'Fauda' on the frontlines: How one Israeli national fights against Russia for Ukraine's SBU

Eyal is a 52-year-old Israeli native and a special operations veteran with years of experience, which include sniper training and counterterrorism missions in Gaza.

Eyal is now serving in a reconnaissance unit of the Ukrainian Marine Corps. His work has carried weight from the very first days of the war, more than three-and-a-half years ago.

At times, listening to his story, I couldn’t help but think: This can’t be real. If it is, it reads like the script of a Hollywood military thriller. To check the truth behind his words, I turned to Ukrainian sources – and they confirmed his account.

In my hands is a detailed, multipage letter from a group of officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from Kherson about the events of 2022, written in the summer of 2023 and sent to the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk. I was allowed to review the document on the condition that I not publish screenshots. For that reason, I’ve removed names and specifics, leaving only the bare facts.

According to the document, Israeli citizen Eyal Israeli, married to a Ukrainian citizen and having lived in Kherson for 16 years, in the first days after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, on his own initiative, offered to help defend the city and enlisted in the territorial defense battalion. But the defense of Kherson collapsed a week after the start of the war, the battalion was disbanded, and he returned home.

Under Russian occupation in Kherson, the only regional capital that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces managed to seize, Eyal did not sit idle. In early March 2022, just days after the city fell, he approached the SBU and offered his expertise in the fight against the occupiers, “voluntarily and patriotically,” as the letter puts it.

A little later it emerged that the regional SBU chief, his deputy, and even Kherson’s mayor, Volodymyr Saldo, were working for the Russians. Their betrayal ensured that the bridges over the Dnieper remained intact, allowing Russian forces to seize the city almost overnight.

In the chaos that followed, the SBU accepted Eyal offer of help. At a time when the southern front was collapsing, it welcomed support from any quarter – even from a foreigner with a shadowy past.

Eyal went on to form a reconnaissance and sabotage group, becoming the de facto leader of the anti-Russian underground in occupied Kherson, a city of 300,000. He did so under the auspices of the SBU, aided by special service officers who kept contact across the front lines.

Among the documented achievements of Eyal and his group were:

• The destruction of Russian propaganda billboards across Kherson and the distribution of pro-Ukrainian leaflets.

• Organizing (through Eyal’s own funds) food supplies for the families of Ukrainian officers, including baby formula, and using a refrigerated truck to deliver provisions to hospitals and the disabled.

• On November 9, 2022, raising the first Ukrainian flag in the city on that same refrigerated truck. With his name EYAL stenciled on the cabin, the vehicle became a symbol of liberation. For Kherson’s residents, the sight of the Ukrainian flag meant the Russians were gone and the city had been freed.

• Using his fluency in Persian to pinpoint Iranian military advisers and drone test sites, as well as the Russian officers overseeing them, adjusting Ukrainian strikes to hit their positions.

• In September 2022, Eyal also relayed intelligence on an Iranian Embassy representative, Masoud, who was recruiting Iranian students to collect information on Ukrainian military facilities, including in Odessa.

• He uncovered the locations of Russian headquarters, warehouses, and troop concentrations in Kherson, directing artillery and missile fire against them. Dozens of targets were struck with precision, among them meeting places of local collaborators.

• His group also identified the residential addresses of traitors to Ukraine and passed them to Ukrainian forces. Those individuals were then “neutralized.”

• In the final days before the Russian escape from Kherson, November 7-8, 2022, Eyal personally destroyed five cars carrying Russian officers, soldiers, and drivers attempting to flee. Their burnt remains were documented by the SBU immediately after the city’s liberation.

• During the massive flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station on June 6, 2023, by Russian forces, Eyal again put himself at risk, using his boat to rescue Ukrainian soldiers and civilians under enemy fire.

A slightly dark complexion and narrowed eyes helped Eyal move through a city paralyzed by fear, where Russian checkpoints stood on every corner.

“Russian soldiers mistook me for a Caucasian, Buryats soldiers thought I was Asian, and when Chechen Kadyrovites stopped me, I quoted suras from the Koran in Arabic and drove on,” he recalled with a grin, remembering the months of mortal risk under Putin’s occupation.

“Throughout the temporary occupation of Kherson, Eyal and his wife acted boldly and inventively. They showed courage and were ready to sacrifice themselves to obtain intelligence in order to inflict the greatest harm on the enemy,” read the letter addressed to Malyuk.

But Eyal Israeli’s account of his greatest achievement in Kherson sounded so unbelievable that I only accepted it as fact after reading it confirmed in the SBU officers’ official report.

