ENGI’m the only Faroe Islander fighting for Ukraine

 

– Alright, first things first, your real name is Bjorn Kallsoy, but your callsign is Viking. Tell us why?

– Well, first of all, I didn't choose it, I got it here. I wanted to be Titus Pullo [Roman centurion mentioned in the personal writings of Julius Caesar] to be honest. but I'm from the Faroe Islands, and we are descended from Vikings, we speak the old Viking language. By the way, I was at the museum yesterday, and can tell you that the old Viking word for Kyiv is Kongsriki av veggir. It means kingdom of walls. The Vikings had great respect for this land. 

– How did you get here and who were you before becoming a Viking? 

– Oh, that's a really funny story actually. As you know, the Faroe Islands are far away from this war, but this war has affected everyone. I was working in the construction industry. And I had a great job, great pay, everything, but supplies for building houses and stuff like that has skyrocketed. A lot of people can't afford to build anymore, so my working hours were cut in half, so that I actually didn't even earn enough to live off. So, I quit my job. And I was very sad about that, because I had really great employers and co-workers.

Actually, I wanted to go back to sea as a fisherman. And before I went back to sea I decided to take a small holiday first. I love traveling, especially going backpacking. So, I spent one week in France, and then I went to Denmark to visit my sister. And I told her that what I’d really like to do is take another week backpacking somewhere, but I was just thinking about going somewhere maybe, like, over the border to Germany from Denmark. So, we went online to look for some cheap bus tickets. And while we were looking, we saw an advertisement for a super cheap airline ticket to Warsaw. And actually, it was my sister who asked me if I’d go to Warsaw, Poland, because neither of us had been there.

And you only see black and white movies from Poland. It looks really depressing. It's not, it's beautiful. So, I went. And after spending five days in Poland, I actually decided to call my cousin who's in Ukraine, just to say hello. And I'm also his godfather. We were talking, and he was just so super happy to hear my voice, because he's been in Ukraine for over a year and hasn't spoken that easily, with anyone in my language, for over a year. It was really depressing. He kinda missed home.

And while we were talking, he told me about all the atrocities he's witnessing here and stuff like that. And while we were talking, you know, I was actually unemployed. So I made a spontaneous decision. I told him “Fuck it. Godfather is coming too”. And he tried to stop me. He's like “Are you fucking insane?” I have this thing I do – like, make drastic, spontaneous decisions – and they’re not always the wisest ones. And he tried to talk me out of it, but I said, no, at least I can give it a try. At least I can go to the barracks. And already, right after we’d finished talking, I literally thought, what the fuck have I done now? But I usually stand by my word, so I said, okay, Bjorn, just go to the border.

Three days later, I was in the Ukrainian International Legion. And I was there for two weeks. And then my mother wrote to me “Bjorn, everybody's asking for you. Everyone’s missing you.” I was like, holy shit, now I got to call home. So I called and had this talk with h my mom: 

– When are you coming home?

– Hey, not yet. Why?

– You found a job in a foreign country?

– Technically, mom. I joined the Ukrainian International Legion. 

That's my story, how I got here. 

– That sounds crazy.

– Yeah, it's crazy. But to tell you the truth, I don't regret a single day of it. 

– I'm just asking this because I want to know what's moving you. You know, everyone here, after almost two years of full-scale war, they want to, even more – they dream about living in a country like the Faroe Islands. And you came from there to here. 

– Trust me, the Faroe Islands is like one of the places on earth which is probably closest to heaven. And there's actually a story about a Ukrainian soldier whose ashes were poured on a waterfall in the Faroes. Before the war, he traveled to the Faroes. When he came back to Ukraine, he died in Bakhmut. Before he went to war, he told his mother and his wife that if he died, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes thrown on a waterfall on the Faroes called Bosalafossur. It's a beautiful place. It was really, really moving to see hear that he wanted to be buried in my country.

 

   

 

– Six months ago, you were a civilian traveler from the Faroe Islands. Today, you are a fighter. Did you have any misconceptions about soldiers that have been changed by your new reality?

