How Ukraine Fights: Reflections from the Front Lines feat. Nate Vance

[music] >> Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, director of the Stuart Center and Europe, Russia, Eurasia program at CSIS. >> And I'm Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia. >> And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. >> Hello everyone and welcome back to Russian Roulette. I'm your host Maria Snegovaya, solo today to allow Max some well-deserved break. Before we get started, we have a request for our listeners. We'd love to hear what you think about the format of our episodes, fresh topics or guests we should bring on, and anything else that would help our show be better. You can reach us via email at eurip@csis.org or find us on social media. More information will be in the show's notes. Now, back to this week's episode. We're joined today by Nate Vance. Nate has had a fantastic career. He is a US Marine Corps veteran who, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022, traveled to Ukraine the following March to help the war effort. After a few months, Nate became an enlisted soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Nate fought for the volunteer unit known as the DaVinci Wolves for 3 years, seeing combat in some of the deadliest and most strategic regions along the frontline, from Bakhmut to Pokrovsk. He only left Ukraine in early 2025 because Nate's first cousin, J.D. Vance, came to office as Vice President of the United States, putting him at risk of being specifically targeted by the Russian military. It's an honor to welcome Nate onto the show to talk about his time on the frontlines, how Russia and Ukraine are fighting this war, and the situation on the ground today. Nate, welcome to the show. >> Thank you. Thank you for having me. >> To begin, I want to talk a little bit about how you made the decision to go to Ukraine. What prompted you to go to fight in Ukraine, and what was the process like to get to the Da Vinci Wolves? Some of our listeners who may want to also join at some point. And what was life like when you arrived right at the start of the full-scale invasion? >> My decision to go was more This is going to sound really bad, but it was somewhat based on curiosity. And when I say that, it's not like a morbid curiosity. I just I recognized that something monumental was happening, you know, historically, and I didn't trust to, you know, receive that information from the media. I wanted to see it for myself. But, you know, I've said this previously, but the concept of me going was if I if I could help in some way, then I would go, right? And you know, the only way to find out if I could help was to to go in the first place. But, if I had realized at any point that I was not helping or, you know, some way in the way, then I would remove myself, right? So, so I I I went over there just kind of to see what was going on. I didn't know that I didn't know well hardly anything about the area at all, right? So, seeing the a westward expanding Russian army, you know, at at such a large scale was something that I hadn't seen in in my lifetime. I wanted to know what was happening. >> And how was the early experience? By all accounts of your time in Ukraine, you were a tremendous soldier. Are you training as Marines? Certainly, I had an important role to play there, but what would you say was perhaps the most habitual thing about this experience for you given your past training and experience? And what was the most unexpected element perhaps of being serving with Ukrainians? >> Well, you know, I think growing up as as somebody in the Cold War in the United States, our view of like a former Soviet states was everyone like very stern, no one smiles ever, right? Like there's no color anywhere. So when I went I was very surprised by the people. I expected everyone to be very serious and stoic and not have a sense of humor, which is obviously not true. So the the people were the most surprising thing. To be honest with you there there was not very much that was familiar to me when I when I went. You know what I mean? Like the from a military standpoint, right? Like you you mentioned that unit was volunteers. So the structure and the the the sense of it was just so dramatically different. I mean I guess weapons. I understood those. I was familiar with those, but you know, everything was very different. So when I first got there I I realizing that everything was so different, I I made a decision to instead of injecting my own opinions to just observe as much as possible because it's you know, like A, how can I critique something if I don't fully understand what's going on? So I needed to to step back and just kind of watch and then if I felt like at some point if I felt like I was comfortable enough or could offer some assistance or input, then I would. >> You mentioned that there's a lot of things that you completely did not expect, but people were nice. But could you tell us a little bit about like what was those things in terms of how the Ukrainian army operates to the extent that you can disclose, obviously, compared to your US experience. So what was the striking differences that reflect? >> The US military is very very information heavy. All right? So they are just inundating you with information, some of which you you think at the time you're you're like how is this even remotely useful for me to know this? So they're giving you soil reports and you know, weather reports from 3 weeks out. And a lot of it doesn't make sense when you're getting it and when you're like a 19-year-old soldier. And then, you know, like I remember early on in 2022 it was like, all right, get in the truck, we're going to go do some war stuff. And I'm like, what? What? Where's the information part? Uh so um so that was like, you know, it's kind of funny. It is it's funny and it isn't at the same time. But you know, that took some getting used to was get getting used to, you know, the difference in information. It's just everything everything in the US military is structured. Every single thing you do, there's a process for