Guns, Grenades, Candy: Ukraine Fighter describes its military equipment

A British man who volunteered to fight with a unity of the Ukrainian army against the invasion of Russia told Business Insider of the norm – and unexpected – of the articles he wore while he was fighting there.

Macer Gifford is the war name of the former merchant of currencies Harry Rowe, who fought in Syria and Ukraine as an international volunteer.

He spoke to the series of authorized BI accounts on what it is really to defend Ukraine.

He described the kit he found essential when carrying out missions in a unit of recognition and the simple rules he followed to protect her and himself.

Rifles, grenades and candies

Gifford fought with the 131st recognition battalion in Ukraine in 2022, fighting in places like Lyman and the islands of the Glacial Dnipro River before later forming a specialized drone unit.

He told Bi that he had a different kit for different roles, but there were constants, like his uniform.

“In general, I would prefer to use a British military uniform, mainly for quality reasons,” he told Bi.

Gifford said that during recognition missions, he needed a slim body vest to sail in restricted spaces such as thorny wooded thickets or to sneak into the gaps in buildings. He would transport magazines and grenades on a plaque carrier vest, with additional magazines on a battle belt.

“There was a knife constantly on my carrier,” he said.

He also had an assault pack for combat operations, although in warmer weather, he put a camelbak – a pack with an integrated water and tube, which also had space for more ammunition and grenades.

Gifford said the majority of his time had spent in cold conditions.

As for his weapons, he started with the standard number of 131st AK-74. Later, he received the Grot – a Polish rifle, which he said that he personalized with a full handle and a red spotlight with a magnifying glass. He also replaced Steel magazines with plastic, he said.

For a secondary weapon, he wore a grenades launcher with a single 40 mm shot made in the United States and transported 12 suspended grenades Around his neck.

While the American grenades and manufactured in the United Kingdom were “precious” among the Ukrainians, it generally used Soviet clerks, he said.

He described how, for longer missions, his crew could carry an RPG, an anti -tank weapon with shoulder.

“”But as far as anti-Tank really is concerned, NATO would always provide the best kits, “he said, pointing naies, javelins and the Matador of Spanish manufacture.

Gifford has brought no personal effect with him because he is “not a very superstitious person”. But he took two small luxuries that made all the difference.

A key element? Wet wipes.

Far from the hot showers, Gifford would be washing with a quick “bird bath” using the wipes to bring “a certain level of civility” to the missions that could last up to a week, he said.

In addition to food and basic drinks, there was another essential: candies.

Looking forward to eating a candy every day “helps you regulate your days, which are incredibly long,” he said.

A shortage of equipment makes the loss of kit expensive even more serious – and some soldiers risk their lives to recover it

Ukraine’s current equipment shortages mean that each piece of kit is precious. Gifford said he had to raise funds for a large part of his equipment, and that the loss was a serious matter.

“You can lose something incredibly precious, very fast,” he said. “It could be night vision glasses that cost two large, three large – disappeared, like that.”

The soldiers said they were risking their lives to recover the lost equipment.

Oleksandr Pleskov, a soldier from the 125th Ukraine brigade, previously told Bi a perilous attempt to recover a drone that had worked badly and landed in Sans-Mans near Bakhmut. The drone of $ 6,000 was recovered – but the risk involved was “stupidity and audacity,” said Pleskov.

Likewise determined, Gifford remembers having run in a fire house that the Russians had just bombed to recover a precious kit.

“I was just running through this fire building, just to collect equipment, even things that other guys had abandoned and get it out,” he said.

There is a strong incitement to recover a even ruined kit, he said. The soldiers are strongly examined if they declare that they lose a weapon, something that Gifford attributes to the efforts of Ukraine to counter the corruption of the purchase in the army.

He remembers being returned to the house burned later to recover a PKM machine gun that had been “burned to a crunch” just so that they could account for their high people, he said.

“You must prove that the weapon is lost in combat,” he said. “And if you can prove it, there is obviously no punishment, and you will be re -entered a weapon.”

An unexpected killer

One of Gifford’s passions has been to collect funds for thousands of Ifak, or individual first aid kits, and so that soldiers are formed to use them on the front line.

He said the IFAK were essential to his own missions, ensuring that soldiers could provide tactical care of victims of combat, or “TCC”, even if they did not have a fighting doctor.

“There is nothing worse than having a victim and not being able to treat them effectively,” he said. “Not only for the suffering person, but also for people who have to work around them and watch them suffer.”

In Syria, where he was from 2015 to 2017, he saw deaths from what he said was “very surviving” injuries due to a lack of TCC knowledge, he said. Some people died of hypothermia before even bleeding-making temperature regulation a neglected problem for CTCC, he said.

The kit and the training allow basic medical treatments under fire, giving soldiers “the treatment they need to prolong their lives for so long to perform in the hospital,” Gifford told Bi.