Oleksandr:

Okay.

Mary: 

So my name’s Mary Let’s start by Alex by you telling me where you are.

Oleksandr:

So currently I am on the west of Ukraine, in the Carpathian mountains near to the Slovakian border here current day off. And I visited my wife that is near my location, where I actually went to the city to visit her.

Mary: 

So she has stayed in Ukraine as well?

Oleksandr:

Yeah. She stayed in Ukraine also here on the carpathian mountains, in Uzhorrod it’s called.

Mary: 

Do you stay with her most, most nights or are, you know,

Oleksandr:

No, this is the first time in the last two weeks I saw her, actually. So I, most of the time I’m located on the border guard base near the country border.

Mary: 

Okay. Well, let’s start. I would like to start by asking you how 2022 began for you. What did it look like in your country and in your life?

Oleksandr:

Like guessing will a war happened or not? Everyone was like super nervous and super like a lot of dates make assaults happening in their mind. Like, should I run? Should I stay? What will happen? What will happen? I didn’t like believe, like last day that something going to happen, I was like pretty sure that war never, never will

Mary

It’s actually

Oleksandr:

Going to happen. And so I decided Ukraine, so I was like, totally sure that nothing’s going to happen.

Mary: 

And where were you living?

Oleksandr:

I live in the Ukraine in Kyiv, in the capital, almost all my life, like with the sub.

Mary: 

Okay. So tell me about the morning of the 24th.

Oleksandr:

So I remember that that night I was feeling really sick. I like woke up in the middle of the night, somewhere, like at 1:00 AM, one, something like that. And I was like, feeling really bad. I couldn’t sleep, I’m like, I was really hard to get sleep, something like around 5:00 AM or something. I, live near the military base, not so close, like it’s 30 kilometers, something like that, but it’s like a nothing. They’re just the forest. So I heard that really clearly explosions. And I said to my wife, just get it out. So

Oleksandr:

Our stop, like in 15 minutes, I called my parents and ask, wow, well, I can like take you, just pack your stuff. I will be in your house, like in an hour I will get here and we’ll go out from the Kyiv. But they said, we will not go. We will stay in Kyiv. So my parents like declined that they say they will stay. They will want don’t want to go. And they actually currently also stayed there in Kyiv, went nowhere. They stayed all the time in the Kyiv, in their house. We also called to my wife’s parents and ask them, do they want to leave Kyiv? Do we want to pick them up? But two places,

Mary

A lot of friends We have and we picked them up

Oleksandr:

And went to the Parent’s house closer to the Poland border. So we drove about from 6:00 AM to, I think, like a 3:00 PM. And we stayed in the, in their house for like hour and decided to try to cross the Poland border. The time we came to the border, All that’s from You’re below 60 cannot actually cross the border because the, It needs to be like a. To connect in a night’s sleep and decided to go even more courteous to, we stayed there in our friend’s house. And then also try to go even more rest to here to the, in the car, roadblocks and on look at the traffic and the roads between like figure out how you get here

Oleksandr:

Kind of like allow us to live in their house. And the next day I, since I’m a medic, I have a, like a medical degree and the, all the medics in Ukraine, in case of war, they are a military. Like they are required to serve, you know, like they are this and check in in these military base, like you’re as if you are medic. So in the morning and I went to the, this military recruitment center and actually like they said, that’s awesome. You need, we need, we need you. You can like, so they are like called me to recruit me to join forces, like protection forces.

Oleksandr:

This is not like a part of this main forces that there’s actually fighting on the west, all of Ukraine actually. But this is a awesome military forces. They are primary goal is to protect and patrol the border. So I joined them as the paramedic. And so that’s, my service begins. This was the 1st of March.

Mary: 

So tell me how you were feeling as you, as you woke up and then you rushed out of your home. Were, do you feel like you were thinking clearly, were you ignited by fear and tell me what that was like?

Oleksandr:

So of course it’s scary. It’s actually, it’s not really like a funny to look up because of the explosions From your house, but we are actually, because of all the situation in Ukraine with like, we’ll still thinking about that. And this was like, so we decided to like, just grab whatever we can and just go, we’ve had the car, we had the full pool, fuel of gas and then just the went to the best. Yeah.

Mary: 

When you got in your car, what was your very first plan? What was your destination in mind?

Oleksandr:

Yeah, since we already called to our friends, they said they have a parents in this more rest than in the evening or blessed. It’s like a, I think like 500 kilometers from the Kyiv closer to the Poland border. So they had, it has a parents there, they live in the private house and we decided that you go from there because this is like a pretty big house. And we can like stay there for some time.

