back home, a French volunteer recounts

In a video where he films himself out of breath, Mickaël says: “The base was destroyed, and there was a bombing there too, just now. I have friends who are dead, so we back off, we go“. He had just spent his first night at the Yavoriv military base, a few kilometers from the Polish border. He had joined volunteers from the Ukrainian international legion.

This 40-year-old computer scientist had left family and work to take up arms alongside the Ukrainian forces, without any military experience. In the contract he signed, he committed himself until the end of the conflict. Of the 200 soldiers present at the bombed Yavoriv base, there were 35 dead according to the Ukrainians. His life as a soldier lasted less than 48 hours. Back home in Alès (Gard), he explains that it is the fact of “see the helplessness of people” It front of losses Ukrainians who decided him to enlist.