My two years fighting on the Ukrainian front line

Shareef Amin went to Ukraine at the outbreak of war and, after suffering injuries, still trains troops at the heart of the battle

Volunteer British fighter Shareef Amin in Ukraine. He was injured on the front line but has now returned. Photo: Shareef Amin

Shareef Amin is no stranger to war.

After years of fighting in Afghanistan, the British army veteran felt unable to sit back when he saw the “awful” situation in Ukraine unfold two years ago.

He funded his own kit and flights and travelled to Ukraine to help share his knowledge and train soldiers.

Initially helping with medical supplies, the 41-year-old from Bristol ended up fighting in a “foreign legion”, at one point nearly being killed in a Russian ambush.

“I had served for 11 years in the army and I thought maybe I could use my training to help Ukraine troops, and I ended up on the front line,” he told The National.

“Two years ago Ukraine’s president put out a call to the world for help and there are now thousands and thousands of foreigners answering this call, it's awe-inspiring.”

Shareef Amin funded his own kit and flights and travelled to Ukraine to help share his knowledge and train soldiers. Photo: Shareef Amin

“This war is bloody and only getting more so. The things I've seen and experienced I can only describe as brutal and it is hard to believe it is happening to a civilised country.”

He said nothing prepares you for the reality of the horrific mutilation that can happen on the battlefield, helping to put corpses on lorries or witnessing someone “being evaporated”.

“Civilian villages and cities targeted for no other reason than being Ukrainian, it's shocking.”

He said international support is vital for a “free democracy fighting a brutal dictatorship”.

He said: “We need more support from the world – supplies, weapons and soldiers, medics, teachers and volunteers.”

Surgeons feared he would not survive

After seven months of action, Mr Amin suffered serious injuries when he and his colleagues came under attack from two tanks and artillery fire near Odesa.

After carrying out first aid on his friend, who had been hit by shrapnel, and putting him into a trench for safety, he was then blown off his feet by a second explosion.

A colleague next to him was killed and he found himself buried underneath him, until the soldier he had earlier helped pulled him out.

"At the end of the day I don't want to die, but I want to help save lives and keep making a difference.”

Mr Amin suffered shrapnel injuries, gunshot wounds and two punctured lungs, but managed to crawl through the mud to get help and was evacuated to hospital.

Doctors feared he would not survive, but British charity ReactAid travelled to Ukraine and airlifted him to the UK, where he spent months recovering.

Despite his close call he has now returned to Ukraine and is part of a medical response and rescue team teaching troops how to carry out life-saving treatment in the trenches.

He is part of a combat unit called the Dark Angels, which is part of the Special Intelligence Defence, or GUR, run by General Kyrylo Budanov, who has survived 10 assassination attempts by the Russians.

Mr Amin said he was compelled to return to Ukraine, despite being unable to “storm into trenches” any longer.

“I was shot three times and blown up, my insides hanging out, my arm was hanging off, both my lungs were punctured, my right leg was tangled up in metal, I had 20 pieces of metal in my back. Just to give up after all that … it is difficult to say 'OK, that’s enough'. So I came back to help Ukraine,” he said.

He is hoping his work will save lives by helping with medical evacuations and urgent trauma treatment.

Mr Amin suffered serious injuries in Ukraine. Photo: Shareef Amin

He still sees the horrors of war, and the fear of the Ukrainian population. He is currently in a city not in imminent danger, “but I had rockets over my head, drones running around the city, and it was right above my head and I could hear guns, boom, boom, but everyone was asleep.

“There are no soldiers here and it is just madness. Why are they targeting innocent people?”

Mr Amin plans to remain in Ukraine until the very end.

“When the war is over I plan to stay here and help them rebuild and help with security,” he said.

“At the end of the day I don't want to die, but I want to help save lives and keep making a difference.”

