City of Luhansk
All questions were asked in January 2024. Answers provided in Ukrainian.
1. What was your summer like in 2014? What prompted you to leave or stay?
The summer of 2014 was very challenging for all of us because a real war began. I was one of the first to leave Luhansk at the end of April. By May 1st, I was already in Kyiv.
I don’t know how much longer I would have stayed in Luhansk, but after going to film the capture of administrative buildings and the police department, one of the active separatist participants recognized me and pointed me out. After that, they took me and a few others, put us in the Communist Party’s bus, and took us for a preventive talk near the Luhansk River. Perhaps, it can be called a brief capture, it lasted only half a day. But it was enough for me because they said, “If you want, stay here in the city, it’s your choice, but we know all your addresses, know the addresses of your friends, know who you are.” That way, they gave me a chance to leave.
Trains were still running at that time, and there were tickets. I did not expect such a “gift” from fate. I spent the night at a friend’s place, someone unknown to anyone, to avoid being at home, and in the morning, I got on the train “Luhansk-Kyiv.” Since then, for almost 10 years, I have not been home.
2. Is there a story of yours or your close ones that you would like to share? What struck you the most?
My father was not even 55 years old when he died. He was a doctor. In August 2014, they were in an ambulance, picking up wounded people after a mine exploded. At that moment, another mine hit the ambulance. His friend, a prosecutor who went to all these shelling incidents, had his head blown off. My father survived, but he had severe injuries, underwent numerous surgeries, had part of his knee removed, and his leg couldn’t bend after that. Despite all efforts, it never healed, and he passed away two years later.
He was used to being a superhuman, fearing nothing, a super doctor who went everywhere, including Afghanistan. Good physical shape was necessary for examining bodies in the morgue because it was physically demanding and required standing for 5-6 hours. After the injury, he was transferred to paperwork, which he couldn’t accept. It emotionally shattered him, and he distanced himself from everyone, stopped communicating. The last message with wishes for a safe flight that I received was when I was boarding a plane to Beijing. He passed away that night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the funeral due to being listed as a “traitor of the LNR.” All I have is a photo of his grave that my mom sends twice a year: on his birthday and the day of his death.
I realise my greatest fear: dying isn’t scary because it happens quickly. What scares me is the realisation that if my mom gets sick, I won’t be able to help her. She can’t leave because they took her passport, and she is a doctor.
I remember my father’s words, “I am a doctor, it’s my duty. I won’t leave; I will save people.” A few weeks later, his ambulance was hit.
When the question arose whether I should go to Bucha for the exhumation of bodies from the mass grave, I had no doubts because I had my father’s example. I was guided by the same motives as him. Now I have doubts, maybe I shouldn’t have gone there, considering my current mental state. But back then, I thought I had already seen so many deaths and bodies while working as a paramedic in Luhansk.
Why did what I saw in Bucha affect me so much? Because these people were deliberately and massively killed. When you unearth 119 bodies, you understand that these people were taken somewhere, told something, and they were thinking something in their last moments… Then you look at the lists, nicknames, and you understand that entire families were killed… These aren’t deaths you get used to. These are planned killings of civilians.
Many judges, prosecutors, and lawyers cooperating with the International Criminal Court explained a lot to me. Now I see how difficult it is to prove genocide. But in the first months after the exhumation, we tried to prove it everywhere because it was evident to us. Now I understand that a proper investigation, adherence to procedure, and time are needed to prove the fact of genocide. But it was the most horrifying thing I’ve seen: a trench filled with people who were planting their gardens, painting fences, and buying new TVs just a month ago. Then the Russians came and shot them all with Kalashnikovs.
3. How did the year 2014 change your life?
I believe this year has changed all of our lives: everyone either broke down or moved on. Many people who volunteered back then or now, during the full-scale invasion have died in the war. I could have just been a university lecturer, living in Luhansk, continuing to work in the morgue, but I had to move, so I chose a career as a journalist, and I’ve been working as a journalist and editor for 10 years. If it weren’t for 2014, it’s unlikely all of this would have happened. I probably wouldn’t be known as I am now, I wouldn’t have written a book… It’s all great, but I haven’t been home for almost 10 years, I haven’t seen my mom for almost 6 years because she used to come, but now she can’t. And it’s very difficult.
