“Strong weapons aid from the West is now needed”

KIOVA In the center of the Ukrainian capital, the war can be forgotten for a moment. In the cafes of Kiev, people enjoy the sun and checkpoints have been dismantled.

For those sitting on a park bench Topi to Huhtala secession from war is important to “remember being human”. She says she went to the barber shop, some of the guys even dating.

Huhtala’s group, as he says, has a lot of Finnish “guys”.

Huhtala is one of the fewer than twenty Finns on combat duty in Ukraine.

Everyone has come to Ukraine in the early part of the war, Huhtala in mid-March.

Most of the Finns are in a military unit called Team Wiking, where Huhtala has taken on a great deal of responsibility as a team leader.

In the team, Finns are in the majority alongside other Nordic people.

– It is easy to translate into Finnish, but we have agreed that we will always speak London in the presence of others.

Huhtala’s team specializes in intelligence, and there is already experience in frontal operations. Now the team is focusing on training in the Kiev region.

– When we first got into a fight, I saw confusion on the faces of the Finns, and some fear. We realized that this is it, a total war. We use that phrase a lot.

Operations take days, and even if the front line is pulled to rest, the threat of indirect fire is present all the time. Combat gear stays on around the clock.

– It really isn’t like shooting a little and going to a base to rest. Then for the first time, it hit many really hard faces for what it is.

According to Huhtala, the Finns have remained in his unit despite the dangers and brutality of the war. Many dream of a holiday in Finland, but otherwise the goal is clear.

– We’ve talked about winning until the day we win.

Huhtala makes this clear. He talks a lot about training and the military side of the conflict in Ukraine. The aim is to have a military career abroad.

– We have our own area in Kiev, where we can practice movement in the terrain and shocks. You could say we are a guerrilla team.

Finns have a conscript service in the background, either intelligence or jazz training.

Huhtala hopes they will get reconnaissance assignments. They go close to the enemy in small groups. The goal is to gather information or disable the enemy.

– We mainly practice attacks and ambushes. We want to perform fast-paced tasks.

Huhtala praises the conscription he completed three years ago. The Finns have even trained Ukrainian officers.

– Finland is the only country that has prepared for such a war. Other countries do not have the kind of expertise that Finns have.

As the focus of the war shifted to the east, the nature of the fighting has changed. Initially, Ukraine’s rapid guerrilla forces destroyed a huge column of Russians with light anti-tank weapons.

Now the importance of artillery has been highlighted as battles are freezing on the front lines. Russia in particular is resorting to massive use of indirect fire.

Russia’s raids have largely failed, and the front line has shifted little in the last two months.

In the battle graves, soldiers under fire crash a lot on both sides.

Huhtala’s fear is that the war will freeze into an eternal, exhausting status war, as the war in eastern Ukraine was for years.

– The station warfare is such a cannon, the guys are in pottery and indirect fire is fired at the stations. It is of no use, people are just dying and things are not progressing.

Planes and drones are a special feature of this war. They search for artillery targets and the fire can be repaired very accurately. Optics are from night vision to thermal imagers.

According to Huhtala, this has made off-roading very dangerous.

– When you go somewhere with a small group, pretty suddenly there will be a drone and then an indirect fire.

According to Huhtala, driving in vehicles feels especially dangerous.

– Especially when you hear a fighter jet or a combat helicopter, your heart jumps down your throat. The emergency is less if you are on foot and not locked in a ride. Then you just have to suddenly inject the vehicle into the air shield and the eggs into the peat.

The Finns have decided that progress is always on foot whenever possible, Huhtala says.

Changing the image of war affects everything. Now we are fighting with sturdy weapons that carry far.

According to Huhtala, the West is required to have “strong arms assistance” in this situation.

– This war will not be won with rifles, but with missiles and indirect fire. They and training are needed a lot.

Ukraine has received artillery from several countries, especially the United States.

The United States, Britain and Germany have also promised a small number of highly efficient rocket launchers.

According to Huhtala, in the beginning, arms aid was effective when “there was more movement in the war”. Now Russia is digging stations for tanks and artillery.

– The West must quickly put everything in the game before the stations are built to perfection. Otherwise, they will be difficult to influence, and recapture.

Huhtala believes that the will to fight in Ukraine is still high. The only small risk is to laugh at the enemy. There are a lot of incompetent soldiers on the Russian side, but there are also qualified troops, Huhtala warns.

– If you go against them with a wave of two hands, there is a 90 percent chance that the spirit will leave.

In the center of Kiev is a memorial wall to those who fell in the war in eastern Ukraine. Photographs of more than 3,000 soldiers are reminiscent of the cost of the hybrid war that Russia began in 2014.

Finnish volunteers have also thought about death on the front lines.

– We are all aware that the departure may come. If it comes, we just hope it comes as soon as possible so you don’t have to be tormented or trapped. We have such thoughts. It may sound like raffia, but that’s how it keeps spinning.

Huhtala feels severely wounded in battle. They evoke, but don’t get too affected, he says.

In recent weeks, there have been reports of at least five foreign volunteers crashing into the fighting in Luhansk.

Foreigners have also ended up as prisoners of war, but they have largely been in the regular forces of the Ukrainian army.

– Many have wondered why I am going to kill myself in a country where I have no connections. If you don’t understand it, then it is then you can. The main thing for me is that my family members understand.

– Yes, I see me fighting for the oppressed. Here, for example, in the vicinity of Kiev, things have been done to make people sick. Democracy and Europe are also defended in this war, so I do not mind.

Personal reasons are also important. Huhtala felt a “deficiency” in his daily life in Finland. Even though he had a good job, family, and lots of friends, life “wasn’t enough.”

– It feels important here what I do. This could be the gateway to the fact that when the war ends, I have the opportunity to go on with a life like this.

Huhtala, like many other Finnish fighters in Ukraine, is planning an international military career in private security companies, for example.

– One day we would like to buy a villa on the shores of Odessa with a group. It would be great to come back there again and again after the victory, Huhtala says.