Mary: 

If, if your friends hadn’t, if your friends had not agreed to go with you, what do you think you would have done?

Oleksandr:

I think we’ll go to the East in that case, I have some friends who you and a lot of people went to the leap is. So I think I, I would, I would go there or at least for a night or something and then go west or something like that. My primary idea was to actually just, you know, run away, take a look, what happens. And then you see,

Mary: 

What’s your sense of the situation in your country during this? Like from the 24th to say to the 26th, was it constantly shifting what you assessed was going on in your country?

Oleksandr:

Yeah, since from 24, it’s her first couple of days, it was like, totally unclear what happens. We’ll we’ll be able to do, like to push them back. We’ll be like, would they hit with some more powerful weapons or they will. And so on. But like, in a couple of days it was like a clear that they are pretty bad in the coordination and the, their plants not really happening. Like they are filing, falling in their plants. And so this was like a more common, you know, you see that they are not able to do what they want to do. The first plan was to capture key in like a day or something. And it was like, totally even not closely, John. So it was like a early, I would say we can actually stand and protect and that’s actually encourage us to like, you know, go back and help. And so from there like that, so that’s actually good news.

Mary: 

Yeah. Yeah. So could you describe for us the kind of military duties you have had,

Oleksandr:

Honestly, that special, as the paramedic, I’m one paramedic for this group? I cannot say like a numbers. If someone is sick, if someone has

Mary

Prefer

Oleksandr:

Pack medicine or their

Mary

Looking forward to some jewels on instruments and

Oleksandr:

So on, that might help us to Some bills, drugs and so on. So I collected a little bit more.

Mary

We all didn’t have a

Oleksandr:

Huge, a lot of stuff. Let’s we collected,

Mary

We got the good 18 years. You must serve for one year

Oleksandr:

In the army. So I know in us, we don’t, you don’t have that, but here is this, You have it like 18 years. So we have a lot of this young guys that actually like was in the middle of their one year serving requirement. And a lot of them was move it

Mary

Interesting places where it’s actually

Oleksandr:

Like a bombarding and so on, whereas like more, more dangerous. So they are like, was transferred from there to this, to

Mary

Also

Oleksandr:

For them to do chicken, if they have some sickness.

Mary

So we had someone that came up

Oleksandr:

Small, like a COVID the spread in, in an hour and all of our base. So I check it, their lungs, check it there, how their do they have a cough or

Mary

A feel so much

Oleksandr:

And how they are

Mary

Or something to try to

Oleksandr:

Our base. Treat whole Ukraine. So a lot of them got sick because they were, they were hiding in the basements and so on.

Mary

It’s not like

Oleksandr:

It’s more like just, you know, a long’s

Mary

Fever.

Oleksandr:

Can you

Mary

Write song? It’s like currently

Mary: 

Alexander where you, did you do any, did you treat any injuries?

Oleksandr:

Small ones. We don’t have like any war action site. Like any like fights here, it’s pretty calm region. So no injuries. Like, I like, you don’t want like head shots or something. We have some like, you know, when we have,

Mary

And sometimes

Oleksandr:

Her injured legs, because like, you know, like

Mary

I was looking like that. It’s like a sensitive say that it’s not that critical, but still

Oleksandr:

Sometimes. So we don’t have like a heart interest here and we don’t have extra

Mary

Place

Oleksandr:

To do some surgeries or something like that. It’s only a small medical cabinet where I can do like SIM simple, simple stuff. Yes. We have mobilization. And then

Mary

We

Oleksandr:

Transfer people to like region base, like with the bigger medical center. So, because

Mary: 

You’re alone. Right? Yeah. What, what are your days like when, when do you begin helping the soldiers?

Mary

Two days ago?

Oleksandr:

Yeah.

Mary: 

Okay.

Oleksandr:

Joined that, our, our location here. And he started to help me with that, but I was alone, but

Mary

He might go

Oleksandr:

To the next location.

Mary: 

Hmm. I’m really curious to hear your observations about the soldiers and like how many do you think were trained in the military and how many were just now volunteering?

Oleksandr:

Oh, excellent. A lot people with

Mary

Experienced

Oleksandr:

On the east of Ukraine. They’re like a veteran. They are,

Mary

We have some space for people

Oleksandr:

In our group in whole, in the whole base. Mostly this

Mary

It’s sort of in there

Oleksandr:

18 years required one, sir.

Mary

Yeah. The next position,

Oleksandr:

It’s mostly more,

Mary

I would say 30, 40 years,

Oleksandr:

45 years. And some of them with the battle experience,

Mary

Most of that was serving before

Oleksandr:

And in the army. I was working as the paramedic in the ICU.