5. How do you feel about your life now? Do you have any regrets?
I think we’ve all gone crazy. It’s the second year of a full-scale invasion, and we simply have no more moral reserves to cope with the situation.
1. On February 24, 2022, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia began. What was this day like for you? What were your feelings, and how did you react?
A few days before, I had a very bad feeling: since the beginning of February, I had been sleeping poorly, constantly feeling nauseous, unable to understand what was happening to my body. On February 23, my then-wife had a planned business trip to Riga. She was on one of the last civilian flights from Boryspil Airport. I attended an event for journalists, returned, had trouble sleeping, drank a bottle of whiskey, woke up at 8 am to find 19 missed calls and numerous messages on my phone. Sirens were wailing outside. I met with my friend Sasha and his wife, and we went to a bar located in the former U.S. consulate building, where there was a shelter, food supplies, and it was safer.
We formed a team: journalists from “Babel” (Ukrainian online media) and employees of the “Pink Freud” bar. By then, leaving the country was prohibited, transportation had stopped, so we decided that it would be better to stay together. We arranged a large bunker, brought mattresses, connected a washing machine, and arranged for food deliveries from the Capital Market. We started cooking for the army, preparing 300 portions of full breakfast and dinner each day, beginning at 7 am. We didn’t cover lunch because it was still a bar with a smaller kitchen. However, we managed well, and within two weeks, we established a system where volunteers would pick up the food. This is how we spent the first month of the war, and I believe it saved us: we were together, had a makeshift editorial office right in the bunker, wrote news, articles, and even interviews, so we knew what was happening. Everyone with us didn’t read fake news about “Kadyrovtsy” in Obolon (district in Kyiv), and we were always aware of the actual events. I miss those times a bit because it was cool! There was no quarrel, despite the fact that we were strangers from different spheres in a confined space. We helped each other and others: we delivered dog and cat food around Kyiv, and groceries to elderly people whose relatives had left Kyiv.
2. Were you forced to leave Ukraine (perhaps temporarily)? If not, proceed to the next question. If yes, share your experience abroad: were you in one country the whole time, did you move to several countries, did you have to learn a new language, adapt to a new profession, etc.? Where are you now? Do you plan to return to Ukraine when the military actions end?
No. And didn’t even plan to. And even if I could, I wouldn’t have gone.
3. What motivated you to stay in Ukraine? How were these two years of full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine for you? What is your current emotional state?
I fled once in 2014. So I decided that if a major war starts, there’s nowhere to escape because I’m tired of running. Maybe it was fatalism, which many people here have now. But how can you leave Ukraine? It’s like your child is sick and dying, and you abandon them. It’s not possible. So, I stayed and will stay.
My mental state is poor (like everyone here): “the shingles rustles, the roof is slowly sliding off.” In reality, I really want the war to end. I don’t even know what I would do after. Maybe I just want to go into the forest and live there in a hut? Everyone is very tired, but what to do?
Currently, I work as a creative director of a holding company, one of whose projects is “Memorial.” We were the first to start publishing obituaries and photos of the deceased. “Memorial” is not just an image with an obituary; we want to initiate a new culture of remembering the dead, different from the Soviet compulsory one. Our ultimate goal is a physical memorial, but we are still very far from that. We have started many projects: social advertising, a project of diaries of soldiers, printed as books that will go to libraries. We collaborate with many organisations working on similar projects. Currently, it’s still very early-stage work. Unfortunately, we have funding problems, especially for projects about the deceased because no one wants to allocate money for that. But we’re working, exploring experiences of honouring the memory of the dead in different countries, seeking optimal solutions for Ukraine.
I have many acquaintances in the government, and I could use illegal opportunities to leave the country, but I won’t do it on principle.
I think a whole generation of people will come who will want to change, improve, and rebuild. I would like to see that. But I don’t think I or those around me will have the strength for it.
When all this ends, I’ll drop everything and go to another continent, perhaps to Argentina. But for now, we´re here and have to resist.
