The White Angels
June 4 2025, Sumy, Ukraine
Evacuating to the Northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, Oleksandra Petrivna, 92 and bedridden, recalls the first time she left her village: Age 10, starting before dawn to bring her farm’s milk to market. Her voice wavers as the White Angel’s armored van swerves the wreckage of Russian artillery, then jolts, accelerating to avoid detection by loitering drones.
She leaves behind her son and daughter-in-law, both well into their 70s, living just five miles from the southern Russian border. She brings with her two shopping bags of clothing, a ziplock bag of documents, and a bag of fruits from her garden, now spilled and skittering across the floor of the van.
The White Angels' day also began before dawn, however the specialized Police Force’s task is much more complex than milk deliveries: civilian evacuations under fire from Russian forces.
The siege and destruction of the Eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in 2023 was the first to bring mandatory government evacuations. In the years since at least 300,000 internally displaced Ukrainian refugees have joined the more than 8 million displaced from the war’s start. Mandatory evacuations have since followed the glacial, obliterating Russian advances across Ukraine. Mandatory evacuations apply only to families with children, the old, and infirm. Families with children are of the most concern, as Russia’s abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children in occupied areas has been well documented since 2014.
The White Angels, however, are not focused on mandated evacuees, but rather on those who wish to evacuate and lack safe transportation. Each Russian advance creates more evacuees for the teams to assist, it’s a Sisyphean task that grows incalculably with each passing day and newly occupied town.
Serghei, the White Angels security man pats his bullpup-style shotgun. Imposing, gentle, he goes by the callsign “Cheron”, the mythic boatman who ferried souls across the river Styx. Expected are the other men in the armored van, Igor the stern vehicle commander, a driver, less so Olyena a statuesque platinum blond.
There will be four evacuation attempts before 1200 today. Winding their way through the pockmarked and desolate border villages, the question palpable in the air is: why would anyone stay? “They are hoping something will change. A ceasefire….peace” Says Olyena. As to what makes holdouts finally request evacuations, she says it is almost always artillery, or drones, or bombs landing in their own yard.
When they do, survivors often call for evacuation. Encountering dazed old women, or a boy naked to the waist and orphaned moments ago, it’s moments like this Olyena, the team psychologist, takes the lead. The other officers pick up security, while Olyena speaks gently, holds the stunned stares through fences or curtains. Coaxing civilians to leave behind their homes and evacuate, often under fire, is a balance between tactical urgency and trust leveraged through psychology.
Russia's advances are glacial but leave few survivors. Artillery in the distance leads to the occasional Shahded drone, then glide bombs, and finally artillery in the streets. Each new wave of attacks leads to a wave of new refugees departing the villages. However, there are always those who stay, caught up in a sudden advance, lost in grief, hoping for change, or paralyzed by fear, and very often too old or infirm to travel on their own. Providing a safe, on-call evacuation option for Ukrainians finding themselves in the ever-widening gray zone is the mission of the White Angels, now comprised of multiple Police teams across the country.
The White angels use donated armored bank cars for evacuations, to mitigate the threat of artillery and drones. The inside is spacious, a full stretcher, 4 seats, children’s armored vests. Electronic jamming antenna bristle on the rooftop, Serghei keeps a constant eye on the drone monitor affixed to his chest.
By 0800, the second evacuation is underway. 5km from Russian lines and broken villages, The White Angels pass through the recent work of artillery and missiles. Olyena puts her hair up, buckling her helmet, shotguns and optics are checked. The final approach is under 200m of netting suspended by wooden stakes encasing the road, protecting the vulnerable intersection from drones. 30 meters beyond the net's safety is the address of the day's second evacuee.
Drones are active overhead by the time the White Angels arrive, speeding from the safety of the netting to a screeching stop under trees for overhead concealment from drones. As they exit the van the team moves under the shade of overgrown foliage towards a desolate suburban block. They check the map again, and Igor approaches the door, knocking forcefully, then urgently.
No response, he tells the team to spread out further under the whine of a distant drone.
The door opens. A pale pear pear-faced woman wielding two canes, peers through. She has 4 bags and struggles to carry herself. The hum of a drone grows closer, and Serghei orders the team inside. A distant explosion from the north, and the sky again is quite. The White Angels gather the old woman’s bags and guide each unsure step of hers to the van. Olyena takes her arm, while two others look to the sky with shotguns readied.
The armored van speeds around potholes, more gas, sharper breaks now. One of the evacuee's bags spills open, Serghei bends down, catching bouncing cucumbers and plums. Back on the paved roads of Sumi the team passes by the gas station they met at early this morning, a few hundred yards away is the smoking impact of a Shahed drone. Sumy: the largest city bordering the Ukrainian offensive into Kurst, was for months a jubilant town as Ukrainian soldiers advanced deeper into Russia. Now Russian troops are on the offensive, and the city lives under constant bombardment.
The White Angels' helmets come off, Olyena lets her hair down, the old woman they transport discusses something as they consult a map. The driver agrees, and they deliver their latest evacuee to the door of her relatives, waving her good luck. Igor, the team leader, looks at the next evacuation. “Even after that one, the next one is going to be a real asshole” the days closest evacuation yet, 3 kilometers from Russia.
It's nearly 10 by the time the White Angels have sped into the ghostown of a village on the northern outskirts of Sumy. The longer they linger, the more likely they are to be identified by surveillance drones, and then attacked. Wild dogs roam streets littered with homes inverted and atomized by artillery.
Referencing a military map the team stops under the shade of a tree, and before the wheels have ceased to roll are on their way to the exterior fence of a home. Igor signals to have the car turned around as rockets fire in the distance, arches overhead and impacts somewhere nearby. Crouching under trees with eyes to the sky, the team waits as Igor raps on the door, then bellows. Nothing.
Igor signals for the armored car to pull forward. The rippling impact of Russian rockets splash somewhere in the distance. Igor tries the door again, using a softer voice. Serghei steps away from the others looking to the sky shotgun readied. Igor creeps around the house rapping on the window. Another volley of rockets. Suddenly, and finally, Igot signals everyone back to the car.
More rockets overhead, “Serghei” says, it gets worse each passing hour of the day. In an hour, it will be impossible for them to work. The armored car stops at the last house on the main road of the village. The knocking this time is greeted. A heavyset woman in her 60s speaks to Igor. He emphasizes, Olyena then pleads. They hurry back to the armored car. “This isn’t a taxi service!” Igor says. Frustrated, he explains that the woman who had made the evacuation request had asked for them to return in an hour once she had finished packing.
A lone woman on the road takes Serghei’s attention. Sergei stares, then hails her furiously. From a distance, there is a terse exchange.
Serghei explains: they evacuated her a week ago, and she has come back for her chickens. Can they wait an hour? she asks.
“This isn’t a taxi service!”
But the White Angels will return tomorrow.