Valentin Ilchuk (38) stands behind a wooden fence in the village of Lukyanivka northwest of Kyiv. The date is March 24, 2022. The battles are raging around him. There are flames, explosions and volleys of gunfire. The father of the toddler thinks he has found a safe position for himself and his weapon. From here he can observe the enemy and shoot back. Then he sees it: a Russian tank, barely 60 meters away. The cannon is pointed straight at him. Is it over now? Far from victory – Even today, when I close my eyes, I can see the tank with the small red circle around the cannon’s muzzle, says Valentin on the phone from Ukraine. Before the war, he lived a completely normal life. He was a web designer and ran a large international company. When Putin’s soldiers poured across the border from Russia, his life changed dramatically. Like many thousands of Ukrainians, he volunteered as a soldier to defend his homeland. Vladimir Putin envisioned the war in Ukraine to be a short and effective campaign. One year after the invasion, Russia is still a long way from victory, and there is little indication that the war will end anytime soon. The efforts of volunteer Ukrainians like Valentin are one of the reasons for that, several experts believe. The Russian forces first tried to take Kyiv, but met strong resistance and retreated. They then concentrated their efforts in the south and east of Ukraine. Last summer, the Russians had control over large areas. The Ukrainians started a counter-offensive. Last November, Russian forces withdrew from Kherson. It was considered a great victory for Ukraine. Now the hardest fighting is taking place in the areas of Bakhmut and the village of Vuhledar. The first time news spoke to Valentin Ilchuk last spring, he was part of a group of friends who had signed up to protect Kyiv. Many, like him, had experience from the front at Donbas in 2014. There, Russian-backed separatists took control of the area and declared independence from Ukraine. Since then, there has been an ongoing conflict. It was there that Valentin gained his first six months of war experience. In the following years, several of his friends with similar experiences have kept in close contact. Immediately after the invasion, Valentin’s gang gathered in Kyiv. From a secret base they prepared for the great battle for the capital. With their knowledge of everything from sharpshooting to reconnaissance and evacuation, they became an important part in the defense of the capital, along with other volunteers and the military. – I fear an urban war could become bloody, said Valentin when news spoke to him a few days into the war. Massive resistance from many Ukrainians meant that the Russians did not succeed in taking Kyiv. One month after the outbreak of war, Valentin and the group he is now part of are given the mission in Lukyanivka northwest of the capital. Now he will really get to experience the war on his body. – War is usually not like in the movies, where everyone is shooting wildly around while running crosswise all the time. War in reality is a lot of planning and endless waiting. But what happened in Lukyanivka could have been in a Hollywood movie, says Valentin. After staring into the mouth of the Russian cannon, he begins to run for his life. – I shouted as much as I could to warn my people who were further away. I was fully aware that if they fired a round with the machine gun from the tank, I would be injured at best, killed at worst. There is nowhere to seek coverage. Amazingly, the Russians don’t shoot at him. – Either they didn’t see me, or they decided that I wasn’t important enough. The Russian tank rounds a corner and fires, but misses the first shot. If the Russians had hit, they could have been wiped out, he says. When evening comes, the village is liberated. Of the force of 120, five to six men have lost their lives, according to Valentin. Three or four were injured. Whenever Valentin is in extreme situations, his head takes on a life of its own. The mind works in high gear. He visualizes that he has been hit, and imagines what the family’s life will be like afterwards. – It’s crazy, but I guess it’s a psychological reaction. It means that I accept that the situation is as it is and prevents me from being frightened then and there. After a year of war, Valentin’s smile is still in place. But the photos he posts on social media and his tone on the phone reveal that he is not unaffected. Both beard and hair have taken on shades of grey, the voice is more subdued and the look bears witness to a life lived. – Do you remember what you said was your greatest fear at the start of the war? – That the world should forget the war. I now realize that is not going to happen. As much as the Russians have put us through, we are past the point of forgetting. It’s sad, but the facts. In four short words, Valentin IIchuk describes his life now: – Uncertainty, constant change, loneliness. Valentin explains that they never know what awaits them, whether what comes is good or bad. During the year they have fought on three different fronts; Kyiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya. Along the way, they have lived in many different, temporary places. Although he is with what he describes as a wonderful group of friends, it is lonely. Companionship is not the same as family, he explains. Everyday life is characterized by seriousness, but soldiers also need to laugh. When one day they come across an out-of-tune piano in a bombed-out room, Valentin sits down in the hope of giving his fellow soldiers a good laugh: The nightmare of war On the same day that Valentin and his comrades set course for Kyiv and the war, his wife Diana, daughter Leia fled aged six and