– Some people have this weird misconception that we’re total psychos. Like the only thing we do every day when we're finally back home is just sit there racking our guns and stuff like that. No. A lot of us cry. I mean, I can start crying over stupid, meaningless stuff. I didn't do that before. 

– Like what?

– Minor stuff. Probably if you were to put on the Little Mermaid song, I’d start crying. Seriously. A lot of us guys, when we come back home, the experiences have been so bad, a lot of us cry. I remember one time when I went back to my safe house, sadly, two of our guys had been injured, and ended up in the hospital. One almost died. He got shrapnel through his lung and through his stomach. And when the guys came back from the mission– I was back home – we were all in one room, just six guys standing there, drinking some beers –  and one starts bursting out and crying that he was holding this guy, and he thought he was gonna die in his arms. And the rest of us start crying.

We actually hug. I mean, I'm definitely not a hugger, but since I found myself  in this war, every time I see my friends, every time we see each other, we hug. I’ll give a you a fucking kiss on the cheek. We’re just so happy to see each other. You can call us anything, but psychos? Not a single one of us.

One night I woke up in  pain. I had to take some pills. So I woke up and one of the guys in the room – it actually sounded like he was masturbating. I was like “What the fuck?” And then, you know, I lift my head, I watch, and I can just see him twitching in his sleep. PTSD. So even if we’re tough as hell, all of us are traumatized by this hell.

I can tell you one thing. After spending time here – never ever in my life have I been so pro-peace. That’s what I tell people back home. 

 

– You told me that while you were on your way here, on the road, you were pissed off because of something. Could you elaborate? 

– My country has always had good business relations with Russia. We are not communists, we’re actually a democracy. But my nation is a fishing nation. And we had fishing agreements with Russia. Me, my cousin, and a politician in the Faroes have tried to show my country what Russia is doing here. That this war began with a casus belli. Like what lies and atrocities the Russians are perpetrating. That we can't do business with people or countries like that. And we even got the Ukrainian ambassador to Denmark to come to the Faroes, where we held a conference. And they had a video conference with me and my cousin. 

Of course, when it's a video conference, our story – what we’ve been witnessing here in Ukraine – gets strongly censored and cut down, because it's just too graphic for video. Or anything, really – radio, video. Anything, because where I’m stationed, I'm in the defense. It's World War I trench warfare, just with drones. And actually for a while, it was going very well. We actually split the government. The parliamentary parties that were pro-Russian were under so much pressure that they didn't think they were going to renew the fishing agreement with Russia. And I also did another interview with another journalist, where I told my story again.

 

Four days ago he wrote to me that somehow the pro-fishing agreement politicians actually got on top again. And this pissed me off. And I've been quiet about my whereabouts on Facebook. I haven't posted military pictures or anything, but just two days ago I got so pissed off that I put a bloody picture of me with a big fucking machine gun on my profile and started posting all videos, all stories. And I'm also going to make videos where I explain what I'm seeing here and why I'm not going back home before this fucking war is over. Because my people need to know this. If the parliament won't cut the fishing agreement, at least I can get my own people who love peace to hopefully put pressure on my government.

As I told you, we are a fishing nation. We had 50 years of good relations with Russia. Even if the Russians don't live in my country, it's just a fishing agreement. Business. But we can't support a terror regime. So I'm totally against going back to the fishing agreement with Russia until they kick Putin out and put a democratic republic in Russia. But until that day, I can't support a fishing agreement with Russia and I hope my people will join me. 

– Why is it so personal for you?

– There are only 54,000 people in my country. It's a small nation, but we’re a proud one. Alright. I totally understand what you Ukrainians are fighting for. Until 1946, we weren’t allowed [by the Danish government] to hold our parliament. [The Faroe Islands are a self-governing nation under the external sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark.] But the parliament in my country is the oldest parliament in the world. It's older than the Icelandic one. It's called Logting. Until 1946, we were actually not allowed in our own parliament. We were not allowed to have our own flag. We also had a fight for our identity.

