Ron Mark and his partner Chris Tracey have had honest conversations about the risk in Ukraine, and what should happen if something happens to the former Minister of Defence while there. Photo / Supplied
Former Defence Minister and army veteran Ron Mark has visited battle-weary Ukraine three times. It’s made him someone young New Zealanders phone when they’re considering traveling there to fight. He talked to Neil Reid about why young fighters should stay home.
The phone calls and encrypted messages start arriving late at night – and continue well into the early hours of the morning.
On one end is Carterton mayor and former Minister of Defence Ron Mark. On the other, Kiwis who have witnessed death and devastation on the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine war 17,000km away.
Fighting as part of the Ukraine International Legion, these young Kiwis have witnessed their mates killed – including fellow New Zealanders – and seen horrific injuries inflicted by drone and artillery strikes.
Some of them have also braved heavy enemy fire in attempts to recover the bodies of fallen comrades.
Other phone calls come from closer to home: New Zealanders – including civilians and current or former New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) soldiers - considering joining the International Legion.
Mark knows the reality of the risks: he’s visited the front line during three trips to Ukraine. He said his regular response to those keen to fight is “think again”.
“I keep saying to people, ‘You don’t want to go there... I don’t care how many tours of Afghanistan you did... you didn’t do this’,” he told the New Zealand Herald.
One soldier, who Mark couldn’t dissuade from travelling to Ukraine, talked of how the NZDF had provided him with a skill and he wanted to “offer that skill to Ukraine”.
Mark estimates there are dozens of New Zealanders who - like the soldier he encouraged not to head to Ukraine - have signed up with the International Legion.
Some have now been there fighting for three years. Mark told the Herald it’s “astonishing” some of them are still alive.
Mark said they fell into three categories; those with some military experience, others with extensive experience - and others with no military experience at all.
“Some of them have gone through some pretty harrowing, horrible s***,” he said.
Several legionnaires have returned to New Zealand to recover from injuries, then returned to Ukraine to continue to fight, he said.
At least four New Zealanders are known to have died in the European nation since Russia invaded in February 2022: three soldiers - Dominic Abelen, Kane Te Tai and Shan-Le Kearns - and one aid worker, Andrew Bagshaw.
Mark said “considerably more” Kiwis have been maimed on the battlefields.
Members of the International Legion are paid at the same rate as soldiers in the Ukraine Army; $840 a month behind the frontline, $2000 a month for service in a “dangerous zone” and $7500 a month for a full combat deployment.
Compensation is given to those who suffer life-changing injuries; the amount depending on the severity.
When proof of death is confirmed – requiring the return of a body or body part for DNA testing - families of soldiers killed in action can receive a compensation payment of $615,000.
“Let me assure you, they are not doing it for the money,” Mark said.
Mark said his experience of the Ukrainian military is that they mourn the loss of Kiwis on the frontlines as if they were locals.
“They serve loyally and faithfully,” Mark said of the Kiwi contingent.
Mark was outraged when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 - but it was a month later when his interest was piqued.
He fielded a phone call from Ukraine.
On the other end was Owen Pomana; a former New Zealand Navy diver deported from Australia as a 501 convict. He had abandoned drug abuse and crime for a life of faith and become a church pastor.
Pomana had travelled to Ukraine to take up a humanitarian role with Great Commission Society (GCS) an evangelical organisation that provides aid to victims of conflict and disaster around the world.
He wanted Mark to help lobby the New Zealand Government for body armour and helmets to be given to unarmed aid workers going into conflict zones.
That attempt failed, and so too did an effort to get the Government to pay for charter buses to speed up mass evacuations from Mariupol into Romania.
Pomana and his colleagues had to face the heartbreaking reality of leaving behind many who wanted to escape the bloody battle.
“I felt like a failure. And it hurt,” Mark said.
“I couldn’t understand how it could be so hard, why people wouldn’t lean in.”
The frustration unleashed a desire within Mark to do more.
His first trip to Ukraine was just three months after the Russian invasion. His second was in July 2022. All three of his trips to Ukraine have been self-funded during annual leave from his role as mayor of Carterton.
