Eyal Israeli – veteran IDF

Let’s note right away: the hero of this story — Eyal Israeli — is a Jew, born and raised in Israel, an Israeli citizen, but married to a Ukrainian woman and, by February 2022, already living in Kherson for 16 years. That’s exactly where the invasion of the orcs caught him. And what follows is the story of how he lived through it and what he did.

We want to remind once again one of the principles of our resource: any information can only be published if it does not endanger those defending Ukraine. The hero of our publication — Eyal — now serves in the Ukrainian Marine Reconnaissance. He has accomplished a lot during three and a half years of war with Russia, but only today can we tell his story.

On February 24, 2022, on his own initiative, Eyal offered to help defend the city and joined the territorial defense battalion. But Kherson’s defense collapsed just a week into the war, the battalion was disbanded, and he returned home. Under russian military occupation of the only regional center seized by pootin, in early March 2022, Eyal himself crossed the frontline to offer the SBU his skills in fighting the invaders (“voluntarily and patriotically,” as the letter notes).

SBU officers accepted his help. At that moment, in the chaos and defeats on the southern front, Ukraine’s defenders welcomed any help — even from a foreigner, an Israeli with a mysterious past. Eyal Israeli formed a reconnaissance-sabotage group and de facto became the leader of the anti-russian underground in the 300,000-strong occupied city of Kherson — under the umbrella of the SBU and with the support of intelligence officers who maintained contact across the frontline.

Achievements of Eyal Israeli and his group:

• destroying propaganda billboards of the russian occupiers in Kherson streets and spreading pro-Ukrainian leaflets;
• supplying food and baby formula to families of Ukrainian officers — he drove a huge refrigerated truck, delivering milk products also to hospitals and disabled people;
• later, on November 9, 2022, the very same truck carried the first Ukrainian flag into Kherson, becoming a symbol of freedom and victory. Thanks to that flag on the “EYAL” truck, residents realized the russian army had fled and the city was liberated;
• using his knowledge of Persian, Eyal identified and corrected Ukrainian strikes on locations of Iranian military advisors, drone testing sites, and FSB officers supervising those “guests from Iran”;
• in September 2022, he provided information about illegal activities of an Iranian embassy representative named Masud, who recruited Iranian students in Ukraine to spy on military facilities, including in Odesa;
• locating HQs, warehouses, and russian army units in and around Kherson, and directing Ukrainian artillery to strike dozens of targets, including collaborator meetings;
• his group identified addresses of Ukrainian traitors and passed them across the frontline for further “neutralization”;
• on November 7–8, 2022, in the final days of russians fleeing Kherson, Eyal personally destroyed five vehicles carrying russian officers and soldiers with his own weapon. The burned-out wrecks were later documented by SBU officers right after liberation.

Occupied Kherson

The dark-skinned Israeli moved around occupied Kherson almost invisibly. Eyal recalls with a smile, speaking of the months of mortal risk under pootin’s rule:

russian soldiers thought I was Caucasian, the Buryat troops took me for Asian, and when I was stopped by Kadyrov’s Chechens, I quoted them surahs from the Quran in Arabic — and they let me pass

This alone already sounds like the beginning of a novel or a film script. But there is more. The next part connects to events whose consequences are known to every Ukrainian and anyone following the war.

On the fourth day of occupation, russian troops were pushing north and west from Kherson, planning to storm Mykolaiv and Odesa (the key port) on the heels of retreating Ukrainian forces. The fall of these cities and Ukraine’s cutoff from the Black Sea could have collapsed the entire country.

Legendary Chornobaivka

To continue their offensive, russia concentrated aircraft and equipment at the Chornobaivka airfield on Kherson’s outskirts.

On March 7, 2022, at the assignment of the Kherson SBU office, Eyal Israeli actively conducted reconnaissance of enemy military equipment at Chornobaivka airfield. With two volunteers, he selected a high-rise building on Kherson’s edge, whose roof allowed clear observation of enemy hardware. He removed obstacles, crawled alone to the rooftop edge (staying out of sight of russian lookouts), and with his professional camera and telephoto lens, captured precise images of helicopters and concentrations of enemy forces. The data was immediately passed to the SBU. That very same day, Ukrainian rocket and artillery units struck and destroyed 49 helicopters, other vehicles, and enemy personnel.

Subsequent accurate strikes on Chornobaivka followed many times. CNN and Reuters broadcast footage of burning russian aircraft there. The 49 helicopters destroyed in one strike equaled a full russian aviation regiment — meant to secure the southern offensive. Without air support, the assault soon collapsed. Mykolaiv and Odesa were saved.

An older Israeli citizen, never naturalized as Ukrainian, fought for Ukraine’s independence at the front line, protecting his wife and daughter. As Eyal himself says:
“I don’t think I’ll return to Israel just yet. Even though I feel a bit of anger toward Ukraine, I love Ukraine.”