In 1946, we got so fucking tired that we actually took the Danish parliament hostage in my country, and the admiralty, cut down the Danish flag and kicked them all on a fucking boat and sent them to Denmark. Sometimes you just got to talk to the right people, because three days later King Christian… I don't know if it was the 5th or 6th of Denmark, came to the fair, like “What the fuck is going on?”

And we explained to him that those fuckers were treating us like shit. And we’re Faroese. We have our own language. We are not Danish. And he totally agreed with us. So we were actually independent for three days until we joined the Danish Union again. And now we’re a super proud people. We are a “micronation” under Danish rule. They are our protectorate. We have our own flag and our own language.

– Damn it. I've got goosebumps.

– Yeah, but you know, you guys are also fighting for existence. I know that even if Russians took all of Ukraine they would never, ever let you call yourselves Ukrainian. It's super hard to read about Ukrainians in Crimea and in the occupied territories that didn't take Russian passports in the election. Either you call yourselves Russians, take a Russian passport or get the fuck out of here. I mean, they had to leave with everything, what they could carry. It's fucking terrible. 

I'm furious that nobody in the West knows about this. Why aren't they writing about this? So that's why I'm now publicly standing out in my country. You know, we don't even have a military in my country. So people were actually shocked when they heard I was here. And that's also like why I was keeping a low profile. But now I'm going public. And hopefully people will start listening to what I have to say. 

And of course I'm not going to show graphic pictures. But I will tell the truth. What the Ukrainians are fighting for. Why are they fighting for it? And maybe I’ll show them those fucking videos. Oh my god, I've seen so much. So many disgusting videos. These fucking Russian soldiers... Luckily I've only seen three videos. But I’ve heard from other guys, they've seen 20, 30. These fucking horrible clips captured by Russians. 

 

 

– What videos? 

– One video was probably taken in one of those torture basements in Crimea or whatever. It was a woman who was gang-raped. Only thing she was begging for was that everybody use a condom.  

I've seen a video with some mass graves in Izum. Dead civilians, dead soldiers. And then the third mass grave. Where every body has, like, signs of torture and or a gunshot in their head. They were executed and tortured.

Or another one with a tank is shooting at a balcony. Where women and children are hiding. It knows they're civilians and children. And still, they just use them for target practice. Here – I’m talking about a video where some fucking Russian is driving a BMP while Ukrainians are walking on the sidewalk. Driving on the sidewalk to, like, hit them. What the hell is wrong with these fucking soldiers? It pisses me off.  I saw a lot of that shit.

– So you're definitely not here for the money…

– I’ve been accused of coming to Ukraine just for money. I want to clarify that if you hear of anyone coming from the United States or Europe, they took a hit in pay to come here to help. I earned much more back home than here. Like double. So it's like, everybody from Europe that comes here is not doing it for money. We're doing it here because we are here for you. And we believe in your country and your freedom and your existence.

 

Ukrainians must understand that if somebody has chosen to stay at the front – in bunkers, and in trenches, and they're foreign – they’re really doing it because they believe in you

   

And my best friend, Cyprus, he's actually from a wealthy family. His family tried to stop him. They offered him 50,000 euros to not come here. And he says the same, you know. e He probably thought that when we all arrived here we all had different motivations. But we changed, it changed when we got to the front. 

– Wow. Because there is a lot of talk in Ukrainian society now that people are tired of war, etc.

– Actually, you know what the weirdest shit is? When you're in these cities that are closer to the frontline, they’re more motivated. But since I came to Kyiv, I’ve met a lot of people who just say: “Oh, I just wish that it was over right now.”

Why are some of you not as motivated as the Ukrainians that are actually closest to the front? And probably it’s because everything here in Kyiv is running like normal. Like there's no war. And that was actually quite sad to hear because I can tell you one thing: I haven't met one Ukrainian soldier yet that doesn't believe Ukraine is going to win.

 

 

And even us, the foreign volunteers, think you’re going to win. Keep the spirit up, I mean, more countries are starting to believe in you. They’re seeing that Russia is fucking weak. I mean, you had no weapons to fight against Russia when they started. This place was like the first part of Home Alone. They were falling over rakes and getting hit by, like, shit that you find in the backyard of your house. Now everybody is supporting you.

