The first day of the counteroffensive in southern ukraineMark Ayres fired more than 2,000 rounds from his Soviet-designed PK machine gun during fierce firefights with Russian forces.
The former British soldier is working with a Ukrainian army reconnaissance unit in the battle to retake the southern region of Kherson, one of only three foreigners on the team.
“The fighting was pretty intense, a lot of shelling,” Ayres, 48, told CNN. “We fought very hard and we took the Russian positions that we had to take.”
Ayres suffered a serious shrapnel wound to his left leg on the second day of the counteroffensive, along with four other wounded from his unit.
But despite the casualties on the front lines, he said Ukrainian forces are making slow but definite progress on the ground.
“It won’t be fast; it’s hard, slow, meter by meter, position by position, because we don’t have the resources to do a massive blitzkrieg, with masses of artillery and armor,” Ayres said. “So we have to do it smart and try to do it (by) sustaining as few casualties as possible.”
So far, the Ukrainians claim to have taken a small handful of settlements in the Kherson region during the offensive, gains that UK intelligence experts say were likely achieved with a “degree of tactical surprise”.
Ayres, originally from London, has been fighting alongside former US Marine Michael Zafer Ronin, who was also injured last week at the start of the counter-offensive, with shrapnel wounds to his head, stomach and hand.
The couple originally met fighting alongside Kurdish fighters in Syria. Now, they are recovering in hospitals in the city of Odessa, on the beleaguered Black Sea coast of southern Ukraine.
Zafer Ronin, 34, of Kansas, said the Ukrainian military’s morale on the front lines remains “pretty high” but, in contrast, opposing Russian forces appear to be “a little unprofessional and disorganized.”
The two men arrived early in the war as volunteers and later signed up as paid soldiers for the Ukrainian army on three-year contracts.
Ayres said he came to join the fight because he was “inspired” by the spirit of the Ukrainian people.
“It was (between) the right thing and the wrong thing,” Ayres said. “It was an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country.” He has “no sympathy” for the Russian soldiers, he added.
Their main challenge on the battlefield is being outgunned and outnumbered by their Russian counterparts. Frontline units are well supplied with small arms and ammunition, but lack heavy weapons such as artillery and tanks, Ayres said. A limited number of US and NATO-supplied weapons, such as HIMARS, howitzers, and Javelin anti-tank missile systems, have proven useful in this fight, but they are not enough to match the firepower of their opponents.
“They just constantly hit us with artillery, that’s what makes it so much more difficult, the artillery and armor they have, it’s superior to ours,” Ayres said. “Our attacks are more surgical, but more limited.”
On Saturday, a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that, according to Ukrainian officials, the offensive was “an intentionally methodical operation to degrade Russian forces and logistics, rather than one aimed at immediately retaking large swathes of territorial”. “
Ayres has a white beard and has been nicknamed ‘grandfather’ by his Ukrainian comrades. But he already gained the trust of his younger colleagues.
“As soon as they’ve seen you in battle and they know you’re here to stay, and they know you’re a capable soldier, you immediately earn their respect,” Ayres said.
Ayres spent his teenage years as a Royal Green Jacket, a British Army infantry regiment, and now feels this battle has given him renewed purpose.
“At home I am nothing, I am just an old man who rents a room,” Ayres said. “Whereas now, I’m a soldier, doing something good, fighting.”
His son is proud of what he is doing, he adds.
For these two injured foreign fighters, their next focus is not to fly home to safety, but just to get back to the front lines to join the fight as soon as they can.
“Once everything heals up in my body, probably in three or four weeks, I should be back,” Zafer Ronin said.
“Of course I’m going back,” Ayres added. “Because I’m a soldier.”