Vadym Vasylchuk is an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and a member of the Kyiv City Council of the 9th convocation. An active partaker in the Revolution of Dignity, he eyewitnessed the violent dispersal of peaceful protests by riot police and subsequent tragic events on the Maidan. At the outset of Russia’s full-scale war invasion, he stood up to defend Ukraine, serving as a platoon leader, then second in command of a battalion, and he took part to the liberation of the Kharkiv region from Russian invading forces as one of the 112th Independent Territorial Defense Forces (TRO) Brigade.
In this Victory Commanders series interview with Ukrinform, our guest was speaking about the situation with AWOLs and desertions from service, challenges of forced conscription for war, the government’s and volunteers’ role in providing the military with equipment and soldier gears, and the feasebililty of holding elections amid ongoing hostilities.
The conversation furthermore discussed, among other things, the role volunteer TRO units had played defending Kyiv during the initial days and weeks of Russia’s war invasion, how they were tracking down and intercepting sabotage groups in unfamiliar areas; and the experience of fighting in the Kharkiv region wearing bulletproof vests cut out from ordinary iron doors.
- What motivated you to join the AFU ranks? Were there any hesitations, did you expect that the enemy would venture to advance on, and assault the capital city of Kyiv?
- I don’t think that anyone could have even imagined Kyiv and the surrounding coming under attacks, but we were getting ready anyway. In the event hostilities should break out – the situation was already critical for the city – I agreed with my family that my wife would evacuate the children by car to a safer place - first to my parents’ home in central Ukraine, and I myself would visit a military enlistment and recruitment (MER) office, then, accompanied by friends, proceed to my duty station. Almost everything we talked about came to pass. It was somehow “easy” for us to do so. Of course, everyone was shocked at the strikes because no one saw themselves in this situation until it happened. When you hear rockets exploding for the first time - you wake up, immediately take the children to more secure places like bathroom or corridor, and that makes you feel calmer a little bit. . . There were no tantrums, no crying, all these things, you know, because the situation was hashed out in advance. And I'm happy that we had managed to do it in an organized way. The guys and I left out, and as soon as the evening came we were issued our weapons and assigned our first combat mission on the following day.
- You, a father of many children, could have availed of this to flee abroad as the war was still at its very inception, but you hadn’t. Why?
- There was no goal such as to leave Ukraine with the children. For me, it was a matter of principle. Many people used to say beginning in 2014, that when the enemy comes to our country, we will not hesitate to stand up and defend it. So we summarily just stood up and started doing so. For us, for many of friends of mine, it was probably a choice without a choice, because the enemy has come to your country. We didn't understand a lot neither did we have an idea about how it would go, how long it would last. It was appropriate and we must do it – those were the terms we were thinking in. I think one of the important drivers for me to decide so was probably that, from 2014 to 2022, not all of my comrades had previous experience serving in the AFU ranks. So for us, it was a kind of “sword of Damocles”: we didn’t go fighting in those years, were assisting as volunteers, registered with the MER authorities but weren’t called up because we didn’t have military specialties, but now as the war came on we have a good urge to enlist.
I studied specifically for this, went to study in 2018 to finally acquire a military specialty. It was not until 2017 that I found out that there was such an opportunity – to study as an adult, just need to pass entry exams, pass the physical fitness exam to get into the University of Defense. So I made it into the University in 2018 and graduated after two years of study.
- Were you immediately sent to serve with the TRO forces at the beginning of the full-scale invasion? Where did you perform combat missions in the initial period of war?
