Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival

by Luke Harding

In his twelve years in the border service, Bohdan Hotskiy had seen many wild places. In his view, Ukraine was the most beautiful country in the world. It had the sea and mountains, forests and steppes, marshes and abundant lakes. All was perfect, and so complete in its perfection that Hotskiy—a twenty-nine-year-old captain—had never felt the inclination to go abroad. After all, why bother? “We have everything,” he told me. We met in August in the town of Izmail, his current base, next to the Romanian border. Hotskiy’s career meant moving around. In late 2021, he had received orders to deploy to a new maritime location. He was to command a force of twenty-eight men. They were being sent to a strategically important mini-territory thirty-five kilometers off the coast and east of the Danube River estuary. It was a rocky outpost in the Black Sea. An ancient place known in Ukrainian as Ostriv Zmiinyi. English translation: Snake Island.