Long ago, I was a close-minded soviet guy, an adherent to a socialist system. I completed military service in the construction corps but wanted to deploy in Afghanistan and fight. But was not meant to.

I graduated from Mykolaiv State Pedagogical University, historic department, and got carried away with the national idea in 1991, when Ukraine got independence. I was 25. But the troublesome ’90s began and I did not go to teach in schools, as I already had a family. We were short of money, so I went into business. That is when my patriotism became passive. And then I accidentally got on TV. I became a satellite engineer; we enabled broadcasts and long distance television communication. It was an interesting job. I worked there for about seven years. Right before the war I was a chief engineer at the resort on Mykolaiv beach.

When Maidan started I went to a popular assembly in Kyiv. However, when first clashes and deaths happened, I could not find the strength and courage to join the participants of the revolution. I was an armchair patriot who sat distressed by the TV box. I did attend assemblies in Mykolaiv. And when Maidan won, I took a trip to Kyiv and went to Instytutska where the activists were killed by sharpshooters and police, and saw the photographs of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes (activists killed in the revolution). At that moment, I felt ashamed that young people of the age of my children laid their lives. My son Oleksandr was 20 back then, and my daughter Olena is older than him. That’s why when it became clear that the war would break out, I thought I would stop respecting myself if I stayed at home again.

I was 47 at the time when I came to the military commissariat. There they told me I was not on the top of their list and that they would call me up if needed. This was the beginning of April, 2014. In June, they called me and offered to join the military commissariat guard company. And I agreed willingly. Then I received a clean bill of health. It was funny when my friend who worked in the military commissariat said, ‘We had been thinking who to enlist you as — a gunner or a grenadier — and then I remembered that you had been a camera-control engineer and registered you as a grenadier. You will be holding a grenade instead of a camera.’

On 30 July, they called again and said, ‘Were you not wanting to join? So let us send you there.’ It turned out I had to be ready by the next day. At that moment, it was not on the agenda for me as my family and I were moving to another apartment. But I could not back away so I told my family I was going to the war.

I was mobilised in the second battalion of the 28th mechanized brigade. It was the third wave of mobilization. At Shyrokyi Lan proving ground, I underwent a three-week military education and training. Throughout this time, I fired only three shots from a grenade launcher. On the evening of 19 or 20 August, a commander was taking attendance. All of us had our hair down, were going to sleep but the commander informed us that 26 volunteers were to go to the anti-terrorist operation zone the next day. And we were like, ‘Oh well, the time has come.’ My friend who we had worked with on television was the first to volunteer. And I, of course, was the next.

In the morning, we found out that 16 persons were mobilized in the 72nd brigade. Other 10, among whom was I, in the 79th. Such a bingo. Especially for me, a person who had served in the construction corps, to find myself in the amphibious was a level up. That is exactly when the 79th brigade broke out of encirclement. Many soldiers were killed and wounded. They sent many detached combatants from other units. So we were a grab bag. The battalion was very understaffed and consisted of 180 people. We were divided not into squadrons but into sabotage-reconnaissance groups. There were many inexperienced combatants among us and it was strange to me to go to the front-line in such a group. But by the end of August we jumped in the APCs and set off to the east. The locales from Mykolaiv escorted our convoy and treated us as defenders. It was very heart-stirring.

We deployed in Kramatorsk. In a few days we had the first combat mission. It was a pretty well-known raid of the 95th and 79th brigades in the area of Hranitne. However, the task before us was not clear enough. No one explained anything. But for me it was, so to say, baptism by fire. In that mission, we got half-ambushed. We fired at the trees and bushes but no one responded. But when we came back we saw bullet holes on the APC. There was a moment in this mission when my gun got jammed and I could not find a dispenser magazine. After that occasion I started to train with the magazine not to fall flat on my face. In the second mission, we encountered a rather dangerous ambush. Our commander, Shandar Oleksii Mykolaiovych, was wounded. We broke out but lost a sworn brother. The understanding that the war was on-going became crystal clear.

Then we returned to Kramatorsk. Cease-fire and military education and training started. In the second half of September, we were sent to Mykolaiv for vacation. Before departure, we were informed that our two APCs got under fire and seven guys died in Donetsk airport. It was a shock. Now, instead of fear everyone had a thirst for revenge.

In that period, I got sick with a putrid throat and had fever 104 °F (40 °C). I came home and my wife begged me to stay until a full recovery. But if I had stayed, the guys would have thought I was a yellow dog, so I went back to the war despite my health state. Our commander, a young lieutenant who had just come after the institute, gathered us in Kramatorsk and said that volunteers to go to Donetsk airport and change the first battalion were required.

