"I'm going to train young people": soldier from Kherson Oblast returns to duty after getting prosthetic leg

Serviceman Andrii Marchuk is returning to service after undergoing amputation and getting a prosthetic leg. Andrii has been defending Ukraine since 2014.

Source: Ministry of Health of Ukraine

Andrii comes from Kherson Oblast. He joined the army straight after the Maidan protests in 2014. The full-scale war started in the ninth month of his rotation. On 24 February 2022, Andrii was in Luhansk Oblast.

Quote: "We knew that we would be attacked, so we gathered and waited for the command. The first day was tough," Andrii recalls.

On 12 February 2023, the defender was wounded near Kreminna when he stepped on an anti-personnel mine.

Andrii was evacuated to Sloviansk, where his leg was examined and anaesthetised. It was later amputated in Kramatorsk. The defender spent another month in hospitals in Dnipro and Rivne before travelling to Lviv for rehabilitation at the Superhumans Center, a clinic specialising in prosthesis, reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Andrii was fitted with a prosthetic leg in hospital, and in a month he’ll be returning to duty as the chief instructor of his battalion.

"I’ll be training young people," Andrii says.

Andrii had wanted to own a bicycle since he was a child, so one of the Lviv cycling clubs invited him round. Andrii started cycling a month after he was discharged. At first he worked out on an exercise bike, but he’s now confidently cycling in the streets.

Andrii has a pet – an American bulldog he calls Tezka ("Namesake").

"My call sign is Babai. And when I went to buy him, I saw that his passport said 'Babai'," Andrii recalls.

Tezka stayed at the centre with Andrii throughout his entire rehabilitation.

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