Mary

I had to make a bid close to them

Oleksandr:

Before

Mary

The army. So this is like my first month.

Mary: 

Did you see a difference between had, had experienced Go ahead.

Mary

Yes. I would say yes Again, like, you know, some equipment,

Oleksandr:

But that’s actually things that you can easily Learn

Mary

And figure out what we need

Oleksandr:

To get for you.

Mary

We have a pretty good supply here, Damian.

Mary: 

Hmm.

Mary

The boots and so on.

Oleksandr:

I have a, I have a, we got from the, and you don’t like that. You want to like, so for example, you want a better, like a jacket or something like additional hat where you want to change something, you know, like some summer brand. So you can, and people from David backwards because they know, and we need to order that thing. It’ll be helping us. Do you understand that we might need and what do you need to throw away? And don’t take with you because every, every like a back of every, her shoulders that you be carrying on the use, so you need to be really careful what you take in with you and what you don’t need. A S like this, you should, you should draw it. This is like, so they help him to, with this oldest equipment,

Mary: 

How, how have the spirits been among the soldiers? What is the mood been?

Oleksandr:

It’s a pretty good mood. When I was like, in this recruitment center, there was like a hundreds of people it’s actually, I would say most of them was like super motivated to serve the joint portion. One, be like, it is not capable to serve in the army. It’s you need to have. Yeah. So it’s pretty strict. You have some, like, I don’t know, like old traumas or something like that. You could take a rest, but because of this work, oldest rules are super lowered. And I mean, almost everyone is now. Yeah. So I would say 1990 5% of the people I’ll check on their opinion equipment center.

Mary:  

So my question was, are you aware of the kind of news that Russians are listening to?

Oleksandr:

Oh yeah. For sure. Everyone is discussing like crushing news here because it’s like totally different reality. I don’t know where they’re getting information, but that’s like, seems like they’re are just, this is like totally imagination. I don’t know where they get those information. They’re saying like we have some military basis. We have some, like, I dunno, Nazis here. Like I go in and like hurting the peaceful people and so on. And they was like, totally sure that they, when they will join, go with their forces, where all just say thank you to them. And this will be released. So crash has actually captured Ukraine and so on. I didn’t know where they get those information. And it seems like it’s a absolutely some, I dunno know imagination from some of the sick people. And th th they are sources is totally wrong. And I didn’t know why.

Oleksandr:

Why is actually, they are so pushing with this information, but yeah, we, we actually see this news and the problem is in Russia, most of the people watching television and television, and it’s totally controlled by government and they can actually feed any information. They, they want in people that mostly get information from the intranet. They can like, at least choose what to watch or what to listen. And mostly those people in Russia are understanding what happens. And they are understanding that this is actually where television per saying, it’s not even worry. It’s like special military operation. And like only some people that in Russia that is actually getting information from internet are more aware of, of real situation here. So I have some like France from it, my, like that I met on different conferences and so on people that I was working before, like at 10 years ago and so on. So, and they are mostly like, shocked with all this what happens. And, but Joes who watching television, they’re totally sure that everyone is everything is goes right. And they don’t understand what happens. Like they, they leave in some images in there, like fiction,

Mary: 

Right? How does it make you feel to hear this?

Oleksandr:

It’s, it’s actually a really how to say that it’s like, you, you getting tired of that because you like, see how these people are getting fooled. And because of the, just some crazy ideas, people are dying and the cities are destroyed and that’s all because of this. Some seek ideas that is actually lead to nowhere. I don’t know why if they will give what, what, why they are actually trying to achieve. What’s the actually final goal.

Mary: 

Yeah.

Oleksandr:

I don’t understand what is actually their final goal here. And I just need to protect ourselves. This is again, the zombies, since this is like that,

Mary: 

Alexander, how have your spirits been? How have you been feeling?

Oleksandr:

So I feel in actually that we can handle that, but we need like more support because w on the army, a lot of the weapons are not capable to be used, not, not able to be used. A lot of the chunks, tanks and cars and stock is actually doesn’t work. Everything is stolen there, but still they have a pretty huge army and a lot of people, and we are currently, we are like taking all our CAPA capable resources that we have. And there is a lot of preparation currently happening for a new people that has joined army. Like a lot of the, my friends has actually joined army as well and preparing to like a training. And in like in the, in the, like a forced, able to do some mental tasks, you know, by, yeah. So all our possible.

Mary

Yep.

