Former Yakuza Volunteered As Soldier in Ukraine, His Reason is Unexpected!

I watched the news reports, and at first I thought nothing more than that a war had started. However, I was moved by the fact that Russian troops were harming civilians. Especially when I saw the victims, especially the elderly and children, I thought, ‘Can we just stand by and watch this happen?’ I began to feel that ‘Is it really OK to just stand by and watch? ……

Hal (49, pseudonym) is a volunteer soldier in Ukraine. His life to date has been full of ups and downs.

My father was a gang leader and was in and out of jail. Because of that, I was bullied or discriminated against by the people around me. I was lonely, too, so I started playing with other kids in the same situation, and I followed the flow and became a member of the gang.

Haru’s desire to surpass his father led him to the same path. However, after joining the gang, he had a difficult time.

If you join a good gang, you can get a good position, but I was unlucky and worked as a bodyguard for the gang leader,” he said. I had to deal with some life-threatening situations, but nothing compared to the battlefield. However, I was always in need of money because I had no job.

Mr. Hull was convicted of violent protests against a religious organization and related groups and served 10 years in a prison in western Japan.

After his release from prison, he repented his lifestyle and engaged in forestry work in Shikoku, but in his second year, he damaged the meniscus in his knee due to overwork. While looking for a job, he was shocked to see the news of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. When he heard President Zelensky’s call to the world for volunteer soldiers, he reflected on his life to date and thought that if he continued to turn a blind eye, he would regret it at the moment of his death.

He said, “It was also a way to atone for the sins I had committed, so I decided to act first rather than regret not doing so.”

He was a Catholic Christian himself, which was probably one of the reasons. He obtained a passport for the first time in his life and left Japan on March 29, 2011. This was the first time in his life that he had been abroad.

Oh, wow!　Yakuza!”

At Warsaw Airport in Poland, the transit point, he happened to make the acquaintance of an American and an Englishman who had volunteered to be volunteer soldiers. Working with them, Hal crossed the border on April 1 to a recruiting station in Lviv, western Ukraine. The interviewer told him that if he had no previous military experience and could not speak the language, he would not be allowed to enlist.

“The Englishman who was with me at the time said, ‘He has no experience, but he has heart. Look at his body for proof of that!’ and he gestured for me to take off my clothes, so I did as I was told, and the interviewer said, ‘Oh!　A yakuza! He was surprised.

His passion and tattoos paid off, and he was accepted into the army on the condition that the British would take care of him. He first went to Kyiv for a week of target practice, then went to Zito Mill, about 130 km to the west, for full-scale military training.

He answered, “In the beginning, the unit and I were worried, but I always finished in the top five in the morning when we had to run with 20 other people. The younger kids were walking halfway through because it was too hard for them, and I thought, ‘Even though they have military experience, they’re not that bad. I thought, ‘This could be good.

Even so, the training was tough, and Hal worked hard. He was also encouraged by the continued support of the Englishman who had helped him during the interview.

After completing his training, Hal was assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Independent Brigade of the Ukrainian Army. He was then sent to the front lines in Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine as part of a reconnaissance and ambush attack unit. Because of his good performance during marksmanship training, he was recommended by his peers to be a sniper.

He says, “Everyone wanted to be a sniper because of the image of being cool. But when you get down to it, you have to carry more than twice the average amount of gear and wait in the same position for hours at a time in one spot. But the other soldiers told me, ‘We’ll be okay because Hal’s protecting us,’ and I was more afraid of my comrades dying through mistakes than myself.”

On the front lines, where shells flew around, he said, he was constantly facing death. One night, a pillar of fire appeared in a tree 10 meters away. It was a drone attack on Hal.

A 17-year-old girl who lost her friend

I was scared, but next time I would be careful not to let the drone find me. Strangely enough, I never felt the urge to run away.”

In fact, many of the other foreign volunteer soldiers did run away. Some disobeyed orders to turn off their smartphones on the front lines and were attacked when their whereabouts were discovered by Russian troops, and even Americans who had been deployed to war zones were said to have become mentally deranged by the shock of the Russian bombardment and drowned in alcohol.

Later, troubles within the unit led to the departure of volunteer soldiers, and they were forced to leave the unit. Then, in November of last year, he joined the Georgian unit, which is the core of the International Volunteer Force. Although he has not yet participated in full-scale combat, Commander Mamuka Mamulashvili has a high regard for him.

Japanese soldiers are more disciplined than other foreigners,” he says. The Japanese who used to enroll with us studied by the book after training and often asked questions about weapons. And his room was always well organized. He inspired other soldiers to follow his example.”

The Georgians are part of the Ukrainian military intelligence service and have the special mission of conducting reconnaissance on the front lines and destroying drones and radio detectors. To be assigned to a frontline unit, they must undergo advanced training. Commander Mamuka appreciates Hal’s experience and humanity, and hopes that he will become a sniper after completing his training.

The Russian military is like a yakuza who attacks with difficulty and then tries to punish you more if you don’t do what they say. If we allow this to happen, the damage will spread not only to Ukraine but to other countries as well.”

Mr. Hal’s battle has only just begun, as he insists that he must be reasonable no matter what.

As we were walking around Kyiv after our interview, we heard an air raid alarm. Then, “Boom! explosion sounded. As far as I could guess from the sound of the explosion, the bombing site was not far away. A Russian missile or a suicide drone must have landed nearby or was intercepted in mid-air. People on the street were looking around. But within 10 seconds or so, they were walking as if nothing had happened. For the citizens of Kyiv, air strikes have become an everyday occurrence.

At exactly the same time, a missile landed in Dnipro, an industrial city in the southeast of the country. The next night, I was in front of a bombed-out housing complex in Dnipro. The building had collapsed, and bloodstains could be seen on the half-collapsed walls. Heavy search and rescue operations were underway in sub-zero temperatures, using heavy machinery. Immediately after the airstrike, groans could be heard coming from the rubble, but they were gradually muffled by the water sprayed by the firefighters. We spoke with 17-year-old Mirena, who was watching the work.

I live in the apartment behind me, and I was terrified by the violent shaking,” she said. Unfortunately, I lost a friend who goes to the same school as me. She had just become student body president last month. I had seen war on TV, on the Internet, and through screens, but I had no idea what it was really like. But facing this tragedy made me realize that war is cruel and terrible. Still, I believe that we Ukrainians can overcome any ordeal.”

One year has passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian military is on high alert for the coming large-scale Russian military offensive.

From the March 3 and 10, 2023 issue of FRIDAY