- My friends and I arrived at the assembly point at 10 o'clock, then visited a MER office. At 16 o'clock we already arrived with stuff: a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat... Guided by previous experience, we knew we had to be self-sufficient. That’s to say, we had to have our own radios, which we bought in advance, first-aid kits and suchlike. That was how we were enlisted into the ranks later in the evening. And it was very funny, because I had at least some kind of temporary military ID, an officer's ID card - such a sheet of paper with stamps. The guys did not have none of military IDs, it sufficed to have an ID/passport with a piece paper attached indicating the number of the automatic rifle issued. And so we got our weapons and left all together, at around 1:30 AM. We were accommodated in a shelter when, the next morning, we were assigned our first task, told to move towards Obolon. We left for the assembly point, and when already on the way were ordered to dismount because of an air raid alert. Everyone scattered out of the bus in a hurry, because hostilities were already underway, airplanes flying right over the city. No one had an idea of the what and how… Then a soldier came up to me, gave me his rifle, saying, “That’s it for me, I’m not ready”. That is, even this first stressful situation ended up like this for him. It almost shocked us, surprised us: how come this; because after all, it was you yourself who sought this, trained yourself for this. But it was better this way than when we moved further away to Chaika airfield to secure it from enemy paratrooper landing attempts, and there were some who actually defected from their positions. We found them, conducted some kind of explanatory work, sometimes not just verbal. That is, it is better for men, especially those who came to serve as volunteers, to honestly warn in advance, than when already in a defensive position with no one to hold it.
Our first experience was like that. So we were supposed to move towards the Obolon [district of Kyiv], but were ultimately reassigned to the Chaika airfield near Zhulyany airport in Kyiv. It was very ridiculous, because we, an eastern-bank unit, were trained specifically for that area, at least had some knowledge of the terrain, but eventually found ourselves on the western bank, in places where, I think, 99% of the company had hardly been to. But we managed to deal with it. The National Guard troops were deployed there, we entered into communication, coordination with them, deployed personnel and then started to carry out our assigned missions.
- How did events unfold afterwards? Which of the fronts did you fight on at that time?
- We were joking that they forgot about us -- us who were defending this airfield during 10 days or so. I am saying “forgot” in the sense that we were not provided with food or any other supplies during that time, had to manage this by ourselves. And then the order from the higher command finally arrived, and we returned to the eastern bank. As a matter of fact, we were tasked to get prepared for a potential enemy entry, so we were building fortifications, spotting and intercepting sabotage and reconnaissance groups at night hours, performing guard duty and patrol missions. On a parallel track, we were training all days long, and it lasted like that during two months or so. Afterwards, a surprise directive came allowing us 24 hours to collect our stuff and get ready to move towards Kharkiv. We were travelling like gypsies because we didn’t have large vehicles of our own, except a Bogdan bus that we bought at the last minute. While on the way to Kharkiv, we got engaged in battles in Chuhuiv, a town which laid on the immediate line of contact at the time. I think it was a common story for most rifle or mechanized units in those days, and for territorial defense units generally. In fact, we were proficient in what we had time to train ourselves previously. We were lucky to get out safely, more or less, even after we came under Grad [MLRS rocket] shelling; we had to make quick decisions about where and how to distribute personnel, given that we had got right into the focus of the fighting, but managed to survive it.
- At what point in time did you assume command of your unit?
- Right from the start. Being an officer, I was in charge of a platoon from day one after we were mobilized for war. That is, I had people under my command right away, the numbers and mixtures varying at various times. At one time, for example, we had 19 officers serving in our company, but were supposed to have only five. But no one was up to it then, so the officers carried out the tasks they were told, etc. And later on, when everyone could finally breath a sign of relief, after the Kyiv operation ended up in a success for us, the enemy withdrew from Kyiv, then, when already in Poltava, we sorted it out and 14 of the officers left. And myself continued in command of the 1st platoon, and ultimately ended up in the Kharkiv region already having an infantry rifle platoon under my command.
-What guided you as a commander in making decisions regarding team work, dealing with subordinated personnel, building up confidence with them?
- I have a multi-year experience dealing with people of different categories, from school children to university students, followed by adults, so I have no difficulty communicating or being able to manage, giving orders, or organizing different people into a single organism. So there were no problems in this regard. There were more problems regarding professional training, so we were simultaneously looking for instructors and conducting training in this way. That’s to say, we hired people through acquaintances, sought to solicit them to work for us, studied both tactical medicine and indoor operations, mopping up tactics, engineering fortifications. At a later time, something turned out not fully appropriate, and something, on the country, turned out very helpful. We took some courses several times, and this helped us a lot, so our soldiers, during the first shelling attacks and the first injuries, were able to self-care, assisted by fellows, and this suggested they had acquired some useful skills and knowledge, as well as practical experience. And this was a success, I suppose.
- Does that mean to say you never see refusals to obey your orders?
