1971. Yoni Kagan was born in the city of Kharkiv, amid the nascent refusenik movement of the early '70s. His parents, Marko and Adi, were denied aliyah on account of their higher education and became members of a local protest group in contact with the Lishkat Hakesher. Yoni’s early life was relatively stable despite his parent’s dissidence, on account of their employment at the local Malyshev Plant. Yoni became a member of the Little Octobrists as a child, which instilled Soviet values into him at a young age. His parents sometimes contradicted those values in private, teaching him a certain Israeli pride.

1981. Streaming red banners and statues of Soviet leaders lined the square. The young Octobrists stood in loose formation and Yoni’s chest swelled with pride. This ceremony marked his entry into the Young Pioneers, his first memorable milestone. The memory of that milestone was soured when his parents happily announced that they had been granted their aliyah a few months later. The first destination for many Soviet Jews in Israel was the kibbutzim, and the Kagan family arrived during their decline. They settled in the north of Israel, in Kfar Masaryk.

1989. When Yoni first arrived in Israel, he could hardly speak the lingua franca. Many of his fellows in the kibbutz spoke Russian, Ukrainian, or Yiddish at home. His education instilled an Israeli pride, and the mindset that his livelihood was always under attack. Despite this, he only learned his first words of Hebrew when he was conscripted into the IDF. A low-level conflict in Southern Lebanon and the First Intifada raged on, but the first six months of Yoni’s service were spent learning Hebrew and integrating into the larger Israeli society.

1992. Yoni’s unit was demobilized and placed on reserve in northern Israel after the Madrid Conference. Yoni left the IDF after his obligatory 30 months of service, briefly returning to Kfar Masaryk. Although Yoni’s demobilization had prepared him for entry into civilian life, he found it hard to adopt a civilian mindset. The strictly regimented life of a soldier appealed to him, and he remained in contact with many of his former comrades.

1993-2010. The United States makes extensive use of private military contractors during the Bosnian War. An old comrade, Gal Kedar, put Yoni in contact with DynCorp, where he was hired on as a security contractor. Yoni first served as security personnel for Comanche Base Camp, and then as training personnel for the Iraqi Police. Late in 2010, Yoni’s employment with DynCorp was suspended as a part of a SIGIR investigation into misplaced funds. He returned to Israel.

2011. Yoni remained in contact with Gal after he was suspended from DynCorp. Gal drew his attention to the Zone, the January intelligence leak bringing in treasure hunters from all over. Like many Loners that ventured to the Zone, Yoni was primarily motivated by greed. The legends of great riches attracted him, and the dangers of the Zone mystified him. Gal put Yoni in contact with a corrupt member of Ukraine’s SBGS, and Yoni paid an exorbitant amount of his contractor’s salary to be smuggled into the Zone.

2012. Yoni arrived in Mariupol’ early in the year, smuggled along the Dnieper river. The further they ventured into Ukraine, the more the smugglers demanded. By the time that Yoni arrived at the entrance to the Exclusion Zone, he was promising money that he didn’t have. The SBGS had him marked- name, face, location, and country of origin. They continually used his personal information as leverage against him, and demanded more and more money that he didn’t have.

2014. Yoni had briefly established himself in the Zone, but he hadn’t made a single ruble. Instead, the Border Guards that smuggled him through continued to demand money for protection, which he was forced to pay up. If he was ever to return to Israel, he needed to keep his identity under wraps.