Other countries like Georgia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, are seeing that Russia is fucking weak now. They're just playing at strongman. The only thing they have in superiority to all of us now is nuclear weapons. And let's, for god's sake, hope that will never happen. But if you win this war, I can tell you that Putin will be so fucking embarrassed that they’ll have to have a new election. Now, to my knowledge, there will be a presidential election in March of next year. Let's fuck shit up. Because everybody is tired of war. We’ve been at each other's throats.

I'm 42 years old. For 42 years, I don't know how many times Russia – and all the other countries – have played Russian roulette with the whole fucking world. We are all tired. Can't we just work for a better place for humanity? Invest in universities, stuff like that. Live in peace for once. Maybe put some Russians into fucking school and universities. 

– By the way, let’s talk about Russian propaganda. Tell me how many "Nazis" have you seen here?

– Oh! "Nazis". That’s my favorite. Really? Do you think– do you know how fucking dumb people have to be to believe they're fighting against Nazis? I mean, Zelenskyy is Jewish. The prime minister [Denys Shmyhal] is Jewish. The defense minister [Rustem Umerov] is Muslim. 85% of Ukraine is Christian Orthodox. This only works on Russian soldiers to make them believe they're actually fighting for something good.

And it baffles my mind that even in my own country, there are some fucking idiots that also believe that. And this is what I'm now going to try to convince my people of. Almost everybody believes it's total fucking bullshit.

But they really don't know what's going on. Because I know somehow that, in the West, there's more Russian propaganda than the truth from Ukraine.

– What did you know about Ukraine before you came here?

– To tell you the truth, I was kind of neutral. This was a spontaneous decision. If I hadn't been in Poland at that moment, when I talked to my cousin, I probably wouldn't have come here. And I can also clarify what I am. I wouldn’t even dare to call myself a soldier. I was a civilian before that. I had two months of training. I would maybe call myself a freedom fighter. Like half of the guys where I'm stationed, where we are actually in trench warfare, it's so fucking crazy and disgusting that you really have to have the belief that you are fighting for a just cause. 

I think every one of us probably had some different motive when we got to the training camp. But trust me, at the trench all the guys say the same. They can't stand the thought of the Russians breaking through our front and reaching the next city, what they will do.

– Do you know anything about the Revolution of Dignity or Yanukovych?

– Holy shit! Yanukovych! How the fuck was that possible? I mean, I know that Putin actually put him in power. He was given more power than a president was supposed to have. Almost immediately after the election, he had the right to dismiss [parliament]. He could personally elect people for the posts. He put all his sons, or kids, or family in important posts. Every year, he robbed the country – what's called the infrastructure funding – for $10 billion every year. And when he finally was kicked out, he stole the whole treasury. And he lives in Russia. God!

 

That Yanukovych really pisses me off. When we win this war, I hope you fucking ask him to give back the state treasury and all the fucking billions he stole

   

He sold almost all the Ukrainian weapons to the Balkan countries. And by the time he was finally kicked out, during the Revolution of Dignity, he'd reduced the Ukrainian army to 5,000 active soldiers.

You guys were not prepared. And then, four months later, Putin attacked Crimea. You guys didn't stand a chance. You had no soldiers, no weapon, no money, but you stood up and fought for something, for dignity, for your rights. And now they're trying to break them, and they use lies to start wars, saying: “Oh, we are here to protect the 20% of Russian speakers who are occupied by Nazi Ukraine at the border”. 

And they just keep going. Do you think this war would end, even if Ukraine said: No, Russia, give us peace, we will sign a peace deal right now, today. You keep your lands, the occupied lands? Do you think Russia isn’t going to be at it in 10 years again? And I think what most Europeans don't understand is that they will be at it again. At one point, this war will be on Europe's border. We got to stop it here. I'm just going to quote Leonidas from the 300 movie: “This is where we hold them. This is where we fight. This is where they die.”