- Refusals do happen. Not straightforward refusals actually, because a soldier is not that stupid as to confront an officer like that. In the Kharkiv region, for example, I encountered a situation where one of our anti-tank-guided missile (ATGM) crews abandoned their position, meaning they refused to carry out the order. We had a very tough conversation, and I am happy the situation was brought to resolution without adverse consequences for anyone. In other words, you always need to understand the reason why a person acted like that: maybe he was simply scared, or unable to do this particular task, or failed to see the boundary of the permissible which must not be crossed over. It's helpful and important to always look at the root of the situation being experienced. It is just that many commanders approach such situations authoritatively; in case of any violation, they immediately report it, punish the violator financially, or ask a court for reprimand. Where you are talking to your personnel, good conversation will work out well.
Regarding the ATGM crew in question, they were attached in support of our unit, that is, they were not organic to my platoon, but since they served as a single team within it, we were able to hash out the situation, then find some solutions to preclude this happening again. What makes this situation important is that we, a rifle unit, do not have the means to engage armored vehicle targets, for example. We do have anti-tank grenades, but with anti-tank guided missiles we can engage armored targets at far longer distances, and that was what made them important to us, because we needed to improve the fighting capability of both our platoon and the company as a whole.
In another situation (it happened to our company rather than our platoon proper), after the first shelling attack, we went not to the first-line defensive positions, but to the second-line ones, which survived a very “hot” night, there were similar commotions, let's call it so, like "the officers brought us here, we will all die here." We identified and picked up the "instigators", talked to them in strong and persuasive language, and such situations never happened again. That is, it is very difficult for people to encounter this for the first time, and so it’s no wonder they reacted like that to it. It is perhaps only natural, because everyone wants to live, and you as a commander are supposed to be able to find appropriate words and persuade, persuade them at least to move somewhere, because they all started just as TRO soldiers defending Kyiv. But, thank God, everything worked out well, so we ended up there, continued performing our tasks, each and every one that was set for us. Of course, misunderstandings or embarrassing situations of some kind do happen to my unit. But where a commander is intelligent, thoughtful enough, or where commanders work together to fix such situations, are supportive of each other, they will succeed.
- So you are open to dialogue. Can you be described as “loyal”?
- No, this is not dialogue actually, but rather communication. There is no dialogue here, the task will still need to be completed and will be completed. But there must be an understanding about why a particular task failed to succeed. You can just formally punish everyone, and the task will ultimately be completed anyway. Alternatively, you can look into the root of things, find where errors happened, or who might have been scared of something, and convince them that, as a saying has it, the “wolf is not as scary as it is portrayed”. And I am happy that we have been able to succeed in this regard. I personally went to see that observation point; I was there just to show that being there is not as life-threatening as people imagined. After doing so, I provided a comprehensive review on the map so that there was an understanding of who is located where, and why they need to be present there. It is important for people to have peace of mind. Because orders can be stupid or unwise, you know. For example, we receive an order to conduct surveillance, the adversary is advancing, we can hear this all in our walkie-talkies, and the soldiers hear this too, not only me, their commander, that about three dozen armored vehicles are moving our way. The Anti-tank Grenadier immediately gets his hands shaking, because he has just as few as 16 RPG grenades available. The word “disaster” would be really appropriate to describe this situation, and it was really so as the prospect wasn’t very bright for a unit armed with just one RPG launcher and one ATGM launcher, the remainder comprised of nothing but small arms. I immediately came to calm people down, saying: just listen to the end. The fact turned out to be that the map showed the settlement was 18.6 miles (30 km) away from us, meaning that we could continue with our surveillance mission. But the enemy could well reach our line of defense, so we were getting prepared. In the end, it turned out that there were actually 6.2 miles (10 km), rather than 18.6. No wonder everything was as it used to be. I mean to say that higher commanders are often giving orders without fully understanding how stressful this can be for soldiers in the trenches, and what it can end up with. It is therefore important that orders be communicated calmly, by example, sometimes through reaching a common understanding, sometimes with a joke, and then everything will be okay.
- You said that a task must be completed, whatever the circumstances.
- It must be completed if I ordered so.
- What is more important to you -- maybe it's more of a philosophical question – to get your order executed at whatever cost or to spare soldier lives?