He juggled fact-finding with helping out on aid delivery for the Rapid Relief Team – created by the brethren church in Australia – and GCS. It was work that took him to some of the conflict’s frontlines.
His travels with aid convoys took him to Bucha – scene of the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war, and past bombed-out locations near Kharkiv, including large “shell holes” and scenes of “devastation and utter demolition of villages”.
On one occasion his military escort was a soldier who wasted no time in laying out the risks - telling Mark “the Russians are in line of sight. They have line of sight on us at this location” he said.
A layer of light steel had been added to the interior of the doors of the vans – carrying thousands of meals and several aid workers – in a bid to slow shrapnel or bullets that may pass through them.
“It wouldn’t stop bugger all, but it made you feel good,” Mark said.
They were living in homes with roofs that were either partially collapsed or had shell-fire damage.
On a shelf at the Carterton house Mark shares with his partner, Chris Tracey, are pieces of twisted, jagged shrapnel the former MP recovered from his trips to the frontlines.
“They’re just to remind me of the craziness and the bravery and the dedication of some impressive people whose names will never be known to anyone” he said.
Humour can cut through the darkest of circumstances.
During Mark’s last trip to Ukraine, in July, he met three fellow māori New Zealanders for a beer in Kyiv: Pomana, a surgeon who has been in Ukraine for three years, and a NZDF-trained sniper.
The surgeon is doing life-saving work, Mark said.
“Kiwis tend to side with the underdog. I always believe that Kiwis will always line up with what they believe to be right and against what they believe to be wrong.”
Mark said their commitment reminds him of those who volunteered to fight in WWI and WWII.
“[Colonising] might be a popular word right now. But I saw the physical signs of the Russians trying to eliminate Ukrainian language. I saw the road signs that had all been painted over and stencilled over the top with the Russian wording, the Russian language.
“Stories about them kidnapping children, taking them away to concentration camps where they’re going to be re-educated in the Russian way.
“Because of that, it doesn’t surprise me how many Māori are over there. It’s probably an equal number of Pākehā to Māori.”
Amass drone strike - at least 550 drones loaded with explosives - hit areas of Kyiv near Mark’s Airbnb while he was on a FaceTime call with his partner, Chris Tracey, back in Carterton.
“Chris said, ‘Why do they attack at night’. I said, ‘Terror babe, it’s just terror’.
There were times when he moved his mattress from the street-front room and slept in the hallway where he felt safer from drones and missiles.
On other occasions he took shelter in the Kyiv underground train system, surrounded by families.
“Imagine 10 o’clock at night, you’ve already got the kids in bed, and you don’t have your husband because he’s on the frontline, and you may have elderly families staying with you,” he said.
“Imagine bundling all that up - bedding, sleeping bags, bundling up bedrolls and children and the cat and the dog and in one case, a little girl wanted to take a goldfish, herding them out the door. When the air raid alarms go off, you’ve got to move.
“You look around and you see families setting up their own little family space.”
When Mark travels to Ukraine his partner Chris Tracey faces a nervous wait.
Tracey said she was “1000% proud” of her partner and the pair have discussed what should happen back home if he dies.
“He’s passionate about the guys and the girls that are over there, who are working hard and putting their lives at risk every day.
Tracey said there was no point in her being scared and worried. “There’s no part of me that would ever say to him, ‘I don’t want you to go, please don’t go’.”
“I wouldn’t want him going over there feeling like he was not taking good care of me, or that he was leaving me in that kind of mindset.
She said Mark always gave her the credentials of those he would spend time with in Ukraine, planned well and was not one to take unnecessary risks.
Mark is also well aware the fact he is a former Minister of Defence visiting Ukraine – and supporting their cause – had the potential to cause embarrassment to Russia.
Last week the Herald revealed he had been targeted by a website created by Russian “patriots” that publishes profiles on enemies of the country and warns “Know that your hostile actions will not go unpunished”.
“I’m not blind to the dangers I face the moment I indicate I am going to Ukraine,” Mark said.
“I think Chris knows me well enough to know that once I have a mind to do something, it’s a question of how I’m going to do it - not if.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.
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