It is Mykola Denysiuk, my fellow countryman from the village of Lavriv near Lutsk, who brought Volodymyr-Volynsky volunteers Kostiantyn Zinkevych and Oleksii Panasiuk to Hamburg, Germany. I can remember turmoil in the village when he was very seriously wounded near Ilovaisk. Only a week ago he was transferred from the resuscitation department to a “common” ward, but another operation is awaiting him. Whenever you hear that an acquaintance of yours has met another one in a foreign country, you see that the world is very small and only kindness can save it. And it is kindness that has brought these people together. Lieutenant Denysiuk was one of the critically wounded in the undeclared war in eastern Ukraine whom German clinics chose to admit on September 2. Once Mykola came to, he began to search for his comrade-in-arms Andrii. The Ukrainians who had been living in Germany for a long time and willing to address the Ukrainian military’s problems, asked volunteer Zinkevych to help him.
“We found Mykola’s comrade-in-arms in Lutsk, where he was finishing medical treatment,” Kostiantyn says. “Fellow countrymen invited us to Hamburg, where we had already bought two automobiles for the Ukrainian military with the money raised by volunteers.”
Five Ukrainian servicemen are being treated at a military hospital and a civilian clinic in Hamburg. Kostiantyn says they really had very serious wounds and, unfortunately, one guy has died in spite of all the efforts of German doctors. One wounded soldier had his viscera injured by the blast wave, another had his whole face and a half of his thigh’s muscles torn away, and still another had a compound fracture of a leg and, because of suppuration, he had 20 cm of the bone removed. Some have just gone up months after being wounded and treated, some other are still far from being cured (it takes 600 days to augment the bone). Surgery awaits almost all the Ukrainian servicemen.
“They are incredibly courageous people!” Kostiantyn says. “The wounded had to cheer up Oleksii Panasiuk and me, when we felt sick to see their wounds. They began to banter us. It is hard to fancy what horror they went through in this undeclared war. They are the most courageous people: Lieutenant Denysiuk from the 51st Brigade, Vadym from the National Guard (he comes from Zolochiv), Serhii Chumak from the Donbas Battalion, Sashko Chornoloz (25th Brigade), Andrii Shamburov (72nd Brigade). They still have so much to go through and hold out!”
German doctors are very meticulous and work wonders, transplanting the skin and muscles millimeter by millimeter. They even promise to reconstruct the face as it is on a photo. We must admit that not all of these guys would have survived if they had stayed behind in Ukraine.
A great deal of help is coming to our wounded from the Ukrainian volunteers who have been living in Germany for a long time but have not forgotten their homeland. They tend our boys round the clock, for there is a bad need in interpreters, they receive Ukrainian relatives of the wounded at home. Our volunteers also met the wives of two servicemen there. Even the Germans are surprised with this self-sacrifice, and some of them do not believe that this is being done out of mercy and absolutely without money. Visiting Kostiantyn and Oleksii raised the spirits of the wounded – this even helped find some common acquaintances. Those who were allowed to were given Ukrainian sunflower seeds (such a treat!), halvah, and small gifts.
“The boys’ eyes lit up when they recalled battles in Lysychansk, where Vadym fought side by side with our Spasionov [a 51st Brigade officer killed in the east. – Author]. The same happened to tank man Andrii when he heard that the brigade’s 1st Armored Company would be equipped with Bulat tanks and to Mykola when we told him that we had found his friend Andrii after a long search,” Kostiantyn says.
“Boys, may God protect you! Let your families and yourselves be strong and patient!” the Volyn volunteers wished at parting.