- That's why I’ve just given a clarification, because both parts of your question imply troubles. In other words, if I give an order, I understand that it is executable, that we have the proper means and the people who are ready and able to execute it. If you just give an order from higher up, just send it like a kind of transmitter without delving into the essence or the capabilities, then it's a completely different story...
- You have already touched on the issue such as soldiers deserting their posts or leaving place of service without official leave (AWOL), which is a pressing issue given that AWOL instances are ever increasing in numbers and frequency. What is your thought about this?
- We did not have AWOL instances in our unit. The example I gave above was about intentions, about fear, not an AWOL instance proper. Still, we were probably luckier in this regard, because we came to serve as volunteers, and probably had higher motivation in this respect at that time. I know of such instances taking place in the units I served with later on, but they were in no way associated with my service. It is therefore hard for me to give assessments as to the reasons behind them happening. The reasons might differ for each particular AWOL occurrence. This issue is currently much talked of among the society, triggering pretty heated debate. This might be because people were poorly trained, or they turned out psychologically weak, meaning that commanders did not speak to their soldiers, were fully ignorant of their psychological problems, or set them the same tasks that were impossible to execute with the available means. There can be a lot of different reasons. Each of such instances needs to be properly investigated, figured out why it happened. Because it is very easy to describe it in three words and thus ruin a soldier’s life. Since you went AWOL, that's it, a "proven fact". But such precedents, whenever such happen, definitely need to be investigated, figured out whether it was someone’s oversight, what really happened or what had been done or not done to preclude this happening. And then, once the circumstances are sorted out, I am sure that no one will have questions left unanswered. If this is done superficially or formulaically, then, unfortunately, such situations will reoccur, because where nothing changes, where people don’t see the results of the changes being made, they don’t see the reasons why they should behave differently. This is the root cause behind the current AWOL situation, I suppose. The parliament has adopted a legislation that empowers first-time AWOLs to return to service at their duty stations or apply for transfer to a different duty station. Some among the military are event joking referring to this as a legalized, innovative scheme of transfer. And instead of getting the transfer procedure regulated -- which has finally begun to be done in the army -- we have a kind of semi-product that actually legalizes AWOLs.
My hope and expectation is that both lawmakers and the army command will look into the AWOL situation in order to clearly see whether a particular AWOL instance is really a blatant story involving precisely unauthorized absence from duties for a prolong period, implicating desertion from service, especially at the frontline or where a person is in need of psychological first aid. Second is the need to have a properly regulated procedure for transfer to a different duty station, which has recently begun to be provided through the eRegistry. Let's wait and see how this will work across all of the armed services.
- Another matter I would like to discuss with you as a military man and a politician concerns mobilization of civilians for war. This affects lots of people who are complaining that everything is not okay in this regard. How do you view that?
- My view is that, by establishing a network of MER centers and other services dealing with war mobilization, the state apparatus won a time gap, a time reserve in 2022, beginning on February 24 and up until June-July, that is six months, I assess, when lots of people volunteered into the army – like we, for example, who did not have previous experience serving in the military, or those from the so-called “first-line operational reserve”, that is, those who volunteered and filled the troops with much-needed personnel very quickly.
With this half-a-year time in reserve, you understand that the edge had been taken off, but then you have to work managing mobilization campaign. Unfortunately, we got a reverse story, where everyone just hung medals on themselves, were like look what good guys we are, how cool we had it, there is no shortage of people in the military. And after six months, it turns out that the merit does not belong to you, the good guys, but to ordinary citizens who did what they were expected and supposed to do. At first, as I see it, this was working well, more or less, continued that way. Afterwards changes were made again, which didn’t really work. As a matter of fact, reshuffles among the top military brass or other surprise changes did not result from particular instances of AWOL or desertion from service like the ones that happened in Odesa, where the chief of the municipal MER center had been caught in some financial embezzlement that allowed some men dodge the draft to avoid being called up to the frontlines.
Indeed, the process must be streamlined legislatively so that others understand that punishment will definitely follow. We are unaware yet of whether the punishment exists or not, which signals potential call-up evaders that they are doing nothing wrong.