Oleksandr:

Actually you cannot fight with your, you know, fists against tank,

Mary

Excuse me. Some,

Oleksandr:

So we can handle that and this,

Mary

Yeah.

Oleksandr:

Like good defending. We don’t like we stop at the army of Russian army.

Oleksandr:

A lot of the places that they took for, they got like a huge casualties now trying to like regroup and so on. But we also prepare them for that. A lot of the people are, are, so we were like protect our Eastern part of Ukraine by everything we can. So I would say like next couple of weeks will be very important. And if we will stand for next couple of weeks, we have a huge chance as to actual windows that in this morning we don’t plan to like capture Moscow or something like that. We just need to protect our border and the sexually it. So, so people are pretty positive here. So, but mostly people don’t like, don’t, we don’t have a panic, like a hair. Everything is like a real lost everything. People are now pretty cold. They were like, you know, it’s already more than 40 days a war. So people like regrouped. Some of the people like left Ukraine. A lot of the people actually came back in our group. You have a five guys that asked

Mary

To join the

Oleksandr:

Army. And a lot of people are, are getting back to Ukraine to

Mary

We experienced

Oleksandr:

The middle extremes.

Mary: 

Okay. Have you talked to them about why they left and why they’re returning?

Oleksandr:

Yeah. It’s actually pretty obvious reasons because

Mary

Country and that we need to protect their families.

Oleksandr:

Mostly people are trying to work

Mary

And

Oleksandr:

Everyone who cannot like who can be in danger And trying to help or so we have like, and we have a kind of, you know, but let me just the forces in the city, that’s protecting the special region, you know, like are getting, get,

Mary

For example, all defense forces.

Oleksandr:

And this is actually a lot of people. Joy

Mary

Is that like,

Oleksandr:

Like self organized forces to protect their region, their streets, their cities and villages and so on. And I don’t know exact numbers, but there is a lot of my friends enjoy that dose forces.

Mary

Yeah.

Oleksandr:

And so on. So currently we, we have like regular army is in pretty good shape, but also this special lecture, tutorial, defense forces, it is not part of the regular army, but a lot of people after they’re served for this territorial defense forces, they are go back, switch to this irregular army and they get like fully like soldiers package, like with the celery, with the equipment and so on. So when they start, usually people can enjoy this regular forces.

Mary: 

Okay. What are people’s feelings about Zelenskyi?

Oleksandr:

So before war, it was like a, you know, 50/50

Mary

Going down slowly two years, because like I could probably still,

Oleksandr:

But people was like see

Mary

And the work is slowly going down.

Oleksandr:

But after the war started, his support feature is not like a 90% or some crazy numbers, even some joke. I don’t know if you hear that about if in the United States president election would happen. Now, the landscape would win it because even in United States,

Oleksandr:

Everyone now trust in Zelensky a lot. He is actually, this first days was like, people did their best. And actually he also did his best. And everyone is understanding that there’s not time for people to know, you know, like, Hey, I would, that I would do that different. I would do that better to Zelensky’s bad because he did something not like needed or something like that. So people know is United is super United because everyone has this to understand that this is enemy is Russia not, we shouldn’t like fight a day, like a one against another here in Ukraine, we have like a clear outside enemy and everywhere There is like a w had like a pretty strong position, but everyone is now say it has no time for like, trying to get some better percentage on the elections. There’s time to unite against like enemy. So, and the people, a lot of the opposition leaders, like a former president of <inaudible>, he is actually was under arrest because of this. Some, some open cases against him, but he is now said, no, forget about that. We will support existing president and so on. And people now is United. And the, his like support level is extremely high.

Mary: 

Yeah. Have your feelings about being Ukrainian shifted since the war began?

Oleksandr:

Yes, I would say now I clearly understand why, well, my oldest, like history lessons that we had before, what, what might, what does actually, we’ve had like a lot of this, you know, fights with the Russian before and I, and everyone is like one more time understands exactly who is actually our enemy. And my like, so I now understand that this is like only chance for us to win. This is to be United as a nation and to be strong. And this is not like it is war wins. Not only with the number of troops number of weapons you have, but also with a strong will that you have. And I understand that if we will be strong, we will be like a stand in showing that we’re not afraid of that. And we will win. Definitely. And now I actually really proud to be like a part of this army to, to be part of the forces and to be like helpful here to be like a sporadic, to help people to recover from those young guys too, like a Hilder and so on.

