Andriy Kisilyov, UAV platoon leader

Warrior Andriy Kisilyov was among the first to go into Kherson city after it had been liberated from Russian troops. It is he who features in a renowned photo taken in the city central square, holding a watermelon in his hands.

Andriy joined the Armed Forces in 2014 as a young man. By that time, he had just finished the 11th grade, but already had an irresistible thirst for warfare. Currently, he is in command of an unmanned aerial vehicles platoon, had suffered a severe wound while performing a combat mission. But he nonetheless returned to the war zone.

Andriy Kisilyov was born in a settlement on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson region, and so his next aim is to get the whole region liberated from Russian occupation. Ukrinform requested Mr. Kisilyov for an interview as part of its Victory Commanders project. We were talking about the challenges the Ukrainian army is going to face in liberating the currently Russian occupied eastern-bank part of the Kherson region, the war crimes committed by Russian forces, which our guest had witnessed, his rehabilitation from the injury, and about his experience as a combatant commander.

- You originate from the Kherson region. Let's recall that historic day when Russian troops fled Kherson city and the surrounding. What were you feeling while entering the liberated city?

- It looked nice in the picture. But we, however, had particular tasks to be done on that day. ... But how not to get lit up, to drive unnoticed in the square full of people rejoicing the liberation…

- What was it like for you to return to the city that is native to you, to get back home that was under enemy occupation?

- It was mostly work. Just a minute of rejoice, and then you had to work again, work, work and nothing but work. 

- Regarding your role in the liberation of Kherson…Maybe you cannot reveal everything, but can you talk about the tasks you were responsible for?

- The tasks were diverse, the scope of work was huge, plus allied units that were working alongside. It's a little tough, both mentally and physically.

- You are saying it is a tough work. For us, civilians, it is hard to see how difficult it truly is. But nonetheless, could you please talk about the most difficult part of it?

- To storm. It was the most difficult to storm, because the adversary do as books say: they are good in digging in, good in exploiting our resources like irrigation canals, farms, etc. for setting up defense lines. These were very difficult to storm. At the beginning of the war, communication between allied units was very poor during the initial 4-5 months.

- Could you talk about a reconnaissance mission you performed the day before, perhaps, the most memorable one, at least the details you can reveal?

- We got lost. We got a little lost, surprisingly got out on the outskirts of Kherson city. We chose to not turn back, but to stay there, waiting for our guys to come up. We worked for a long time; in that situation, it was difficult to find out our whereabouts, which of the suburbs it was, which intersection. Because at that time, the chaos was reigning everywhere: everyone were fleeing, running away, like, have you heard, Russian Buryat soldiers were abandoned in a village outside of Kherson?

- There were a lot of videos showing them running away using all the means available. Tell about this.

- It seems like it was November. Soldiers came to a village and said: what has changed here? The locals handed over servicemen to them, saying they had captured them as prisoners of war. The Russians, while on withdrawal, when they were running away, they abandoned several of their units, fully-fledged units, in forested areas. That’s to say, they were just waiting, or got hungry and came to a local store. Such situations were numerous. They were living in local houses. It's like you enter a village, an empty village, but he lives there, he says: "I feel good here, I don't want to leave." Even persons like this were encountered.

- The Buryat soldiers that the Russians left behind… Did you see that, at that moment, they felt the full might of the army they had to fight?

- I don't know if they felt it, but my impression was that they were utterly scared.

- You originate from the Kherson region. What about your family? Has anyone of your loved ones lived under occupation?

- Yes. My father spent six months or so living under occupation. When access to Telegram began to reopen, in the spring, he fled and joined the ranks of the Armed Forces.

- And your mother?

- She still remains in occupation. I have not had contact with her for the last six months.

- On the eastern bank, right?

- Yes.

- So the eastern bank is the next to be liberated?

- Yes, indeed.

- Do you believe it will happen as much as you believed in the ultimate liberation of Kherson city? What challenges are you expecting for that operation?

- Mines. Not so much enemy personnel, as mines. Mine contamination is extremely heavy. Plus the terrain, full of swamps, reed fields, marshes. This all was flooded after the dam had been destroyed, everything got wet, got overgrown with grass and other vegetation. It would be cool to get across to the other bank, very cool. On that other bank, the soil is special, can soak up this stuff, and, over time, just spit it out on the bank, like peat.

