By Solomiya Syvyk
News Editor

Rostuslav Volchynskuy, from the town of Zhydachiv in Western Ukraine, was drafted into the military on Oct. 8, 2012 at 18 years old. He began in the V.D.V.; the soldiers specialized in this portion are the first to arrive at the sites of military interventions via parachute from a helicopter. After exactly four months, he, along with fellow soldiers, agreed to serve by contract, thus traveling throughout Ukraine to receive a higher education which focused on tactics in war.

In the final weeks of Nov. of 2013, civil unrest and mass protests dominated Ukraine in the form of the Euromaidan which held the purpose of gaining and maintaining a free and pro-western nation. On March 1, 2014, the trepidation began inside the walls of the army because it was prominent to the majority of the country that the Crimean peninsula was going to be annexed by the Russian Federation; this is when the militarization began.

“We departed on March 8, were trained as a regiment of 500, and later left, first to Myrhorod, then to Kharkiv, in order to safeguard these regions,” said Volchynskuy. “We dug trenches, aiming at our priority to take every possibility and circumstance into account; for ourselves and for the weaponry,” Volchynskuy continued. “Ukraine is reasonably rural, with open fields, where crops used to flourish. Our weapons could feasibly be bombed and destroyed by the separatists. We dug so it would be more difficult for them to locate our supplies. We also dug for our own safety; it isn’t difficult to spot and aim at a person in those open fields.”

After completing this precautionary strategy, the regiment was divided into battalions and Rostyslav Volchynskuy was stationed at the Luhansk airport. An underground bunker was established for their battalion, one that, although old, was technically designed to withstand airstrikes; there, they were considered safe.

In the beginning, for the first several weeks, the separatists from the Luhansk People’s Republic used only words, warning the soldiers to leave ‘their’ land; they showed them photographs of mortars, so as to confirm that their threats were not empty. This land, which belongs to and is nestled in Ukraine, was taken by the Russia-backed separatists; they took control of it, along with the villages filled with Ukrainian people.

When the soldiers remained in their positions, the shooting began. At first, it was scattered, here and there. As the soldiers, to protect a village, used the process of zachistka (mopping up of the operation) in one direction, the separatists sought out and attacked another village while it stood defenseless. “They destroyed entire towns. Homes were gone; some were burned, others no longer had roofs, and windows were shot out,” said Volchynskuy.

The towns’ residents’ perspectives, toward which country they belonged to, differentiated. While the majority comprehended the reasoning for the military’s presence, to return them permanently to their nation, some were angry because of the ruination.

Initially, most of the villagers moved away, frightened by the sounds of shots being constantly fired; but, for many others, barriers such as the lack of wealth or finding another residency stood in their way of resettling. The remaining villagers were mostly elderly. These people were born in the villages and spent their entire lives in those same locations, building homes and raising families.

For the first couple of months, from midnight to approximately 5 a.m., no one normally fired. Although night vision equipment was acquired, the separatists stood in their positions four to five kilometers from the soldiers and neither side could sufficiently see their opponents. Six soldiers kept watch during the night at all times, substituting every two hours to ensure maximum alertness.

On account of foodstuffs, planes arrived every two to three days and parachuted the necessities in a box to the battalion since there was no safety zone to allow the usage of vehicles. Until their lives were placed at risk, and even for some, that did not cease their visitations, villagers continued to provide aid when supplies were at a minimum.

As the days continued, the fighting intensified and the artillery for the Ukrainian soldiers dwindled as the 72nd Russian Regiment joined the separatists. The army was forced to exhaust their artillery, firing 5,000 times from weaponry designed for a maximum of 2,000 shots; this hindered the chances of the soldiers hitting their targets. The B.T.R.s were set on fire, burning the military vehicles themselves, along with the belongings and artillery inside.

“The most terrifying part was the path from the bunker to one’s position. It was built with two narrow exits and to get to your position, you had to go up two steps to leave the bunker, but as soon as you run out, there were not only bullets flying past you, but bombs were being dropped on each side of your body,” said Volchynskuy.

During the last two months, the fighting escalated relentlessly. The battalion received its own medics which maintained their own closed off area in the bunker. When an injured soldier was brought in, the medic was to inform whether he required immediate attention or whether he is stable enough with first aid for several days. The main priority was to first take away the soldiers who were severely wounded and needed to be urgently transported to a hospital. It was common for the helicopter to transfer the wounded to another country due to proximity purposes in order to find specialized surgeons capable of saving a body part or internal organs.

When a soldier died in the field, it was the job of the men in the bunker and the medics, if they were available, to retrieve the body. “The terminals in the airport had these little stores; they had generators that were used prior to the abandonment. With the help of these generators we managed to make the freezers work and use them to store the oilcloth wrapped bodies. At the first opportunity, they would be taken away. We couldn’t do anything else,” added Volchynskuy.

In late August, another battalion which was trained for three months prior, becoming prepared to fill in the current soldiers’ positions., was rotated in. They arrived, but not on time.
“Then came the day when the forest bowed down to the nine tanks which made their way over to us; we had only two military vehicles remaining at that point and a limited amount of weaponry. There was no comparison and little room to think,” said Volchynskuy. When the soldiers caught sight of the approaching tanks, they hastened out of the bunker to not only alert those remaining villagers, but to find safety for them as well.

On Sept.1, 2014, Rostuslav Volchynskuy’s battalion was squeezed out and escaped to meet with their rotation. The equipped substitution of soldiers departed for the airport as the remaining 167 soldiers were dispatched home.

Upon return, Volchynskuy was sent to a military hospital for further examination due to health concerns. He was diagnosed with a constricted artery, which causes an insufficient amount of blood to reach his brain. It was advised that he not return to the army unless a war is officially declared. Regardless the effects, Rostuslav is continuing his studies in Law in the university in Ivano Frankivsk.