Fifty people, being almost the full composition of our unit, agreed to volunteer. More experienced guys insisted that those who had little kids back home would not go. The commander prompted me to stay but I did not. In the end, 32 people were voluntarily selected to go to the airport. A part of a reconnaissance brigade led by Yevhen Zhukov, a soldier name Marshal, joined our unit. Marshal was in command of our group. He gathered us by the command unit and gave a motivational speech, ‘Those who did not shit blue lights and are ready to lay life for the Motherland are fine fellows’’.

I CANNOT SAY I WAS SHOCKED TO FIND OUT I HAD LOST ARMS. I DID REALIZE IT WAS INCURABLE BUT I WAS NOT DOWN IN THE DUMPS

I did not tell my family I was going to the airport. I only called my two closest friends so that they would know where to find me. One of them told me, ‘Don’t worry; they show on TV that those airport basements can withstand a nuclear explosion.’ I was going to the airport with a pretty romantic understanding of what might be awaiting there. At first, we arrived at the airport defense headquarters in Tonenke. Next evening, we went to Pisky. As we hit the starting line, our tank T-64 met us. A word Barsik was written on its barrel. A broad-set tank-man, a moustached uncle with a smoked face popped out from the tank. His soldier name was Bars. He approached us in a wearing manner and said we had six minutes to detruck, otherwise we would be destroyed by fire. And he sained us.

I cannot remember how long the way to the airport took. We were armoured and drove very fast. I cannot recall any explosions. It so happened that our two APCs passed the old terminal where we were supposed to detruck, and by mistake stopped by the new one. As we started to detruck we were met with fire from all sides. Enemies from one side and our guys from another side, where we were supposed to go. But they thought we were separatists as we had parked in the wrong place. Finally, shouting friendlies’, we ran into the airport. It was dark. We could barely see. The guys told us we could sleep along pillars as they were not fired and thus, safe. At the crack of dawn, I saw this, actually speaking, supermarket with pillars and plasterboard as cover and barricades were made of, for example, luggage trolley, door, and a desk.

I stood at the point where a new terminal met an old one. Oftentimes our artillery worked sharply — they shelled along the profile outline to deter the enemy. There were both our and their trip wires in the basement. A separatist sharpshooter located on the roof of the airport. Generally speaking, there were a bunch of links and the enemy was expected to come from anywhere.

There was a moment when wall insulants started to burn. Everything was in the smoke but we had only one respirator for all of us. We had to strain one’s eyes through the smoke to make sure the enemy was not here. Luckily, it was not. Everything burnt and we were all black. In general, there were from three to four artillery attacks per day. Sometimes they even reached our side. But by and large separatists shelled from the hotel into a concrete beam above us and this caromed our barricade. In those moments we fall down on the floor and wait.

On the day of my injury our assault convoy was to change us. After, APC drivers were to return to Pisky so that the machine would not burn. We had a 24-hour period for the shift handover. Then APCs were to come get us. But for some reason, that day the convoy arrived in the afternoon. And after detrucking separatists started pounding. A real spray started closer to the evening. They managed to come skintight to the new terminal. A DSHK heavy machine gun began to fire from our place.

Besides me, there were two young fighters from the 95th brigade and one from the 93rd one on station. As we had a rather limited visual field, separatists could come close and smoke us out. So to be safe, we started shooting back. Tymur from the 93rd brigade was right behind my back. At a certain point, I turned and saw a live RGD-5 grenade laying right at our feet near the sleeping bag. I understood it had just been thrown here, took it in my hand, and was about to fling it off when it exploded. I fell down but was conscious. Voices were yelling, ‘There is a severely injured one here!’ Six guys immediately picked me up, carried me deep down the terminal, and started twisting a tourniquet. I understood something had happened to my arms. And my eye was glued up.

In a way, I was lucky as one of the APCs had not departed yet. I was hurried into the machine. Tymur was retrieved as well — a splinter of a bomb got stuck in his cheek. The third injured was a guy wounded by a sharpshooter in the neck. We were taken to Pisky and then to the hospital in Krasnoarmiisk (now Pokrovsk). I was awake the whole time. They gave me painkillers but I felt terrible nausea because of the loss of blood. I felt stuck between the two worlds. I wanted to hit the land of nod but could not as someone was always talking to me. My left arm was completely shot away and the right one was held in place by the chorda. They attached my right arm to a frame and placed ice around it in Krasnoarmiisk. There, we were taken on a helicopter. As it turned out later, this was the first evacuation operation involving a helicopter. There were six or seven of us on the board. I was lying hooked to a drip. I remember calming down Tymur as he was afraid to fly. Tetiana Petrivna Huba (Advisor of Head of Dnipro Regional State Administration) met me in Dnipro. She immediately started comforting me, ‘My dear, everything is alright, you are in Dnipro and we have great doctors.’ I tried to smile but my mouth was lacerated. That is how my military journey came to an end.