- What about the local population? Did they greet you, support you? We saw people's reactions in online videos. How much did you feel it? Lots of people were really hoping, longing for being liberated. But there also were (and still remain) those who are not happy, hoping that this will not last long. What is your though of this?

- People are rejoicing, really happy. I don't know how it is like in the city, but on the way, in Russian occupied villages, I came across such persons, the ‘Iduns’, as we call them; they were hiding where they could. And what is the funniest about this is that they were among the first to visit abandoned Russian positions. They were blowing up on the mines laid there, thus reducing the amount of the demining work for us, because they were keen to see what was left out there, maybe something they could make use of, or just take something to memorize.

- This highly-publicized photo of you holding a watermelon in hands, taken in November. Tell me a little about the circumstances of this photo. Where did you get the watermelon at this time of the year?

- We arrived at the central square of Kherson. I didn't even have time to look around when an 8-9-year-old boy grabbed me from the crowd, put a watermelon on our pick-up truck and said, here take and enjoy it. That's how the watermelon appeared in my hands. I don't know where he got it from, how he kept it before, but the little boy did it. And the photo… Komarov was there, in the square, and he just shouts: wait, come on, let me take your picture! This is the photo he took.

- What happened next with this watermelon?

- We ate it...

- After the city was liberated, your work did not end there. Could you tell us about how the work continued, maybe you discovered something abandoned by the occupiers. What did they leave behind, something that surprised you the most?

- They hid a lot, lots of valuables of all kinds and other things. There were also weapons hidden. When working on sites of their living, places of their permanent stay, we were discovering weapons, some household items they had stolen from the locals, interesting but unsuitable for combat use. Well, a plasma TV used as a door to a dugout was like that. We came across lots of scooters scattered everywhere. When walking across forested areas, you look around, wondering how all these things could get down there. Furthermore, their personal belongings, their bodies were found aplenty in these areas.

- When talking about the liberation of Kherson, people say that, when entering the city, they saw them fleeing, and the highway was free, right?

- They are telling you that the Russian just got up and ran away. First of all, this abandonment of positions was planned long before it actually took place. Everything was densely mined, very densely. They are very good in mine laying, conventional as well as remote. We used asphalt roads, no one walked through forested areas, because it was very risky.

- Did they leave the city earlier than originally planned?

- Yes. It was preplanned, I feel like. They prepared ahead of time, started the withdrawal, and the last ones withdrawing just ran into us, were caught on reporters’ cameras. There were no Russian Guard, no special operations forces left out  there.  The last thing the cameras caught was they, those abandoned or not instructed in advance, swimming across the Dnieper.

- What happened after Kherson was liberated?

- After the liberation, we were ordered to move forward. Afterwards, we took control over the famous islands everyone knows of. To me, it seems like this was an inappropriate use of military personnel - both then and now. We still hold these islands under our control. It’s neither here nor there. It’s tough, but we are waiting for the command forward -- forward, because we are in control of most of the water routes that can be used to enter the eastern bank.

- What is the current situation like in Kherson?

Challenging, tense, because there are too many drones and too much digital capabilities that are developing too quickly - both with us and with them.

- Tell us your story: at what point did you decide to go and defend the country?

- I graduated from high school in 2014, drew up documents for university application. I made it to a university, studied for four months or so, and the war came. The war broke out, corps of volunteers began to be organized. I joined one such and spent several wonderful months fighting in ...

- How old were you when you got to the Donbas?

- 18. ... But it did not last long, just three or four months. I was strongly recommended to return home for retraining. I sat at home for a while with nothing to do, it got boring and I signed a contract. I returned to the Donbas, but that time around as part of a full-fledged combat brigade.

- What motivated you? Why were you so persistent?

- Love for weapons.

- Does that mean to say that you have been interested in this since childhood?

- Yes.

- If there were no war, what would you be doing?

- Sporting shooting, hunting, fishing, thinks like that.

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- I would like to learn a little more about your first impressions and memories about fighting in the Donbas. The first combat encounter, first shots - what were your feelings like? Did you feel you are doing what is good for your soul?