Second, if changes are happening on a mass scale, where everyone are tarred with the same brush, then perhaps those who were doing their job properly, more or less, were taken away. Which again showed us at a later time that, I don’t remember exactly when, the mobilization campaign had failed after working for a short while. Recruiting is a good story, I myself was doing this in my unit. But if you lose the trust of a citizen again, when he receives a piece of paper specifying the duty station he will be assigned to, but eventually ends up in a different station prioritized by an order from higher up, then we will get distrust again, meaning distrust by the society and the citizens affected. A highly illustrative example is when we got the opportunity to register through Reserve+ application, through administrative services centers and the MER network, we saw that only four million men have actually registered, out of the ten million of those liable to be called up for compulsory military service, which is less than 50 percent. This is indicative of how people view even this initial move, let alone the other ones that have yet to follow. That being said, the MER authorities and the state apparatus in general, unfortunately, turned out unable to avail of the half-a-year time gap when people volunteered into the military guided by conscious choices and sincere intention to defend their homeland. And the changes being currently made, sad to say, are not sufficiently effective, and for this reason the success of the mobilization campaign hangs in question. While some improvements were seen taking place in May-June, when everyone saw an accounting system of some kind beginning to be introduced and things had moved off the standing block, we still have problems with this.
- What amendments or changes do you think need to be made to restore motivation and see volunteers returning to the Armed Forces ranks?
- Frank, sincere talk needs to take place; it is very difficult, because faults are reoccurring somewhere, particularly at the level of the ground force and the MER system as a whole, and they all need to be repaired. I as an active AFU serviceman am not empowered to criticize anyone, any specific individuals, but I emphasize it that we must address these challenges being more honest with ourselves, or else, having lost trust even in recruiting, we may lose it while playing with the prioritization of brigades, may not get the result we need.
- How do you manage to combine your legislative work at the moment with your military service?
- It's pretty funny: I sometimes had to send my decisions through Nova Poshta, that is, my assistant sent me a draft decision, I re-read it, signed it while in the Kharkiv region, and now in the Donetsk region, appeals-requests, this sort of things, you know, and sent it in this way, that is, remotely. I believe that the majority of the deputy corps, who are currently serving in the AFU ranks are successful, more or less, combining their military service with legislative work, especially as this work is done pro bono, is not paid for; most guys and girls who opted to join the AFU ranks can combine it in this way, supported by a team of assistants.
- In this context, I would like to ask you about how much of its budget the capital city of Kyiv spends on the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and which exactly, if you can reveal this. My other question is asked by many Kyivans who do not understand why municipal funds are disbursed for the construction of highways and stadiums amid war, believing that the money would better be spent on assistance to the military. Your comment, please.
- A good question in the sense that, first, I wonder if people really think so, as you’ve just said, because, I am sure, a driver who gets into a pothole while driving would think strongly otherwise. At this moment, his first question is why the highway is unrepaired.
The budget of the city of Kyiv supports lots of expenditures that simply ensure the functioning of essential services, and there are expenditures that are specifically aimed at development. And at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, military tax on personal income -- a tax on individuals, on military personnel who served in Kyiv in the AFU ranks -- was introduced. But there was no mechanism in place for direct disbursements, because the Verkhovna Rada has not yet provided for a direct mechanism so we could purchase what the military need directly from suppliers. So we had to do it this way, were forced to, disburse funds as subventions to the government, the money being intended specifically for the Ministry of Defense, for a specific military unit or in support for specific operations. At the end of the year, particularly in 2022 when the whole story began, it became obvious that a large number of units simply could not buy what they needed, and this money was simply returned unused. Therefore, this problem is much broader. Currently, since this personal income tax has been taken away from us, Kyiv anyway allocates to the Armed Forces for this fiscal year, if I am not mistaken, around UAH 8 billion from its budget. This amounts to 10 percent of the total municipal budget. Just for your information, if you look at it as a share of the budget for development, then it will be 30 percent or even more, because it is a large amount, probably about 40 billion disbursed in funding for essential expenditures such as wages, salaries, social security, compensations to heat suppliers etc. And the rest of the budget goes for development, it can be tracked with ease.
