Savchenko Viktor Hryhoriyovych, born 1968. Codename Instructor
I wasn’t on the Maydan, I belonged to the Armchair Company, but my soul was there. I supported them. Something needs to change and really a lot needed to be changed
A serious spark was ignited in March, the annexation of Crimea. There was talk that things would go further
My children are basically, grown up. My son turned 27 this year, so in 2014 he was a bit younger. He was a member of Pravyy Sektor (Ukrainian nationalist political party, generally described as far-right - ed.)
I served in the Soviet army, I know how to hold an automatic weapon, I understand discipline. For that reason I would never join such organizations as Pravyy Sektor, that’s for sure.
Basically, we agreed, that one of us should go to represent our family’s interest [in the war – Ed.], the other was to stay and take care of the family at home.
Before all this, we were ok financially, and now I’m ok financially. Money was absolutely not an incentive for me to go. Really, I wanted some motivation.
Somehow, it was unpleasant for everyone, and that’s saying it lightly. There was this fact: we were in route to….
Ah!... we’re told that we’re heading in the direction of Mariupol, where trouble had already started.
And so we’re riding in the bus, and everyone is silent. A whole bus full of men, and total silence…
In the bus there were a lot of people who were holding an automatic weapon in their hands for the first time.
I was in the police, but carried a pistol. I’m holding an automatic weapon for the first time. I’m thinking…aha…we’re gonna have us a bit of a battle.
On August 26th we were caught up in a gunfight. For me this is a long story. There were four mortar shells, and all four of them ripped through me.
I went to check the vehicle. They were shooting, mortars were flying everywhere. I ran over, the vehicle was in place, all was good.
I go back, and before I get to the corner of the school, behind me there’s a “ba-boom” and it sends me flying. I flew probably at least 2 meters for sure. I was thrown by a shock wave, and the shrapnel went flying but luckily not in my direction.
I checked my throat, nothing; my legs are in one piece. I try to get up. My body’s working.
Now this image I’ll never forget. Because I didn’t see what was going on behind my back, but I heard heart wrenching screams; never-ending screams.
Then blood spraying me, maybe from Italyanets (codename - ed.).
If I initially got thrown 2 meters, then here I was thrown even further! I felt like I was smeared across all the school walls.
I start to get up…and understand I can no longer stand. I start to crawl. I feel something hot pouring out of me.
I felt like something was sinking into my flesh. The third mortar shell, it naturally finished me off. I understood that this was it.
When the shell was flying, I was crawling, and it hit me in the neck. Penetrated my arm, I have no sensation in it at all. So as one hand dragging over the dirt, I somehow still managed to crawl.
Then it was decided that they would take us to Volnovakha; they planned on breaking through. They made it through the first line pretty easily. We were shot at but not too much.
The second line, more so. Everything was whizzing. Good thing everyone was flat on the ground. The guys from Donbas kick ass, they got us all out of there.
I used to be able to walk on my hands. Can’t do it anymore because my arm hurts. I can’t do push-ups anymore either because of the pain, but I’ve already gotten used it.
I have no regrets. I’m even happy that things turned out the way they did. It doesn’t matter what scars I carry. It’s important that I lived through it. Because something was nagging at me.
If heaven forbid something were to happen, I wouldn’t want this to repeat itself, but there won’t be any other way out. Regardless, of course I’d do it again.