"The hardest thing is reporting soldiers' deaths": policeman from Luhansk Oblast fights against Russians together with his son
Lieutenant Colonel Dmytro Borodavkin is a police officer from Luhansk Oblast. In his line of work, Dmytro has not only killed Russian occupiers, he has also had to dig graves for civilians killed in the war and bury them. He says the hardest thing is reporting the deaths of soldiers.
Source: National Police of Ukraine
Details: In 2014, Dmytro witnessed a militant group’s attempts to take over the building of the Main Directorate of Police in the city of Luhansk. He was an active participant in the resistance movement against the occupying authorities.
Back then, when he was working in the State Traffic Police in the settlement of Lutuhyne, Dmytro decided to take a hardware-software system, which the militants of the so-called "Luhansk People’s Republic" wanted to use to print fake documents, to the city of Kharkiv.
In February 2022, Dmytro and his colleagues took out all the weapons [stored in the police department – ed.] as well so as not to let the Russians get hold of them. He then returned to the city of Lysychansk as a part of a combined unit.
"On top of being police officers, my colleagues and I became guards for our repair workers who maintained the power grids during attacks, and for volunteers delivering medicine. When there was no one left in the city, we organised refuse collections, cleaned the streets, buried citizens [who had been killed in the attacks – ed.]; sometimes we even had to dig the graves ourselves," Dmytro recalls.
Dmytro has delivered fuel to Lysychansk many times. Even after the police had to relocate to the city of Bakhmut, Dmytro continued delivering much-needed basic essentials to an outpost in Luhansk Oblast for as long as he could.
The police officer has often come under Russian fire and has been injured, but always refused to go to hospital.
Dmytro has had to report the deaths of soldiers. He says this was the hardest part of his work.
"A dead soldier was brought in. I had to describe the state of his body. He had no papers, only a phone. Suddenly I saw a message from his daughter come up on the screen: ‘Hello, Daddy’. At that moment my heart was torn to pieces."
When the full-scale Russian invasion started, Dmytro had to take his wife and parents to a safer location.
"The war has made me realise that what’s always important in a person’s life is reliable support. For me, that’s my family. So for their sake, I am ready to fight for our future," Dmytro says.
Dmytro has two sons who, just like their father, both want to protect what is dear to them against all odds.
His elder son joined the army as a volunteer and is serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The other one is studying at university, and he plans to join the military as well.
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