Ukrainian MEMORIAL platform.
4. What changes and transformations have occurred with you (if any) as a person during these two years of full-scale invasion?
I think I am fundamentally not the person I used to be. I have reconsidered and reevaluated many things. I’ve come to understand that mental health issues exist, and they need to be addressed. I’ve made many mistakes, but also accomplished a lot of good. However, I have changed significantly. I believe this has been the reason for my separation from the woman I lived with for 7 years.
We have all changed: become tougher, more bitter, tired, and battered by fate people.
Many individuals who worked during the war from 2014 to 2022—going to the front lines, writing, assisting, photographing, documenting events—burned out and fell into despair after the full-scale invasion. They stopped doing anything, broke down, at least for the first six months from the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Many people just went to western Ukraine, worked in volunteer centres but didn’t want to directly face the war.
Since 2014, we did a lot: highlighted issues in the front-line territories, told stories about the generation of children born and raised in wartime, supported schools, collected and delivered humanitarian aid to the Donbas. But on February 24, 2022, it became indifferent to me what was happening in the Donbas. For instance, I got a concussion at one of the checkpoints in the Donetsk region while shooting a story. Or when you go to the toilet in this makeshift structure in the field, and they explain to you to bend down during the process so as not to get hit by a bullet. But afterward, you sit on a train or in a car, return to Kyiv, where you walk the dog again, sleep with your wife, go to the cinema, and so on.
And until the next trip, you didn’t even think that now someone is sitting there, someone they’re shooting at. Even for someone like me, from there. But since February 24, 2022, when you saw the videos from Mariupol, when you visited Bucha and Izyum, everything that happened before became completely irrelevant. Firstly. And secondly, you no longer have safe zones. Earlier, you could return to Kyiv, and now whether it’s Kyiv or not, it could be shelled by a Shahed or a missile with a ballistic trajectory. Adding to that the unstable financial situation, unstable political situation, corruption, constant threat of being sent to war due to disrupted mobilisation plans, etc. All of this doesn’t contribute to mental well-being at all, especially when you’ve been living in all of this for two years with no opportunity to breathe and no hope.
I stopped buying new things; I can sleep in guest room in clothes worn all day. It doesn’t matter to me. A pile of things that used to be important now means nothing. You try to plan something, and then there’s an artillery bombardment of Kyiv that lasts for hours, cancelling all your plans. Social connections are minimised. I see what’s happening with my friends—they try to get into the army, even with not very good health, feel guilty for not doing it earlier, although they did a lot: bought drones, organised significant fundraisers… No one wants to live anymore; the taste of life is gone.
To sum it up: we all here understand that we’re screwed, there’s no hope, and all we do is wait to be killed. That’s it. Meanwhile, closing tasks that pile up on you every day. So, no planning, no dreams, and no fantasies.
I didn’t recognize psychologists throughout my life, had some experience with a few, but it didn’t bring any results.
5. If you could go back to 2014, would you do anything differently?
Yes, I think I would. We discussed it several times with friends who were on Maidan. At that time, we believed that we should act softly, from a position of common sense: talk to anti-Maidan activists, explain that we are one country, prove that Russia will betray us, and it’s not worth siding with them. But now I understand that it was all in vain. There was no one to explain to. Force should have been applied: deploying a detachment of soldiers and dispersing the entire crowd near the SBU, arresting these people, and none of this would have happened. That’s what I think now.
Back then, we even came up with a formation called the “Third Path.” Why the third? Because we were against the war. Maybe you remember: one day there was a huge anti-war rally where we tried to sway separatists to our side through persuasion. But now I understand that they would only understand the language of weapons and force.
6. Do you plan your future? If yes, for what term? How do you envision the future of Ukraine?
I’ve planned my future: I’ll mobilise and join the army. Before that, I didn’t have any planning beyond a few days, considering all the shelling and rockets. Planning is quite challenging. But I’ve already made the decision. Now I’m going through the final medical examination, and my unit is already waiting for me.
The audio format of the stories will be available on the Unveiled Ukraine YouTube channel.