- Before anything else, there were situations of uncertainty, where I understood little if anything, and it was scary, very scary, really. Because there was no such thing that you walk, someone shoots, you look: yeah, they're firing from out there. They let you in as close as possible, and I feel like fear begins to arise in me. You then sit, unable to recall for a long while what happened to you. Like it all happened on adrenaline. Then you analyze, it becomes interesting, and you return to it again and again. Well, it wasn't as interesting in the Donbas as it is now, amidst the full-scale invasion.

- Tell us about these times. How are they different?

-- Different in that they were waiting for us then, but we are waiting for them now. When they were coming from Kherson, we knew where they were heading to, we set up ambushes. Those with experience planted mines. During the first few weeks, we felt like being in a shooting range.

- Thank you for this answer. You were very young man when you started your military career. How old were you when you became a commander?

- 25.

- Are there commanders younger than you?

- Yes. Moreover, there are guys who took command of battalions at the age of 23, 25. That is, they are highly proficient warriors. I am familiar with several such people. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, they have gone through almost all the offensive operations on the hardest, hottest battlefields, and decided for themselves that the command staff of the Armed Forces needs to be rejuvenated...

- Tell us a little about how you, a young guy, walked this path from a high school graduate to a combatant commander.

- It all happened by itself. It is the will that matters the most. So, I was doing my work, I liked it, and, thanks to my skills and abilities, some people began to gravitate towards me. And, praise the Lord, the men from the top offices saw this and said, how about you taking command of a reconnaissance squad? I'm like: come on. And this is how I began my work with the guys.

- You said before that it was like in a shooting range. What did you mean actually?

- Yes. It was like in a shooting range. They were driving in columns, hoping they would be welcomed. We did welcome them, albeit not in a way they expected. At that time, they began to be beaten with their own weapons.

- We often hear that they, the Russians, are advancing towards us, being defeated, being killed, but they move on in herds.

- Yes. We saw this when fighting the Wagner soldiers. There were assaults going on; where the weather was bad, they were taking away the bodies of their dead fellows, sought to get as close to us as possible. There were different situations; it even happened that you run over to another place just to see bodies scattered here and there, but they don’t halt the assault, never stop assaulting us, shoving like a tank. We saw these nonstop assaults.

- How did you manage to contain such onslaughts: they die, move on, die? How tough was it for you?

- It was interesting at first, then scary, then boring, then you want to rest. And then everything is like in a fog, you just do your work and that's it, you don't think about anything else.

- When you came as a young man, how did your fellows react? Did they teach, help, support?

- Of course, they sought to teach something, to show, to tell, to share experience. It's like one huge family. Where you get into a good men's team, they treat you like a younger brother, and those who are older treat you like a son. You look at this all and begin to treat likewise the newcomers. Try to teach something, show, tell, preserve their lives, make them prepared morally and mentally to face what they are going to face.

- What is the most difficult thing to do in intelligence gathering and reconnaissance?

- Everything is difficult, depending on the task. The more challenging the task, the more difficult it is to complete. I don't know, it is perhaps difficult everywhere where battles in which you are involved are waged. The hardest thing is to lose your comrades. This is the most difficult.

-- Your injury... How did you manage it?

- Everything passed great! I kind of evacuated myself – applied a tourniquet, crawled away, then they took me away. We quarreled a little, severely, I insisted that all casualties be evacuated all at once. They brought me to hospital, I looked at my leg and thought to myself: yes, that's it, it won't grow back, I must live with it somehow. So, my reaction was as it should be.

- How long did your rehabilitation treatment last?

- 21 days.

- Was that enough?

- It was mostly a leave of absence, a sick leave. I spent that time at home, doing my favorite things. It improved me mentally more than did the rehabilitation in hospital.

- How far did you get out of the service life, so to speak? When you recovered to come back, were you ready actually for it, mostly mentally?

- Mentally, perhaps yes, I was ready. Once released from hospital, I was ready to return to service. I missed the guys a lot. I missed this all, wanted to come back sooner. But no way: sick leave, prosthetics and everything like that. I returned to service already on a prosthesis.

- Didn't the doctors say that you need more rest?

- They were saying and asking; even where I excused for several hours, they requested that I write some piece of paper, like if you get lost somewhere, we have nothing to do with it, you did it by your own will.

- But they failed to stop your willingness to return to service?

- There was no way they could stop it. Moreover, currently, it is not that easy to resign from military service or get away from this all.

- Why?

