26/05/2026
This is what happens when The Cyborgs — the last defenders of Donetsk airport —present you with an award.
The 81. Aeromobile Brigade was formed in October 2014, to capture and maintain the airport's defense. In the final, most tragic phase of the fighting, in January 2015, they were the core of Donetsk airport's defense. The brigade came to be at the absolute low point of the defense, when defenders had terminal buildings collapsing on their heads.
The nickname 'cyborgs' was given to them by their enemies, the separatists from the so-called Novorossiya.
At that time, when they communicated through open radio channels, military radio stations intercepted conversations like:
"I have no *** idea who's defending this airport, but they're not people they're cyborgs!"
And Julia Lobach doesn't see them as cyborgs.
She sees them as people. She knows what shoe size they wear. When their birthday is, what they like to eat, and what they're ashamed to talk about.
She brings them cards and drawings from their children, cakes baked by their mothers, or greetings from their fathers.
Sometimes she brings back news to their wives, saying that their husbands are doing well mentally, and sometimes it's news to widows that their husbands have fallen, and how they died.
We were with them when they defended the cities of Rubezhne and Severodonetsk for 80 days.
That's where I saw rocket fire for the first time.
I remember watching a soldier named Ruslan curse Kadyrov's thugs running around the square.
There, one Kadyrovite cut out the heart of a still-living soldier.
Afterwards, our friend crawled to the enemy side at night with only a knife and a gun and silently sent nine Kadyrovites to hell.
It was the Cyborgs who sent us the first videos of phosphorus shelling – the most visually stunning thing you can see at night, and something that caused people to quit their jobs at the morgues.
We went to see them in Seversk, where from their KSP (frontline quarters) they led us through two courtyards of five-story apartment buildings and showed us the Russian positions. It was cold. At some point, Yulia wrapped Sasha, the commander whom everyone feared, with her shawl. And Sasha, stood there, proudly wrapped in that shawl like a Turkish pasha, clearly happy with this act of care.
We were with them when they held their positions for months in the ruined gelatin factory and later at the chalk mine in Belohorivka.
We cried when so many of our boys died. Anton, Oleksandr, Valentin, Igor, Anatoly, Yevgeny, Vasyl, Maksym, Vitaly, and others.
The enemy started throwing elite Russian airborne units and the Wagner group into the fray.
We were with them when they raised Ukrainian flags on the roofs of recaptured Biłohorivka. Their successes inspired hope in us.
We were with them when they retook Sviatohirsk.
We were with them when they retook Lyman.
And we were all happy as clams when it happened.
We drove to them through roads strewn with hail and mortars. They invited us to the newly recaptured Dolina, just as they were beginning to heap up the scattered anti-tank mines, unconcerned with the unexploded ordnance lying everywhere.
They told us how they burned, how they were pierced by shrapnel, how they didn't believe they would survive, how they lost their friends, how, in some kind of detachment from reality, they continued their work while everything around them exploded.
We are with them now, as they fight for the Seribrian forests, in the Siewiersk region, or on the northern flank of the former Bakhmuck Front. We laugh with them as they sing a rhyme they invented:
A forest of wonders,
Both terrible and grand,
You walk in with two hands,
But leave with no hand.
For her acts of service, Julia Lobach received a brigade diploma, a brigade flag, a brigade commemorative coin, a battalion diploma, and a battalion flag.
Over the years, I saw Julia refuse various tokens of appreciation more than once.
She would shout at the commanders: "Not me! Give the diploma to the X or Y, because they did this for you."
I'm glad that finally enough people showed up that she had no choice but to accept it.
I remember Julia talk about the first day of the war. There was chaos, and commotion and evacuation all around, and she immediately started thinking about what needs doing. She got up and made dumplings for the soldiers.
I met her four months later and to this day I feel grateful for that meeting.
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Let's make evil difficult, so that people choose to be good instead.
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We are fully aware of the corruption happening within the structures of military and civilian administration. We have learned to avoid these traps.
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