– So how long are you here for? And how did you get injured?

– I've been here almost six months, but sadly, I've been injured. So it's been like two months since I last saw combat. I was badly injured. We were in a really, really tough firefight. My bunker was in trouble. They had to throw smoke out in front of the bunker. I was in the back of the bunker in a machine gun nest to the right, in the far back of the bunker. And I'd never seen so many RPGs. Like, fuck, they were shooting a lot of RPGs. And they were armor piercing, they made two short explosions. Like, “boom-boom”. The first one breaks through the active armor, and the second one is supposed to kill anyone inside the armored vehicle. And there were snipers,  there was everything. The guys in the front, they had to throw out smoke. 

I was alone in the back with a machine gun right next to a Georgian bunker. They were like five meters away from me. So we were just holding them, like covering fire. Just holding the Russians at a distance until they – my bunker – could organize a better defense. I think I shot like five ammo magazines, 50 rounds each. And I was just reloading the sixth one when an armor piercing grenade hit the right side of my machine gun nest. None of us actually understands how I fucking survived that shit because the roof was blown off.

When my bunker blew up I’d actually just finished reloading my gun. I heard the explosion. And you know, the most important thing on the frontlines are your senses: smell, sight, tasting the air. I actually heard the first explosion. Before it hit me, like the shockwave, I was like “Oh shit, that's close.” And I hit the side of the wall, so hard, I remember that I felt my whole body lifting from the ground. And the guys told me there was an imprint of me on that sandwall. That's how hard I hit it. 

And I actually felt – while I was, like, in the air hitting the wall – I actually felt the shrapnel hit me. No pain, just a piece of shrapnel. And then I thought I passed out, but some other guy I met who has experienced similar things before said that you don't pass out, you black out. I swear, I didn't black out more than three to five seconds.

But in those three to five seconds I had a really bad experience. Because I was still conscious. I actually– I think I went up in my brain, but everything was dark. I was just in a black, dark place. There was nothing. I actually started to ask, where am I? Like, is anyone here? And not before I had to scream. It probably felt like five minutes. I started screaming, then I asked myself “Am I dead?”

But then I started hearing a sound from the distance, like a huge waterfall, just coming closer and closer, very fast. And then, boom, I just woke up. There was so much dust and smoke that I couldn't even see 10 centimeters in front of me. I knew where my gun was. I’d just reloaded it. So I tried to find where the gun was with my hands. I found the gun. Only thing I could think of was to continue shooting, protecting my friends in the front bunker. But I kept losing my gun.

And after trying to pick up my gun and losing it twice, I lifted my hand. You can see this scar here. I lifted my hand, I had to put it all the way up to my face, to see that I was actually injured. And then I saw my whole arm. And that's when I understood that I was injured. So I ran out of the smoke in my bunker. First, I ran like 10 meters, halfway to the trench. Tried to get my tourniquet. Tried to put my tourniquet on myself. And it didn't work. I’d been hit in both hands. So I ran into the bunker and yelled that I was injured. And my best friend, Cyprus – we've been together since training camp,  we were inseparable,– jumped to my aid immediately. And within one minute, we’d put a tourniquet on both arms and stopped the bleeding in the arms. 

 

 

Then a funny thing happened. There was a lot of blood. I was also hit in the leg, everywhere. I had two huge wounds. So after Cyprus had, you know, put the tourniquets on my arms, I was bleeding like a lot from the side. And he put me on my back because he was trying to get my vest off. I just saw all the blood there. And I looked at him: “Cyprus, check my fucking dick.” And he was like: “No, no, no, Viking. I gotta stop the bleeding on your side. You're bleeding.” “Check my fucking dick, Cyprus,” I yelled louder. And he's trying to rip off my vest. And I'm just kicking him. “Check my fucking dick, man.” And another guy had to come to our aid and he was like “What the hell is going on?” 