In Dnipro hospital № 6, they amputated my arms. I woke up in the morning and saw my arms bandaged. An unknown woman was sitting next to me. She was a psychologist. Everything around was clean and peaceful. I cannot say I was shocked that I had lost arms. I realized it was incurable but I was not down in the dumps. It is true that in the terminal I said, ‘Shoot me! How will I live?’. But not in the hospital. I got up on my own to use the bathroom. There, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw half of my face burnt and my eye taped. My lip and eyebrow hastily sewed, like sacks. To cut a long story short, my face looked terrible. I asked to call my wife, Larisa. Doctor was the first to talk to my wife; then I picked up the phone to tell her I was alive but without arms.

Larisa, my son, and my sister were met by a psychologist. She asked my wife if she was ready to accept her husband in such a state. If not, they would not be let into my hospital room. This incited my wife. But my son did not have the nerve to come in, so the psychologist worked with him for some time. And when he finally saw me he cried and said he was proud of me.

Later, I was transferred to Mechnikov Hospital. As the airport was a well-known place at that time, so to say, a pilgrimage to my hospital room commenced. Volunteers, journalists, and people who just wanted to say thank you visited me as if I had saved the planet. One man of my age brough 300 USD in an envelope. He cried saying, ‘I am sorry I did not take the liberty to go to the war, but you did!’ Moms and their children would also come. Grannies would bring food every day. Then I understood the importance of all of this to the people. It gave them empowerment. I did not want to be called a cyborg. Compared to other guys, I went to the airport thinking there were entrenched positions and stayed there for a little while, for one rotation. For me the airport was a tiltpoint. I have a special connection with that place. When in January fighters whom I had not known were killed, I felt as though I had lost a close person. The airport for many is a symbol of bravery and courage. I do not. like being asked if the airport was worth maintaining. I am a soldier and have seen only my field, so I will not make hot air. But for sure, every inch is worth holding because it is our land.

FOR A PERSON WITH DISABILITY IS IT VERY IMPORTANT TO DO THINGS INDEPENDENTLY, OTHERWISE THEY DO NOT FEEL NORMAL AND COMPLETE.

When it came to prosthetics, I had a pretty vague idea of it but was sure I would cope with everything. In a nutshell, I had had nimble arms and always repaired the electrics and sanitary installations on my own. On returning home from the hospital, I began inventing ways to adapt to life without arms. I realized that with the help of a stylus I could use a tablet. At first, I would take the stylus in my mouth. When my arms healed up, I created a muffetee to encase there the stylus and use my arm. What dispirited me the most, what ruffled my feathers was speeding from a spoon. So we attached a spoon and a fork to a muffetee to be able to eat on my own.

My recovery took a long time as my eye was seriously injured. I stayed in the hospital almost until New Year. A famous ophthalmologist, Valeriy Serdiuk, cured my eye. Now he and I are good friends. As he told me later, when he just saw me on the surgical table in the hospital № 16, all black and without arms, he decided to save my eye at all costs. I underwent a number of surgeries but my eye was saved. It is very important to me, even though I can see only light.

My arms healed for half a year. We started preparations for prosthetics. At first they installed mechanical cable-operated prostheses. But as for me, they were not convenient. One year after the injury I went to Germany to have bionic prostheses installed. But I find a crook the most convenient to use. I have already broken the barrier of feeling ashamed when people glower. However, at first it was an unpleasant experience for sure.

Everything changed with my involvement in community service. I engaged in the Open World exchange program and went to the US to learn about work with veterans for ten days. I took with me both a prosthesis and a hook. I carried both things in my bag and would attach an artificial arm in public. I realized no one paid any attention to me; everyone was occupied with their own business. They greeted me and smiled and did not care if I had arms or not. After such experience I decided I would educate my society. So now I am using a hook.

