For Vladislav, one of the platoon’s younger members at 26, who used to do remote work as an IT programmer with a company in Santa Monica, the fight felt different from 2014.

“Think of what Russians do. That didn’t change, although the scale is much bigger,” he said, his house less than a mile up the road from where he now stood vigil.

“What changed is that in 2014 we saw them as brothers — we weren’t ready for the fight. Now it’s no mercy: We’re ready to destroy them.”