- There is a full host of different positions, which will be held until the end by adequate people. They insist: do not resign from service, you don't have to, it's cool there.

- How did your activity change after the injury and after rehabilitation treatment?

- After the injury, I began to look for an alternative position, some linked to reconnaissance. First aerial reconnaissance, then I became interested in destroying the enemy with drones, and it so happened that I was transferred to another unit, another brigade, and I was given the green light to do the work I liked. That was how reconnaissance, follow-up reconnaissance, destruction of the enemy with drones began to work.

- Your promotion to the commander’s position, how did it happen?

- I was a contracted soldier when I came to serve in the military, in a ground assault unit. After a series of successful missions, they saw that I have the ability to manage small groups of people, because I shouted loudly at personnel so that to preserve as many lives as possible, so to speak. And that's how I became a small commander first, and then it began to grow – higher and higher, in parallel with my credentials.

- When faced with difficulties, what guides your decisions the most? I see that you are capable of cold calculations, you treat it like a job, emotions do not interfere with your decision-making process.

- In any uncertain situation, I am not alone, there is a whole bunch of comrades by my side, my crew members, who have more knowledge, are more skillful in this domain, you can ask questions, solve issues collectively. Just chat, and someone will offer a solution I know will be 100 percent effective.

- Are there any traditions followed after successfully completing a combat mission?

- Return home alive. It's not that you just arrive at the assigned place, complete your task and that’s it; you need to return alive.

- Andriy, would it be true to say that scouts are the people who are versatile enough to be able to learn whatever military job service may require?

- I am an example of this. Never would I have climbed into a tank by my own will, never, if I had not been forced to. Being in the infantry and doing tasks with my own hands, I realized, over time, that the same results can be achieved with aerial reconnaissance and strike drones, but remotely, so it is much better to do this work remotely than physically or on-site.

- Was it tough for you to adapt to a new job after command of a reconnaissance unit?

- It was tough, indeed.  Like a small child, I needed to learn everything from scratch. They grabbed me, sat me down and said, this thing is over here, that one is over there, this one is responsible for this function, and that one for that function; write it down. You know, everything, like in school, is learnt from scratch. YouTube, even some video lessons, courses, websites, but it is the willingness, the willingness to learn that matters most.

- Have you ever seen a captured drone?

- Yeah.

- How far are we behind [Russia] in the development of new technology?

- We are not behind them, but, it seems like, are even many steps ahead in particular technology domains. But for them, it’s far easier in that they have no problems getting a diverse supply of components for these drones. In other words, where we need to deploy ten drones to engage a particular target, they can easily spend fifty.

- Have you – first as a reconnaissance squad leader, then commander of an UAV unit -- changed you approaches and how?

- The approaches remained as they were. Nothing has changed. But I would like that all those young guys who come to serve with my unit as drone operators would go through service in the infantry first, so that they see how scary it is, that it’s not like playing with a remote control and watching the screen monitor. This is my personal opinion.

- On which battle axes have you fought?

- From Mariupol to the Donbas, I performed tasks in nearly every settlement, every village, went through several rotations. Since the day the all-out war began, my work zone was limited to Kherson, the Kherson region -- from Snihurivka to the Dnieper estuary.

- Looking at the path you’ve travelled, at the battle axes you have fought on, now and before the full-scale invasion, which time period was the most difficult for you?

- The entry into each new assigned zone is a new experience. The deployment lasts for one and a half to two months. You learn about everything, become like a local resident, and it becomes no longer interesting, you want something new, you want to grow. At the time of the full-scale invasion, I liked it that they came in untrained, we could destroy lots of them, and we did destroy lots of them, literally.

Regarding the hardest days, I don't know… To me, the hardest time I saw during this war was when the Russians gathered a column of residents in Oleksandrivka village, let them go, then shot and killed them all. I witnessed this all happening, wanted to help somehow, but there was no point. This is perhaps the hardest period in all my service life.

- How would you characterize the adversary, given what you have witnessed?

- Nonentities, most of them. They do have highly capable units, but we also encountered hodgepodge units comprised of a mix of DNR and Buryat soldiers, they tended to shoot each other with firearms. Basically, their army is ill prepared, poorly trained, they did not even know what for they came here. It seems like they came to rob, make money, prey on human grief, and that's it. It's not that they wanted to fight here or something like that.