On the fourth day of the occupation, Russian forces pushed north and west from Kherson, aiming to seize Mykolayiv and then Odessa, Ukraine’s key Black Sea port, before the retreating Ukrainian army could regroup.

Had those cities fallen and Ukraine been cut off from the sea, the entire country might have collapsed, and the history of its independence ended.

To support the offensive, Russia concentrated aircraft and other military equipment at the Chornobayivka airfield on the outskirts of Kherson.

According to the document, “On March 7, 2022, Eyal Israeli, on the instructions of the SBU Directorate for the Kherson region, took an active part in reconnaissance of enemy military equipment at the airfield near Chornobayivka.

“To conduct an intelligence-combat operation, he identified a multistory building on the outskirts of the city of Kherson, the roof of which allowed observation of enemy equipment. Upon reaching the roof of the house, E. Israeli removed the obstacle to physical access to it (the chairman of the house committee and her husband were categorically against it, and tried to prevent them from accessing the roof).

“Having reached the top alone, the foreigner crawled to the edge of the roof (so as not to fall into the field of view of enemy observers) and, using his own professional camera with a telephoto lens, took clear photographs of Russian helicopters and the location of their concentration.

“The data obtained were immediately transferred to the SBU, and on the same day, missile and artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out fire damage to 49 helicopters, other military equipment, and enemy manpower.”

Then, precise Ukrainian strikes on the Chornobayivka airfield were repeated many times. The world’s leading news channels – CNN and Reuters – showed footage of Russian aircraft burning in Chornobayivka.

A former SBU officer who supervised Eyal in 2022 summed up his role in Chornobayivka: “The loss of these 49 helicopters, of course, significantly weakened the offensive potential of the Russians.”

The destruction of an entire Russian air regiment, 49 combat helicopters in total, crippled Moscow’s attempt to push deeper into southern Ukraine. Without air support, the offensive stalled, and Mykolayiv and Odessa remained under Ukrainian control.

Based on an estimated unit cost of $20 million for 49 helicopters, plus the value of the weapons stored at the airfield, the losses could amount to close to a billion dollars.

All of it was destroyed through the actions of a single Israeli fighter with specialized training, who happened to be in the right place at a critical moment on the front.

One might expect the Ukrainian government to have found a way to thank the aging Israeli for his role. But something went wrong.

In the first days after the liberation of Kherson, Eyal stood in line to receive Ukrainian humanitarian aid. The city was in chaos, supplies had run out, and his family was close to starving. But when his turn came, he was refused assistance, with the explanation that he was not a citizen of Ukraine/

The SBU officers who worked with him received no reply from Kyiv to their 2023 letter acknowledging his service to Ukraine.

In 2024, Serhiy Kozyr, a member of parliament from Kherson, submitted formal inquiries to the Ukrainian government in an effort to secure recognition for Eyal. Nothing came of it.

MP Kozyr told me that the “war and the bureaucratic process of obtaining citizenship” were to blame. “Eyal Israeli is a person with a clearly expressed pro-Ukrainian position. God grant us more people like Eyal,” the deputy emphasized.

In order to formally apply for Ukrainian citizenship, Eyal enlisted in the Ukrainian army. In May 2025, he completed a “young fighter” course at the Marine Corps base.

One morning, he woke to find a swastika drawn on his arm. The incident was defused when fighters with radical nationalist views came to him and apologized: “You’re good s***, old man. A f***ing Ukrainian patriot. Respect, bro – our bad.”

“When I did unthinkable things under the noses of the Russians and blew up their helicopters, no one cared about my knowledge of the Ukrainian language. And now the Migration Service in Kherson is denying me citizenship on the grounds that I don’t speak Ukrainian,” bitterly lamented Eyal, who, over his years of living in Kherson, has learned conversational Russian with difficulty.

But Kozyr does not share this view. “Antisemitism? No, that is absolutely not the case. What we are dealing with is the negligence of lower- and mid-level officials who do not want to take responsibility.”

When letters of support for Eyal were sent to the Office of the President of Ukraine, an official redirected the entire package back to the Kherson branch of the State Migration Service. That same office has been stalling his citizenship for years.

Among the papers were confidential reports detailing his military actions during the occupation of Kherson. Inevitably, these documents found their way into the hands of Russian intelligence, as if they had been sent to Moscow directly.

Russian authorities seized on Eyal’s role as proof of Israeli involvement in Ukraine. The fact that an Israeli citizen was active on the battlefield was interpreted in Moscow as the “hand of Mossad” in Kherson.

