“It all started for me on May 20,” Roman, 25, says when I ask him when he faced the reality of war. And the following events changed his views on life forever.
Roman comes from Mala Vyska in Kirovohrad oblast. I remember him as a young boy in a green striped sweater. He was calm and appeared to be a completely phlegmatic person, he paid no attention to disasters and catastrophes of the time when being late to a class or forgetting a gym suit for a PT class could be one. And now, 20 years later, his voice is as calm as when he was a first-grader. But his eyes are not the same.
Razilevych was conscripted into the 79th detached airborne brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on March 26. He went through a month of training and arrived in Donbas on May 20.
“I lied to my parents that our division was in Kherson oblast. I did not want them to worry. I said we were at a firing ground. While in reality, it was a war already. We participated in border control missions from Amvrosiivka to Dovzhansky checkpoint,” Razilevych says.
Razilevych and his comrades got under Grad volley fire in Luhansk oblast, near the ill-famed village of Zelenopillia. According to him, militants’ dynamic actions started with this strike.
“A lot of my friends did not even wake up... My countryman from Lozovatka Viktor Boiko, who died later from blood loss, was among the injured. May they rest in peace...” Razilevych recollects.
He received complex injuries to his leg and back (a splinter went right through) in that fight. “I changed a lot after I was in a real war. We were waiting for rain to at least somehow wash the dirt off, shared one cigarette between three of us, ate once per day because the humanitarian aid simply did not reach us... But all this is mere trifle compared to the nightmares the war brings, compared to destruction and death,” Razilevych shares. “After the received injury and four surgeries, while staying at a military hospital for a month and a half, I started seeing life in a different way. I reconsidered everything all over. When I was transported to a hospital, I was only thinking how to call my parents and tell them I’m alright, that I’m still training at a firing ground. I did not have a phone but I knew my parents’ number by heart. So, I told them for another 10 days that I’m fine. I continued lying until I dared tell them where I was and what happened to me. This news was very painful for them. And I had a feeling as if I had been reborn.”
“This war started back in Crimea,” Razilevych thinks. “And now it is our country’s war for independence from Russia. Besides, it has another format too, because an information war is going on. Russian propaganda and distortion of events in Ukraine serve as a basis for brainwashing people, who can afterwards be used according to the government’s whim. While we fight in Donbas, another army has to wage war in the information field: online, on TV, in show business. Another weapon we can use is ignore Russian goods, purge the top command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from people whose relatives serve in the Russian Federation’s army. Only under such circumstances can we believe in victory.”
“I also know for certain that the aggressor does not need patriots who fight for independence and creation of new Ukraine. But I am convinced: this war can only end with our victory, but for this we all need to join the efforts. Help our army with whatever you can, because people who do not want to feed their own army, will soon feed their enemy’s. I and the boys have understood that for sure,” Razilevych sums up.