At that moment Cyprus told him that I won't let him stop the bleeding. “He's bleeding, but he wants me to check his dick. And he keeps screaming, check my fucking dick.” And then he ripped my vest off. And Cyprus pulled my pants down. And I just can't get his face out of my head when he's doing this: “Dick is good.” And then the other firefights started. I just heard RPGs, everything. And I was like, fuck it. I have to live up to my name.

So while they were shooting and fighting, I started screaming: “Tonight we all die in Valhalla. Keep the spirit up!” [Valhalla is an afterlife "hall of the slain" in Norse mythology.] I was screaming so fucking hard that the commander in the bunker right next to me went us and asked: “Who the fuck is that?” And my boys were like “Shut the fuck up, Viking!”.

So the side of my bunker was gone. I was hit real badly by shrapnel. Even my helmet is kaput. Shrapnel also went through my fucking machine gun. And I got away with it. So, you know, I'm not even religious, but everyone  after that was like “Seriously, how the fuck did you survive that? Somebody is watching over you.” And all the shrapnel, nothing. I got on my– on my left side– I got like 26-30 shrapnels between one millimeter and 1.4 centimeter. None of them hit anything vital. One went through my face and came out. Didn't hit my teeth, nothing. In my neck…

And the worst injury was nerve damage in my fucking boogie finger. Yeah. After I got injured, I was in the hospital. After a week, when I called home to my family and my mother, I actually lied. I didn't want to scare anyone, so I just said I got like three pieces of small shrapnel in my right hand. Nothing serious. But then this politician back home contacted me, asked me if I’d like to help him work against this new fishing agreement with Russia. And I said yes. Then I had to call home again, tell my mom that, you know, actually I almost blew up.

– What did your mom say?

– She said, yeah, sounded like you were lying a little bit. Okay.

– So, when we first were talking on the phone, I thanked you for your service. And you told me back that your service is not over. Are you going to go back to the front?

– Fuck yeah. I told my mom that I'm not coming back until this shit is over. I got pissed off. And I'm not leaving my friends. 

– So you had some seconds when you were so close to death that you thought you were dead. What were you thinking about during that time?

– As I said, everything happened so fucking fast. And I don't know where, it's like I ended up in this place, like– like a limbo for a few seconds. It probably was just a few seconds because I have it on video. It’s one minute from when I get hit until I'm in the bunker. So it probably was only a few seconds, but it felt like minutes. But it was just dark. There was nothing.

– How do you feel today?

– I have, like, a shitload of shrapnel in me. The rest of my life when I go through airport security it’ll go beep. But I got some micro shrapnel in my hand. Eight pieces of like one millimeter width hit my trigger finger. It was this far out [indicates on finger],like here. It's so weird that all the way out here can fuck up a whole arm. I couldn't move my arm or anything but they fixed it now. So in two weeks I’ll be ready again.

– I’m happy for you. And finally, what are the three main things that you want to tell every single person in this world about Ukraine?

– So, you know, I'm from the West. We hear different stories, which are so confusing. But you really don't get the truth before you are in Ukraine. And if you read history about Ukraine such as, when did this war really start? It didn't start in 2022. It didn't actually start in 2014. It started way before that. Russia has been planning this for a long time. They actually tried to break down the Ukrainian infrastructure with Yanukovych as the president. They were hoping to break Ukraine so far down that it would actually join the Russian empire. Because they would have no choice.

But you guys chose to fight. And that's the story I would like to get out. I mean, you guys are fighting for territories that the Russians stole from you. There are several ethnic groups here in Ukraine living under one flag. You are Tatar, Cossack, descendants of Vikings. Different religions, but all of you coexisting. You have one flag. And you're just fighting for your rights and your land. And this is something that Russia is really trying to destroy. And it's really weird that Russia is actually managing to convince the West that they’re actually doing a good job. You guys are fucking tough. 

Also the other countries that have been suppressed by Russia are finally seeing that Russia is not as powerful as it says it are. I mean, Russia has occupied areas of Georgia. I mean, Georgia is totally on your side. They are also starting to rise up now. Have you seen that video? When a Russian cruise ship comes to the harbor, they tell them to fuck off. Yeah, fuck off. Good fucking job. Hope you Georgians will continue.