Therefore, this is a lot of money, and it goes to support, first of all, of course, Kyiv’s brigades, Kyiv’s units, but we found a way to support not only Kyiv’s units, to transfer funds for special-interest needs to specific units from other regions as well. So here I can say that Kyiv supports the Armed Forces and the Defense Forces as a whole, including the National Guard, Police units at the frontline, as well as Border guards.
Second come other expenditures. First, schools need a huge number of bomb shelters, we have been at war for three years now, and for all these years the educational process has continued. In three years, a child who was in the first grade is almost finishing primary school, and a child who was in the eighth grade has already finished grade school, and they all need bomb shelters so that they can conduct their studies qualitatively. These shelters are insufficient in numbers, because no country in the world has that many shelters to enable educational processes and peaceful life to continue under attacks from ballistic missiles or fighter aircraft, etc. That being said, is there a need for other expenditures? Yes, other expenditures are being funded. Can they be more focused”? Yes, of course, they are constantly influenced by the public who are attentive of this.
I was once struck by a saying from journalists, they asked me questions, because I am a military man: the Verkhovna Rada endorsed and the Cabinet of Ministers streamlined the procedure for buying drones from foreign suppliers. Do you think this will help resolve the issue of the shortage of drones? But friends, I reiterate it again, volunteers are an auxiliary part, it is really good that we have them, but first of all, someone else should do it - the institutions that are in charge of this and receive money from the national budget for this. There was some imbalance in this respect, even in our country, because we constantly hear that volunteers help, volunteers donate, volunteers provide. It’s great, indeed, but this should come as an addition, and the main portion should come from the government. Where there are no drones or other essential provisions on the frontline, this is a matter to be dealt with primarily by the Ministry of Defense, as far as procurements are concerned, or the Ministry of Digital Transformation, which assumed a part of this responsibility where it comes to the production of weaponry, as was the case with substandard quality mortar munitions, when it emerged that this story involves several different government ministries, each performing its specific task. This is their direct responsibility, not volunteers’, especially in times of war.
- Regarding mortar munitions, which you’ve just mentioned, [Defense] Minister Umerov announced that the State Bureau of Investigations has launched a probe into the delivery of these substandard munitions. How could this happen, and will those responsible be punished?
- Those who were responsible did not fully complete their work. I believe investigation will find it out. Because there is a responsible person for each stage of production. If the situation has reached the point where the product that should work proved unworkable, then at all these levels of quality control someone was not in full control of the process for which the person is responsible. The investigators are raising documents, looking at the conclusions, at who certified by his signature that everything goes or does not go as appropriate, and at the way the decision was made. But here it is important to wait for the results of the investigation, and then there will be an answer to the question about “who”, if, of course, there is enough political will for the truth to be established (all involved are maintaining that the will is there, and that this situation is intolerable in the warring country).
- Do your media visibility, multi-year experience in politics, recognizability are helpful in solving urgent issues faced by the unit you are leading?
- At the time I was still serving with my unit, I think that, yes, in part, we raised money to repair a vehicle which had a wheel missing, and in two or three days’ time, literally, people helped us with vehicles. We held several fund-raising campaigns to meet our own needs, because we, being a rifle unit, needed drones which we are not supposed to have according to all regulatory guidelines. This is about what I’ve just mentioned. Take the provisions, for, example. All the requirements say we must have them. But in actual fact, however, there have been no changes made requiring that a rifle or mechanized unit, for example, be provided with drones and have drone operators in their personnel complement. The same is with electronic countermeasures; there is a huge need for electronic jamming equipment, but again, since it is not provided for in all the regulatory documents, we have to constantly request assistance from volunteers or use personal contacts to apply publicly so that everyone can provide for the needs of own unit. For a while, it amounted to even chip-in campaigns among our own where everyone donated own money so we could buy something we need, because at the beginning, I think everyone knows that we even had to sew uniforms for ourselves at that time, because they were not provided to us. A comrade made me a bulletproof vest, we cut it out from an iron door, just cut out a vest matrix and in this way we provided the vests for each soldier. Another guy sewed the armored plate carriers. That was how I provided body armors for my squad first, then for the platoon. At that time, we had no helmets provided to us. Then someone brought me an onion net full of used helmets, and these became our first helmets. We came from TRO forces, no one understood how we appeared, where we came from, who we were, but very soon we began to be used exactly in the same way as ordinary mechanized units. Like I said above, I studied, and the first question that arises is: you use us as a mechanized unit, then where are my infantry fighting vehicles, where are my weapon-fire assets? Provide me with these capabilities, and I don't mind you using us. There is a multiplicity of questions like these. Until the end of my service with the battalion, not all companies had large-tonnage vehicles as a mandatory part of equipment complement, in absence of which we can't move. But nobody cared: we have something to move on, and so everything is okay. That is, there are many of these issues, and you, of course, are constantly looking for solutions, forced to solve them, because if you are too slow, then, God forbid, someone may die, or you may fail a mission, or will be unable to accomplish something. And this is a never-ending process. It’s great, on the one hand, that the situation has improved, that equipment began arriving, especially at newly-established brigades. But on the other hand, problems are still there. Regarding the substandard mortar munitions I’ve mentioned above, that doesn’t mean to say that the situation with other systems is exactly like that. It's just that there are specific problems that need to be addressed, and that's appropriate.