Two years of the Russia-Ukraine war – in pictures

A soldier of the Ukrainian National Guard holds his position in the Serebryan Forest, in temperatures of -15°C in January 2024, in Kreminna, Donetsk Oblast. Getty Images

Classmates play with rifles made from Lego blocks after school, in Vysokopillya, December 2023. Getty Images

Leonid, a 38-year-old Ukrainian soldier suffering from severe mental trauma, cranial trauma and shrapnel wounds, does his physical training session at a psychiatric hospital in Kyiv, in October 2023. Getty Images

Gravediggers make new graves for the victims of a recent Russian missile strike, at Hroza cemetery, in October 2023. Getty Images

Oleksander, suffering from a hand injury, relaxes during a speleotherapy session, an alternative medicine respiratory therapy, at a rehabilitation center for soldiers in Kyiv, in October 2023. Getty Images

Volodymyr assists his wife Anastasia, as she has contractions before the birth of their first baby, at a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, in September 2023. Ukraine’s birth rate since the start of the war the country's birth rate has plummeted by 28 per cent. Getty Images

Friends and relatives mourn the death of fighter pilot Andrii Pilshchykov, 30, who was killed along with two other pilots in a mid-air plane crash in Kyiv, in August 2023. Getty Images

Ukrainian recruits salute the flag as they attend a commemorative service marking Ukraine's Independence Day, in August 2023, in a training camp in the south of England. Getty Images

Damage from a missile that hit the Chernihiv Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre, killilng seven people, in August 2023. Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak to the media at the Nato Summit in July 2023, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Getty Images

People wait for a transfer on a pontoon in a flooded area as the result of the Kakhovka dam destruction in June 2023 in Afanasiivka village, Mykolaiv region. Getty Images

State workers and Ukrainian military personnel inspect the crater left behind by a missile strike in Dnipro, in May 2023. Getty Images

A grad missile is launched on the Donetsk fron tline in April 2023. Getty Images

A Ukrainian sniper with the 28th Brigade moves to a fighting position in a front-line trench facing Russian troops in March 2023 outside of Bakhmut. Getty Images

A damaged bust of Vladimir Lenin lies in the street in March 2023 in in the strategic town of Lyman. Getty Images

A member of Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade fires a rocket-propelled grenade at Russian positions near Marinka in February 2023. Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses MPs in Westminster Hall, London, in February 2023. Getty Images

Destroyed buildings 32km west of the front lines in Donetsk in January 2023. Getty Images

An anti-aircraft gun in January 2023 fires at Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk. Reuters

Destruction in the village of Bohorodychne, Donetsk, in January 2023. AFP

A Ukrainian artilleryman discards an empty shell on the outskirts of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, in December 2022. AFP

Children receive presents from a Ukrainian soldier dressed as Santa on Christmas Eve 2022 in Sloviansk. Getty Images

More than 1,000 missiles and rockets fired by Russian forces collected for cataloguing in Kharkiv in December 2022. Getty Images

The Metro provides shelter as Russia launches another missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in December 2022. Getty Images

Children at a PE class in Kyiv after Russia abandoned its attempt to seize the capital in November 2022. Getty Images

A sniper searches for Russian positions on the bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson in November 2022. Getty Images

Graffiti by Banksy on a wall among the debris in Borodyanka in November 2022. Getty Images

Ukrainian flags flutter around graves in a cemetery for soldiers killed in action in Kharkiv in October 2022. Getty Images

Parts of a drone, which Ukrainian authorities said was Iranian-made, after a Russian strike in Kyiv in October 2022. Reuters

An elderly woman is helped across a damaged bridge in Bakhmut in October 2022. Getty Images

Fuel tanks ablaze on damaged sections of the Kerch bridge in Crimea, in October 2022. Reuters

A destroyed bridge makes crossing the Donets river difficult, in Staryi Saltiv, east of Kharkiv, in September 2022. AFP

Firefighters at a thermal power plant in Kharkiv damaged by a Russian missile strike in September 2022. Reuters

Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr with his daughter Nikole at Lviv railway station in August 2022. Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then-British prime minister Boris Johnson read a plaque in Kyiv in August 2022 dedicated to the latter for his support. Getty Images