it. So, you know, the seeing the Ukrainian army go from where there was almost no processes and increase their process structure cuz you you need it you need them, right? To to function efficiently. And seeing that kind of increase over the 3 years I was there, I'm sure it's continued to increase after I've left. Um was was interesting to and good to see. But yeah, that was, you know, going from somewhere so rigid and it was funny because I did run into some Americans later on in my tenure over there, um also former Marine. And he was so stressed out at the lack of information. He was like, when are we going to know this? And I was like, I don't know, dude. We we will know when we know, you know? He's like, I can't He was so tense. And I finally I I had to realize I was like, I was him like 2 and 1/2 years ago. So, I I get where he's coming from. So, it's just funny to watch. >> It's a lot of learning by doing, it sounds like. >> Mhm. >> A little bit earlier on. And then you mentioned uh that of course this was the international uh battalion. And uh there's some commentators who actually have drawn parallels with uh the international fighters in Ukraine and the famous international brigades that came uh to date of the Spanish Republican forces uh during the Civil War in the 1930s. Can you tell us a little bit about this experience on top of all this uncertainty that you described? It must have been exacerbated, right? By just a lot of international volunteers, maybe language issues, different combat experiences from the past. How did it feel? Um how did you like find a common language to understand each other and ultimately to achieve success? >> Well, so the unit I was with had very few Westerners, very few. You know, at any given point maybe three or four Western people. And the Western soldier, like most NATO soldiers, relatively similar in their thought processes. There's little minor differences, but not much. And then, you know, like I said before, it was, you know, observe observe and see the way things are being done. And then if I could intelligently articulate and say, "Hey, here's this way we do it, and I think it would really apply to this situation, or it would really help." Then I would do that. But if you just, you know, that was something I made a conscious decision to do was not to, you know, provide unwanted advice or unsolicited advice, because that tends to, you know, if somebody came to my house and told me how to do things, I would be like, "All right, dude, do you want to get out of my house now? You're annoying." So, I really wanted to avoid that. But, you know, there there were times, I mean, it's it's getting into like little tactical things. I don't think that would your your viewers would much, you know, care to hear. >> I don't think they would mind. We have a lot of experts here listening to us. >> And maybe Yeah, maybe. Like so one thing that I noticed that's that's very different, and this is this has changed, I think, throughout the Ukrainian army of the past several years. There there was a lot of like old Soviet holdover kind of philosophies and combat methodologies, which is natural, right? Like it's natural given, you know, the the history there. One of them is that the like NATO forces and Soviet armies do support by fire extremely differently. Like the way they the way that they employ machine guns is completely different. And it's two complete, you know, just separate philosophies. Having witnessed them both, I, you know, I could be unbiased a little bit, but I think that the NATO way is significantly better and produces better results. But that's something that was unfamiliar to to most of the guys in the unit. And then once it started to, you know, that was one of those suggestions that I was like, "Hey, let me try this." And then when it was when once it was seen and recognized, it was like, "Hey, we really like that. Let's like roll that out." And then once it was demonstrated and I showed the guys, then they just take they hit the ground running and they take over and they they do it themselves. So, so that's just one small example, but it's you don't get that picture if you just immerse yourself into everything and start forcing your own opinions all the time. Sit back and observe and watch. And then if you see an opening for something that can help, then communicate it. >> And just to to clarify if you could specify you mentioned the fire support works very differently. Again, to the extent that I can disclose this, so I'm just curious as to what those differences are, right? I know that Russia this flash the Soviet Army is very particular about the domination and on the air, but what exactly did you mean about the fire support? That'd be really interesting. >> So, when I say support by fire, I'm I'm talking as an infantryman, right? So, the way that a NATO soldier would use a machine gun is as like a crew-served it's almost like a miniature artillery piece. Um it you mount it to a tripod. You can I can call in coordinates. You can give me coordinates and I can just put rounds on those coordinates and deny the enemy use of that area. It's a very polite way of saying, you know, put bullets in them. But uh but [laughter] but the way that the Soviet military would do it with like a PKM, for example, is just to use it as almost like an automatic rifle. It's very rarely used in that, you know, kind of stationary support by fire role. And you start you you see it on like a lot of the videos that that Ukrainians are posting like with Mark 19s where they're using them like like small mortars and things like that. That's that's more like how NATO uses machine guns. It's very It's very structured. There's a there's a rigid structure to it. It's a little harder to, you know, maintain that structure in the Ukrainian army because sometimes resources are not the same. Maybe you don't have like six machine guns per company and you and you can't do that. And this is one small example. I know that the the further the war goes on, the less and less like machine guns are becoming a pivotal point in the conflict because