- What is your thought about whether the military will go into politics after the war ends?
- This will be an individual choice for everyone. For now, we all share one single goal - some call it a victory, others call it an end, some others call it something else. What matters most is that everyone who came to fight must bring the war to an end so that we can continue building this country. And we as members of the military – as the articles of war stipulate – are here to secure the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the territorial integrity which, according to our legislation, has remained as it was in 1991, we have not changed it. And whatever happens next, everyone will decide for themselves.
- Do you have political ambitions? Would you like to run in the next elections as well, perhaps not for the Kyiv City Council, but for the Verkhovna Rada?
- At the moment I am a military serviceman and a politician, the legislation empowers me to combine these two jobs. I am serving in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, performing the tasks assigned to me, while simultaneously serving pro bono as municipal legislator. First of all, I have set priorities for myself, which is why I am still serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine ranks in order to work, like I’ve said already, for victory, for the end to the war.
- The media have repeatedly rumored about possible presidential elections in Ukraine in 2025. What is your thought about this? Are the elections possible amid war?
- From purely technical perspective, everything is possible, given that we held the elections twice while at war. First in 2014, when real-world hostilities were already underway, then in 2019. That’s to say, basically, the elections are possible – the validity of martial law will be suspended and an appropriate mechanism, I am confident, will be put in place. But the only question is whether we are ready politically to change the leadership “in midstream”, given the current situation. I am certain that, first, there has been a consensus reached among the policy leaders, at least for now, that no elections must be held until after the end of large-scale, intensive hostilities that bar the way to a transparent presidential campaign. Second, the country may suffer greater losses during the campaign. This is how I view the situation for now.
- Once you have mentioned victory - and this is what we all aspire most – what should be considered a victory? What a victory will be like for you?
- For me, a military man, that is a return to borders as of 1991, I cannot say otherwise, for a military service member, this is the territory of Ukraine in all its entirety. As for a politician, when we get into politics, we will discuss this at the national level, and then we will talk it over. But for now, as long as I am wearing this uniform, I can have no other goal than that. From a policy perspective, I believe, they will think, search for a solution that will look most appropriate for that moment in time. Fortunately or not, I am not at that high level, because this decision is up to the State leadership, both the highest and the Verkhovna Rada.
- Well, I am grateful to you! As our conversation is wrapping up, I would like you to answer a series of rapid-fire questions. I ask you brief questions, you answer just as briefly. Ready? Do you consider yourself more a politician or a military man?
- Military man, for now.
- What was the toughest decision you took in your life?
- To return to the Maidan on the night protesters were shot on February 18 [2014].
-- Do you trust in God?
- Yes, I do.
- What is the best advice you have received in life?
- Be yourself.
- What would you have told yourself ten years ago?
- I don’t know, I don’t have an answer, but I guess – be who you are, and let it be.
- What independence is like for you?
- Freedom.
- What’s your life credo?
- You are invincible if you hear the Truth within yourself.
- What can you never forgive?
- The enemy can’t be forgiven.
- What’s the first thing you’ll do after victory is achieved?
- I will hug my family.
- Thank you so much for this interview!
Interviewed by Diana Slavinska