Lower thirds:
00:02 Report by Mariel Müller
00:16 'Icarus' | Steppe Wolf
00:37 ‘Did’ | Steppe Wolf
02:29 Mariel Müller | DW Correspondent
03:47 ‘Serhii’ | Steppe Wolf

Script:

+++
00:01
At first glance this could be any military unit anywhere in the world. But these men are not in the army. They are over the official combat age limit. And yet they're determined to play a part in defending Ukraine.
00:13
+++SOT ‘Icarus’
Why isn’t my willingness to fight wanted? Some are dragged in by force, they’re caught and resist, then run off. +++

00:22
This is their commander, his codename is ‘Did’, Ukrainian for ‘Grandpa’.
He fought the Russians a decade ago when they first invaded parts of eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
 
00:34
+++SOT ‘Did’ 
I left to fight in May 2014. I came back after I was badly wounded. I was lucky, you can see: I still have both legs. They wanted to amputate both. I was lucky I ended up in Estonia. I had many surgeries there. +++

00:57
Did was a winemaker - but his vineyard - less than 50 kilometers from here, is now occupied by Russians. His home destroyed.
 
Did is too old to legally return to combat, so he created the ‘Steppe Wolves’ volunteer unit. Many have military experience, some do not. They retrieve unexploded Ukrainian rockets from the battlefield and repair them - a task deemed so dangerous, regular soldiers aren’t allowed to do it.
 
01:26
+++SOT ‘Did’
The sappers tell us, “There’s something there,” knowing we’ll pick it up and repair it, while they have orders to destroy it. So we go and retrieve it, like what our colleagues brought us here. +++

01:42
 
Once they’ve fixed what they’ve found, they fire them at the Russians. 
 
01:48
+++ SOT ‘Dnipro’
((In it)) there is no contact, something didn’t work, we don’t know what. We remove that part and we pull out that detonator. The reason is that the electrical part didn’t work.+++
01:59

These are old men in a young man’s game. Physical fitness could be lifesaving. 
 
It's time. The military, who they work closely with, just sent them the coordinates for today’s target: a Russian fibre-optic drone unit.

02:19
+++PTC Mariel Müller
We’re on our way with Did and his crew to their position where they’re going to fire their rockets somewhere south outside of Zaporizhzhia and it’s quite a risky mission because they have to be very quick, fire the rockets and remove themselves from the scene because the Russian could strike back immediately. +++
02:35

The location will be less than 15 kilometers from Russian positions.
Dnipro’s job now is to locate the target and guide the gunners in the right direction.
Drones are a constant threat here, so Icarus keeps his shotgun ready.
02:52
+++ SOT (one of the Wolves)
Are we firing from one tube or from three? We load only the middle one.+++
02:57

+++ATMO Fire+++

Now they have to move as fast as they can.
03:10
+++SOT ‘Did'
We hit them. The last rocket hit. The guy giving us orders says the hit was a 100%.+++
03:18

Serhii joined the unit a year ago, after his son was killed fighting in Bakhmut.

03:34
+++ SOT ‘Serhii
((What would I like?)) I would like to write on a rocket, to have it launched at the enemy, to aim it and to press the button.+++
03:42
 
What would you write on it, I ask him.

03:45
+++ SOT ‘Serhii’
My son's name.
This is for him.+++

End of text: 03:53
End of pix: 03:56