of drones. But that was just an example of where, you know, I saw something, I demonstrated it, and the guys were like, "Yeah, absolutely. We like that a lot. Let's let's let's do more of that." So. >> Well, thank you very much for all your service, sir. The commander of your Divinchi Wolves battalion, Serhiy Filimonov, has said that at times the fighting that you and your group saw was incredibly intense. And I think you will sign record comment specifically on how Russia is fighting this war, right? And maybe you can tell us a little bit about that experience, right? Obviously, there's a lot of headlines about the brutality, the crimes. I wonder what was particularly striking to you, something that perhaps you did not anticipate even with that Cold War experience and legacy that we already have. >> I guess the the thing that I did not anticipate was the Russian indifference to even their own troops' lives. That was striking to me. I mean, that and I, you know, historically speaking, if you look throughout history, I mean, that that shouldn't surprise me, right? If you look at, you know, past conflicts, it it shouldn't come as a shock. But when you physically see it, you physically see them sending people to what is almost certain death. You're taken aback with it really because it's it's hard to just it's hard to describe that when you're physically watching it and you're participating and and you're seeing these guys come toward you and you're like, there's there's no hope. All right? They are not going to survive this. And the intensity of it, I think, you know, and this would be if you have like, you know, kind of a mixed audience, like a Western and, you know, East Eastern European. For most Western soldiers, they've not seen we've not seen, you know, fighting this intense, this long since the Second World War. Or, you know, maybe Korea or Vietnam. But, you know, the just the level of ordinance that is being hurled back and forth in both directions is terrifying at times. It's It's weird. I say it's terrifying. You get You You get used to it, which is shocking. You know, most people when they If you were to take somebody from a normal environment and place them in there for an hour, you'd be like, "That's insane. No one could ever get used to it." But, you do, right? You adapt. And it's just it it becomes a math problem. You just have to work the problem from left to right and say, "Okay, I have I have this set of issues. I have to solve the first one, and then I'll move on to the second one, and and until I get out of here." >> That's obviously completely horrifying. A reminder to our audiences that our colleagues have Johnson, Riley Mckeeb, published yet another report precisely on the topic showing tremendous number of deaths and casualties since the start of the war. Russia suffered at least 1.4 million battlefield casualties and about half a million deaths since February 2022. And just as you said, Nate, this is the scale I'm seeing in Europe. Even for Russia itself, it's actually exceeds all of the casualties that Russia suffered in every single war since the end of the Second World War. They haven't yet beaten up the Second World War level, but they're certainly getting there at this speed. So, I'm wondering what's your assessment. To what extent you think it's maybe a part of the strategy, right? That Russia just has a lot of people. It's a big country, and maybe that's just the idea that they will eventually will bomb. After all, that's how the Soviet Union used to fight its wars and how the Russian Empire used to do it, right? Or maybe there is more of just they don't know any better, right? Maybe there's just not enough, as you mentioned yourself, uh military culture uh that would have, you know, provided an alternative option. So, I'm wondering do To what extent you would say that's a deliberate strategy, or is just in some ways the legacy of the totalitarian autocratic regime that has not really changed since then. >> I think it's both. I think there's definitely a strategy of saying just throw more men at the problem, right? That's that's a historical military strategy. Sometimes it works. I don't think the Russians have the democratic ability to make it work in this case. I mean, they have demographic issues and working age men, military age males, are make up the bulk of your labor force and they are running out of them. Um I don't think, you know, in in terms of could they physically do it? Yes. Um continue this for a while, but somebody has to work at the factory, somebody has to drive the truck, somebody has to do these jobs and they're having to call in foreigners to do it. So, they either have to lose their kind of ethnic identity or continue the war. And it's a choice that they have to make and I don't think, you know, it's it's not a it's not a good choice for them, but they made their own bed, so. And then on top of that, I do think you have a lot of like 60-year-old Soviet-trained, you know, generals. And then on top of that, you have a leader that doesn't like to hear bad news and if you give him bad news, you get a choice between a cup of tea or a window. So, he's not getting good information because if you give him good information, you die. >> Nate, thank you so much for speaking with us today and thank you for your service. Unfortunately, we are out of time for the episode, but thank you for the great conversation and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave us a five-star rating. Be sure to check out our sister podcast, The Eurofile, wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time. >> [music] >> You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you've enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon. >> Russian Roulette releases new episodes every 2 weeks and is available wherever you get your podcasts. [music] So, please subscribe to our show, share our episodes online, and give us a five-star rating. Also, be sure to check out our sister podcast, The Eurofile, where we talk Europe through a Washington lens. 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