Oleksandr:

And we like preparing to go to the next missions. I don’t know what that will happen. It’s all secret, but we might go, I dunno, even tomorrow or a week or whatever, to some, I dunno, Eastern parts of Ukraine or some other regions to protect some border patrol and so on. So we are actually ready here. It’s just like, it’s of course it’s a scary, you don’t know what it will be there, how it will go, but you, you always like trying to think this will be good. So with the support that we have here, it seems like we can do anything because volunteers are providing us with a lot of staff. We got a lot of, and a lot of equipment and the, so, so it seems like w w w we like in good shape and we like, we’re ready to go to some other missions might be two, might be sent.

Mary: 

Wow. Do you have any sense of the source of the supplies? Is it mostly from your own country or is it also from Western support? Do you know?

Oleksandr:

Yeah, we had some, so we currently did our exact group, or we don’t have like some huge requests. It’s only about medicine, this, some of the equipment, like clothes, helmets, and so on. I know we got a lot of medicine from Slovakia because it’s like super close to their border and they just send us a couple of boxes, huge boxes with the medicine, and we need to learn, and we will translate or try to figure out what this table is for, because they have a different language, like learning some slow hockey on here. And so we’ve got a lot of medicine from Slovakia. A lot of my friends are asking, do I need something to Jeff, responding to crane? And we all received.

Oleksandr:

So part of that, that we actually in this extra stuff for us, we don’t need that much. We sent to people on the east that more like the, there’s my need, this like, like blood stop and turn the cats and so on some close it. So we got a lot of, but that can help us with this delivery and ordering of teams and try, and the oldest stuff. So I know there is a lot of, a lot of like more advanced staff that is sent to Ukraine, like tanks and so on, but that’s all goes to the east and here on the west, we don’t have that. It’s all, everything is goes to the more like a w w whereas a war is actually happening here in the Western spirit cold currently. So we just trying to train as much as we can and prepare to be deployed summer.

Mary: 

My impression from the news is that most of the, the attacks are on civilians like hospitals. I think it was a train terminal. Is that your impression as well?

Oleksandr:

I think they are just trying to bump everything they can, and they not selectively trying to point somewhere. They just see some building. Let’s send some rocket to that,

Mary: 

But the indiscriminate,

Oleksandr:

I don’t know why they need to, for example, send drug to the railway station in. Yes, it was clear and understandable. Just people trying to get out from this city. And they are with the one rocket that was like with the, it, it was breathing moment for the childrens. I don’t know why, what the children’s, they try to protect, but about 60 people died and about 10 children’s diets from the trunk. And they are, seems like to be bombed in just everything they could reach. They even sent couple of rockets to Levine region and they hit some, some, some object there. I know some of the rockets were sent to just hospitals and so on. I don’t know. Actually, I even heard from this guys they’d have a battle experience that it’s better when we will be on the closer to the front line to get all of your markets, like your, you know, ideas.

Oleksandr: 

We have like a dispatches with our names and so on. It’s better to take them away and hide that. And even if I medic, so I have this, you know, like red cross is better to hide that. Not like, put it on your closes because person or something, they might be like, just, Hey, this medic, he might save some lives. It’s better to kill him because like his, like, he, he will be like us saving, like our enemies. So everyone is putting their marks, summer officers as well, like trying to hide everything. So we don’t like on the front line, people are usually take away their marks because no one is looking like, if your medical or your journalist or your press or whatever, they just seeing someone killing someone. No one checks. If you’re a peaceful or not,

Mary: 

Wow. Is there anything you would like to share before we end our conversation?

Oleksandr: 

Actually, I can say that don’t worry. We were pretty good shape here. People are motivated. We are pretty good here. Just send us more weapons. Just send us more, whatever you have, like support ban oil. Then when gas, whatever to stop feeling this ration budget. But people here are super motivated. We’re seeing like support from the United States. Everyone is totally agree that the United States is our ally. And like, this is like a, in this hard times, it’s really shows who’s our friends is who is not. And it is good to know that we have like this strong support from the west. And so we’ve pretty assured that everything will be good. I don’t know how long it might take mouses or maybe year or maybe two, but so we will do whatever we need to do. So if we can help and serve, if I can help and serve. So I will do that.

Mary: 

I hope you understand how inspiring Ukraine is right now to the whole world.

Oleksandr:

Oh, I hope I hope I don’t read like a lot on the Western news. I see some of the like news and it seems like everyone is shocked and everyone is like, surprised with this, how we actually defend ourselves. So I hope this will be, this will continue in the future.

Mary: 

Well, your, your unity, your cooperation, your optimism. It is what the world needs. Now. Now we just need to end this war, right?

Oleksandr:

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But not with surrender. We need to get back up all our people and save as many lives as we can.

Mary: 

Thank you for setting such an extraordinary example. Really?

Oleksandr:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for this interview