Ukrainian drone pilot Andriy began drawing the horrors of war with his graphic pencil, trying to stay sane even as he realized he had seen a close friend suffer.
“You put these emotions on paper in your spare time, and it helps you not to go crazy,” said the 48-year-old, as he took a break from flying his reconnaissance drone in eastern Ukraine.
“The monsters I draw cannot be filmed or photographed, but they have been my reality for the past two years,” he said.
One of the drawings stands out.
It shows the pain of a soldier that Andriy watched for hours through his drone before realizing he knew the man very well.
The sketch shows a wounded Ukrainian soldier lying on the ground among the ruins, surrounded by four corpses, raising a hand for help.
He stares with his face turned towards the sky, towards the center of the drawing.
It feels as if he is staring at the viewer and observing him through the drone's camera.
Ghosts rise from the ruins behind him, with the word “WATER” written over and over on his right side.
'I had no idea'
“A modest drawing in a sketchbook, but there is a story behind it. It is exactly what I saw with my own eyes,” he said.
The scene took place during last summer's battle for Klishchiivka, a village near Bakhmut that Russia seized in May 2023 after months of fighting.
As he looked through his drone's camera, Andriy had no idea that the troubled soldier was a close friend with the call sign Donbas.
Both volunteered in the southern city of Odesa and fought side by side in the same brigade, including in Avdiivka, where Andriy manned a heavy Browning machine gun.
They were then transferred to the 22nd Brigade where Andriy became a drone pilot.
“I had no idea this was 'Donbas'. All I saw was a man, alive, who barely moved his hand towards the drone. He was lying on a pile of broken stones,” he said.
“We were watching him all day.”
Back to base after the long shift, Andriy discovered the soldier's identity.
He was told that Donbas had led an attack with a small group of fighters when a grenade fell nearby.
“They were unlucky,” Andriy said.
'Just a sip'
Donbas was the only one to survive the immediate attack, but his legs were broken.
He crawled a bit under the scorching sun until he came to a radio.
“He just repeated one word: 'water, water, water…' People kept hearing him until his signal went off,” he said, citing radio operators.
“He could barely breathe towards the end… It was a horrible death,” Andriy said.
First stunned by the news, Andriy then sat down on his bed to draw.
The horrors he witnessed did not deter him.
He said he was fighting “for the survival of Ukraine as a nation”.
“I realized that we are an outpost between Europe and a horde of cannibals.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)