"If you can't cope with your emotions, you're dead": the story of a National Guardsman who liberated Kherson Oblast
Ukrainian defenders fight daily for our country’s borders and are liberating the territory of Ukraine piece by piece. Viktor is one of the guardsmen who took part in the liberation of Kherson Oblast.
The National Guard member told his story.
Viktor has been an athlete since he was a child. He holds a Sports Master’s degree in athletics and rankings in pankration and close quarters combat. He has served in the National Guard since 2016.
His sporting career ended when he suffered a serious injury. Viktor could even have qualified as disabled, but after undergoing rehabilitation, he volunteered to go to the front line.
Viktor during the liberation of Kherson Oblast from the invaders. Photo: National Guard
"Viktor's comrades in sports also went to the front, because they couldn't have done otherwise," the National Guard command says.
Viktor made his first combat appearance in the village of Novopavlivka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
"From morning to evening, the enemy fired everything they had, only taking half an hour for a break. To complete the first combat mission, [which was] to scout the positions of the invaders, you had to stock up on exceptional endurance. Then the thought struck me: if you can't cope with your emotions, you're dead," the guardsman remembers.
Viktor added that for many more months after that, death followed him and his comrades all the time. However, he says, he "knows what he's fighting for".
Together with his comrades, Viktor carried out reconnaissance manoeuvres, engaged in aerial reconnaissance, evacuated the wounded, and handed over captured invaders to the Red Cross.
Commenting on the Russians’ motivation to fight against Ukraine, Viktor concluded that they are trying to earn money and are afraid of being sent to prison in their own country. Unlike them, Ukrainians want to liberate their homeland from the aggressor. He remembers the incredible joy with which ordinary people who had lived under the invaders’ occupation for a long time met the Ukrainian military.
Viktor recalled a poignant moment when he and his comrades liberated one of the settlements in Kherson Oblast.
"We went to a house where an entire family lived: Mum, Dad, their children, and the 87-year-old grandmother. According to the family, the grandmother had spent the entire period of the occupation living in the basement of the house because of the shelling. When we asked if we could visit her (it was her birthday), the family members looked back at the door and there was a silent scene: the old woman, who could not walk because of her disability, hearing us talking in Ukrainian, had come up from the basement on her own and was standing in the doorway with tears in her eyes. We all hugged silently, like family."
He adds that in every family in Kherson Oblast, they were given a liberators' welcome.
Finally, Viktor stressed that he does not want to be called a hero. The main reward for him, he says, would be the liberation of all the territories of Ukraine from the Russian invaders and our victory.
Diana Krechetova
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