
And they were lucky. Some neighbors brought fried chicken for dinner.
The next morning he sends another short message. They have survived the night – restless, with many bombings – again. And this morning when they went into town, he was lucky. Mishchenko sends a photo. Two packs of Marlboro.