Soon after, Eyal had a heated exchange in the Israel Embassy in Kyiv with an unnamed official, who urged him to stop taking part in a war that was not his own.

Then it got worse.

Eyal began receiving threats on his phone. They were written in polished Hebrew and came from Israeli, Russian, and Ukrainian numbers. Here are a few of them, translated from Hebrew:

“Hello Eyal Israeli, Jewish Nazi Bandera lover, are you still alive? We will come to you today, tomorrow, in a year in Ukraine, in Israel, wherever you are! You owe a great debt to Russia and you will have to pay!!!”

“The Russian people never forget their enemies. You have caused a lot of harm, taken the lives of many people, we know about everything!!! We have people in every place. Do not forget for a moment that you owe a great debt and you must pay! You, a mercenary, a terrorist, a murderer, a Nazi, and you will still pay for everything!” read another message Eyal received from the Russians.

Eyal’s elderly mother in Israel was also targeted, receiving threatening phone calls in Russian.

“Judging by their texts, the Russians value my merits more than the Ukrainians,” Eyal joked.

He explained his decision to speak openly about his role in Ukraine like this: “What’s the point of hiding anything, if the Russians already have all the details?”

Another reason for his frankness is the death of SBU Col. Ivan Voronych, his friend and commander, who was shot dead outside his home in Kyiv on July 10, 2025, by two assassins.

Voronych, the SBU’s head of special operations, had overseen Eyal’s work during the occupation of Kherson. After the city’s liberation, he even moved into Eyal’s house for a time, a gesture of trust that went beyond duty.

On the eve of his death, Voronych sent one final audio message.

Eyal let me hear it. The colonel’s voice carried both fatigue and candor as he spoke of the burdens of his work and the strain on his personal life. He called Eyal “brother.”

For Eyal, that single word still cuts deep. It embodies the bond forged between them, a brotherhood built under fire.

“If I had been in Kyiv that day, I would have saved Ivan,” he said quietly.

Eyal designed and tested a high-capacity battery that tripled the endurance of Ukrainian drones, keeping them in the air for more than three hours instead of one.

Today, Eyal continues to take part in joint combat operations with the Ukrainian Marine Corps and the SBU.

“I launch these Shark-model drones under fire. We find Russian targets and direct Ukrainian artillery and aviation at them. If necessary, I also repair the drones right in the field, so as not to send them to the back lines for a month or two.”

Eyal even teaches his Ukrainian comrades Hebrew. On the way to drone launches, they pile into a car and belt out the old Jewish folk song “Hava Nagila” (Let’s Rejoice).

“I show them that the Jews are on the side of Ukraine. I am not ashamed of the fact that I am a Jew. I show them that I am a Jew. I explain to them who the Jews are. I go under fire with them. I launch these drones with them. I fight with them, and we take cover as one” said Eyal.

He constantly uses this “together” in his words, Ukrainians and Jews as brothers in arms.

“And let those who drew a swastika on my arm at the Marine Corps training base be ashamed. Let them see how Jews really fight. Let this remain in history, so that Ukrainians remember the contribution of Jews to this war and look at us differently,” he said.

Yet Ukraine has still not recognized his heroism. An elderly Israeli, denied both citizenship and any state award, continues to fight on the front line for Ukraine’s independence, defending his wife and daughter.

I told Eyal that Russian propaganda brands men like him “wild geese” – mercenaries supposedly raking in thousands of dollars a month from the war in Ukraine.

He burst out laughing. “Thousands? I buy spare parts for drones and pay for gas to the front out of my own pocket. I even bought a sniper rifle with my own money.”

Later, he drove off in a car with a mock Israeli license plate reading “IL FAUDA,” heading to another drone launch against Russian positions. His camouflage uniform carries homemade “IDF” and “FAUDA” patches with the flag of Israel.

The fighting goes on for Eyal in the Ukrainian steppe near Kherson. The enemies are no longer Arab terrorists but Russian invaders.

“I don’t think I’ll go back to Israel yet. Even though I’m a little angry with Ukraine, I love Ukraine,” he said.

The only “souvenir” he had left as a token of gratitude from the SBU, besides a nice piece of paper with the words “thanks for your help in our work,” is a dagger, gifted to Eyal by an SBU general.

On its blade, the Star of David rests beside the Ukrainian tryzub, the trident, along with the engraving “I belong to the Warrior. Eyal Israeli, defender of Kherson.”