Destroyed Russian military equipment on Khreshchatyk street in Kyiv. The materiel was turned into an open-air military museum ahead of Ukraine's Independence Day on August 24. AFP

Shakhtar Donetsk v Metalist Kharkiv kicks off the Ukrainian Premier League season in August 2022 amid fears of bomb and missile alerts. EPA

Ukrainian servicemen fire an American-made 155mm M777 howitzer in July 2022 in the Kharkiv area. EPA

A bomb crater on the Antonovsky bridge across the Dnipro river in Kherson, July 2022. AFP

Maksym and Andrii with plastic guns at a 'checkpoint' they set up while playing in Kharkiv, July 2022. AP

Ukrainian troops on Snake Island in June 2022. Reuters

A woman evacuated from an area of conflict in June 2022 contemplates what the next move might be. AP

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Kyiv in June 2022. Getty Images

Graves in Irpin cemetery, May 2022. Getty Images

A Ukrainian soldier trapped within the besieged Azovstal Iron and Steel Works complex in Mariupol in May 2022. Reuters

The wreckage of a Russian helicopter in a bomb-cratered field in Biskvitne, May 2022. Getty Images

A Ukrainian army officer inspects a grain warehouse shelled by Russian forces in May 2022 near Novovorontsovka, Kherson. Getty Images

A boy from Mariupol arriving at an evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia in May 2022. Getty Images

A Russian serviceman on guard outside Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in May 2022. AFP

Oksana searches for salvageable items on the destroyed second floor of her home in Hostomel, April 2022. Getty Images

A floral memorial wall in Lviv for Ukrainian civilians killed during the Russian invasion, April 2022. Getty Images

People fleeing Lviv, eastern Ukraine, in April 2022, wait for a bus that will take them to Poland. Getty Images

A Russian soldier patrols a bombed Mariupol theatre in April 2022, as Moscow intensified its campaign to take the strategic port city. AFP

A Ukrainian celebrates success in Hostomel in April 2022. Getty Images

Julia Palovskaya reads to children during an air raid drill in the basement shelter at a preschool in Lviv, April 2022. Getty Images

Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Bucha in April 2022, where hundreds of bodies were found in the street and it was claimed the Russian leadership was responsible for killing civilians. AFP

Oleh Smolin, 23, who suffered leg injuries from Russian shelling in April 2022, in hospital in Chuhuiv. Getty Images

Fleeing refugees arrive at the border train station of Zahony, Hungary, in March 2022. Getty Images

A father says goodbye to his daughter on an evacuation train about to leave Odesa in March 2022. AFP

February 24 will be a year since Russia started the Ukraine war. The National picks out the most powerful images from the conflict. AFP

Ukrainians under a destroyed bridge as they try to cross the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv in March 2022. AP

People cram into Kyiv station to catch trains to Poland or to western parts of Ukraine, shortly after the initial invasion in February 2022. Getty Images

A demonstration in support of Ukraine in Trafalgar Square, London, February 2022 . Getty Images

Russian army vehicles in Armyansk, Crimea, in February 2022. AFP

Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 25, 2022, in a video on Facebook. He said 'we are all here', shortly after the Russian invasion began. AFP

A residential building damaged by a missile strike in Kyiv in February 2022. Getty Images

A metro station in Kyiv in February 2022, crowded with people trying to escape the invasion. AFP

A police officer addresses people gathered to protest against the invasion of Ukraine, in central Saint Petersburg, Russia, February 2022. AFP

A protester in support of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, in February 2022. Getty Images

Ukrainian soldiers prepare to repel an attack in Ukraine's Lugansk region on February 24, 2022. AFP

Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 24, 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion. AFP

A mass exodus from Kyiv after pre-offensive missile strikes by Russian armed forces on February 24, 2022. Getty Images

Security personnel inspect the remains of a shell in Kyiv on February 24, 2022, soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine. AFP

CCTV footage shows Russian military equipment crossing a Crimea border checkpoint on February 24, 2022. AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin early on February 24, 2022, when he announced a 'military operation' in Ukraine. AFP