the mother-in-law of Tallinn in Estonia. – We had already packed our bags when our daughter woke up to the first explosions, says Diana. From the safety of their new temporary home, they try to live as normal a life as possible. – Our daughter will never forget the sound of the first explosions. Every time other children here enjoy fireworks, she gets scared. Right from the start of the war, Valentin has tried to explain to his daughter why he has to fight. They have always been a patriotic family. Leia has previously proudly told the school that she has a father who fought in Donbas in 2014. But sometime last summer, Valentin received a clear message from the six-year-old: – Don’t talk about the war anymore, I get nightmares at night. The small family uses video calls to tell each other about ordinary, everyday things. They light the Christmas tree together. Talking about school, playing games. – Before the war, we were a tight little family who did so much together. Now I dream of when we can meet and be together in real life, not just via a screen, says Diana. It was clear from the start that Valentin had to stay in Ukraine and fight. – When he went off to war for the first time in 2014, I was almost shocked. This time I understood that this was something he had to do. That’s how he is, she says. Every time Valentin has been out on a mission, the family waits for dad to call. And each time he has called and said that everything has gone well. When the enemy stabs Valentin and the gang eventually became part of a special force in the police that was primarily supposed to fight, not carry out normal police duties. Based in Mykolajiv, they had a short journey to Kherson county for eight months. This area was occupied by Russian invasion forces as early as March 2, 2022. It would be almost nine months before the Russians withdrew and the city was liberated. – A historic day, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he surprisingly appeared just days after the liberation. People flocked to pay tribute to both the president and the soldiers. But the world didn’t get to see that Valentin and the soldiers had been preparing for weeks for what they thought would be one of the hardest battles so far in the war. – For a long time we had been doing reconnaissance in the area that our group was supposed to take back. We learned the roads, looked for places to deploy heavier missiles and where we could fly the drones from. This is how we always prepare. But it never became the fight and confrontation they had been building up to for a long time. The Russians retreated from the area and mined everything. – That feeling can hardly be described. Here stood a strength ready, greater than I have ever seen in real life or on film. Then it never became the battle everyone had prepared for. – It was obviously good that we avoided a bloodbath. But this was like preparing for the Olympics, standing on the starting line and then not being allowed to compete. A lot of mental preparation is required over a long period of time before such a match. But everything did not go smoothly. Many Ukrainian lives were lost and soldiers lost legs and arms as a result of stepping on mines. Amazingly, no one from the original gang of volunteers around Valentin has lost their lives so far. Glimpses of hope Everyday life, which is characterized by uncertainty, change and loneliness, also has its small glimmers of light. Shortly after the Russian withdrawal from Kherson, Valentin and the group stop in a village that was liberated the day before. An elderly man approaches them. He smiles and cries at each other, clearly relieved. His village has been under Russian occupation and cut off from contact with the rest of the country since March. Now he holds out a platter of home-baked pies to the soldiers. The man says that he has two sons who are in the military, but he has not heard from either of them since March. When the Russians came, they destroyed all telephone contact to the village. Valentin and the special forces are equipped with new satellite equipment and are sent messages to both sons that both their father and mother are alive. Without them getting any immediate answer. In the middle of the night, when the team is on their way back after ensuring that the Russians have indeed crossed the Dnipro River, a message ticks in. It is from the one son who confirms that he is alive and well. Now he wonders how his parents are doing. – We went straight back to the old man’s house and scared the wits out of local forces who thought someone had come to rob them. But the sight of the old man when he was told that one son was alive was completely indescribable, says Valentin. He has not yet received an answer to what has happened to the other son. Far from over A year ago, almost the entire world hoped and believed that the war would be over quickly. Now Valentin doubts that the war will end before Russia collapses from within. And he doesn’t think that will happen anytime soon. He has stopped fearing that the war will be forgotten. The year he has behind him has removed all forms of fear. He has also stopped dreaming about the future. Now he has only one wish. – The only thing I really want is to be with my family. Last year, Valentin said that he started each day with a test: He looked in the mirror. If he didn’t see an asshole, he was on the right track. Then he did something right. Now, after a year in the war, he still does the same test. But today he looks for something else: – I see if I see a person. All photos are taken from Valentin’s Facebook account. The Christmas video is from Valentin’s wife.
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A year at the front – Urix