As for my family, my wife and I have changed after my injury. It may sound strange, but I have borne it easier than her. I used to do everything around the house on my own but now many things have fallen on her shoulders. But the situation more or less fell into place when I became active, got down to work, and came to the conclusion that I must be independent. In seeking a foothold one should not rely on external motivation and think that they have survived to live for their family. This motivation does not last for long. Over time one realizes they have become a burden on their family. But once they pursue a goal of self-fulfillment, everything falls into place.

For a person with disability it is very important to do things as independently as possible. Otherwise, they do not feel normal and complete. However, some warm to such a role and enjoy overprotection from the others. Some veterans think society owes to them because they have fought. But I am very critical toward such an attitude.

In late 2017, Marshal who at that time was patrol force chief, called me. He said they were opening a new academy and needed a deputy for education. He wanted that person to be a veteran who had undergone amputations so that he could motivate students. At first I was shocked and thought about moving to Kyiv and going to work there. But eventually I agreed. And then real responsibilities facilitated real adaptation to life. I promised to myself I would never kind of just sit there. From the first day in the office I did everything on a par with the others. If I tell my listeners or military students to make bed in the morning I must do the same thing myself. Otherwise I have no moral right to demand anything like that from them.

It was a very prominent moment when my wife did not come to Kyiv yet and I rented a flat with my cousin. One time she had to leave for a few weeks and I had to call my wife so that she could come and help. But I decided to experiment and see if I could go to work on my own without any help. The first thought was, ‘How should I give myself eye drops?’ It turned out I was able to do it both with and without a prosthesis. Before my cousin left she had buttoned my shirts so that I could put them over my head. I worked out a system of zipping my pants and putting on socks. As a result, I managed to live independently for two weeks. When my cousin came, she could not believe her eyes. This experiment proved me I was a fully independent person. Then I went abroad for a marine marathon and lived in a barrack together with other guys.

I worked in the academy for a year and three months. By that time academy personnel and I had developed close relationships. On instituting the Ministry for Veterans Affairs, they invited me as a deputy minister. And I agreed not to fulfil my ambitions but to take on a new challenge and responsibility.

As the Ministry was established from square one, we have plenty of work here. Understandably, many expect immediate results. But they should take into account the bureaucratic procedures. In particular, since we draw up new innovative conceptions, not administer the old. And this is not as simple as a pie, especially in emotional and psychological terms. I come back home completely whipped up and experience sociopathy at the weekends. I just sit down and play chess to recharge my batteries. But I am enthusiastic about my work area – commemoration, veterans image-building, and national and patriotic education are timeless values. They are no less significant, or even more vital, than social services, because they empower people. We are drawing up a book of volunteer fighters in the memorial hall of the Ministry of Defence; making national memorial cemeteries; instituting a new funeral ritual together with the Institute of National Memory. We find it vital to drift away from the soviet tradition regarding the aforementioned areas.

Now my life is vibrant and contented. It must be a kind of compensation for Maidan. I cannot imagine living able-bodied but with a knowledge that I hid from war in my home. Guilty conscience would make me mentally scarred. Instead, I gained a differing perception of the notions of Independence, flag, anthem. When I sing ‘Ukraine’s [glory] has not yet perished’ (the anthem of Ukraine), tears roll in my eyes. And I would take up the cudgels for the Ukrainian flag. I also lay eyes on everyday things such as starscape and sun, more often than ever before. I appreciate friendship and relationships differently, too. When I was wounded I feared I had not done anything worthy. I knew I had family, built a summer kitchen, planted a number of trees but still lacked something. Maybe I got this feeling because I had not fought much and had not managed to destroy a tank with a grenade launcher. And I cannot let go of this feeling. Now I snap my fingers at my age. Had it not been for the war, I would now think about retirement. But instead, I dream of completing a parachute jump. I hope that many new calls of destiny are yet to come. When the soul is unmoved, degradation kicks in. Hence, I wish to preserve the drive to move forward.

LIFE AFTER 4:30 PM

After the injury I became an active Facebook user and started to depict everything from the moment when a grenade exploded right in my hands. As I wrote everything I remembered, I realized the text turned out to be quite large. I published the story on my Facebook profile and it caught buzz. It was my readers who empowered me to go on writing. Every week I would publish my stories under the name Ramblings. The stories had a humorous undertone and a moral lesson that efforts help conquer new heights. I found it important for stories to motivate both me and people around. After I had published around 15 stories, a poet from Mykolaiv (unfortunately, he passed away) reached out to me with an offer to write a book. After some hesitation I decided to get published. I do not have any writer ambitions and perceive the book as a personal reflection of the bygone. I hope my book will give someone food for thought that it is possible to live a fulfilled life despite any kind of trauma.