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- This recall of yours, where they shot people through, were they civilians?

- Yes. Most of the children were taken out of Kherson, there were 30 vehicles, several busses, this is perhaps the hardest thing I've seen. Because they were trying to save themselves, just run away. The Russians purposefully gathered a certain number of them in one place, told them to go - and shot them.

- Do you think there is any explanation why they did so?

- No. Look, Oleksandrivka is situated on the Dnieper bank. People were leaving Kherson city through Oleksandrivka. People stood on one side of the village, they examined them all, "inspected", then inspected the whole column and let them go. And one of these columns that they let out - they simply shot them through. All of them. I don’t know what reasons guided them, didn’t know how I could help.

-- Couldn’t you do anything at that moment?

- No. I could go and die, but [my guys] didn't let me do that. I had ideas, like let's deal with them, do something to them. And was told: no, later, not now.

- Do you think these Russian soldiers did this by own initiative, or they got the green light from their commanders to kill civilians?

- I don’t think they had commanders at that time. They had no commanders over them at all, were scared to approach the line of battle.

- That is, given that your military career is built solely on experience, so to speak, these orders that you give, these commands that you give, are they built on experience?

- On experience and on a friendly basis. With me, there is no such thing that I come and tell: you have to do this, and you have to do that. There is a task, we performed it collectively, did some work among ourselves, did everything - and that's it, there is no question to be asked. Because there are those who are better in something, and those who are worse, and you can contribute something. Everyone should be engaged in their own pleasure, so as no one stands over, dictating what you should do and how, or insisting that it is you who should do it. Like it? Welcome, make an arrangement between yourself, do everything by yourself. It still happens that I stand with my mouth open and listen, wondering how they do something, discover something new for themselves.

- So you just give them free rein like this?

- Yes, exactly so.

- Do you think this to be contributive to more effective, better coordinated work?

- Yes, of course. I myself experienced this, where a commander, a little crazy one, shouts: let's go ahead. And you may twist yourself in knots to prove that you were learning, are an officer, fought here and there - if the man is bad, he will not heed, no one will listen to you.

- Have you ever not been listened to?

- No, I don't even recall this ever happening. Orders come from a higher command, go down along the chain of command. We sit down and discuss: will we do this but will not do that, how to do it. I had this experience when in the infantry. We were given a task, sent on an assignment to a neighboring unit, and we had to storm a settlement. We arrive and say: here we are, your reinforcement, we have arrived, we will help you. And the company commander sits down and says: guys, look, the task is like this, we have already attempted four times, but nothing has worked out for us. And we say: did you try to enter from the other side? No, the order specifies we have to enter from out there. We say, let's try and go in from the other side, let's do it nicely. They probably cursed there for two or three weeks, but stormed the settlement in 2.5 hours.

About commanders. Sometimes, it's more fun for someone to sit and watch. We say: we will all die now. He says: I am watching, you will survive, I believe in you, guys, let's go. I will never forget this in my life. Never. You are dismantled into pieces, literally, pleading for help. “I am aware of everything, everything is fine with you, I trust you, and you must trust me,” he says while himself sitting in the basement somewhere 10 km away. It’s like that.

- So, your approach is to be by your guys’ side?

- Yes. At all times. You should always be by their side. Where possible and appropriate, you and your fellows should move forward to the assigned point, see everything with your own eyes, then return to report to them, and lead them with you.

- This issue that you’ve raised, that commanders are different, and the value of the orders they give sometimes raises questions - do you think it is possible to solve this issue, and how?

- To rejuvenate the staff by adding younger guys, adequate warriors who have already been through a lot and at that remained morally stable, psychologically strong. These would be the best, in my opinion.

-- You already talked a little about the training of new recruits, maybe there is something else to add about your methods?

- I try to share my skills with people, share everything I can with military personnel, everything that I remember. Everything that can come to mind from my own experience, so that, in an emergency situation, they recall this moment, which I told from my experience, somehow react and do something. This can happen, it happened to me personally, where I encountered an uncertain situation, was lying in a forest belt and thinking: well, that's it, amen. Then I recalled what I was taught, maybe it is possible to do something like "suddenly it will work", and it did work.

- You talked about injuries. Have you had your prosthesis installed in Ukraine or abroad?

- In Cherkasy.

-- Cherkasy, really?

- Yes. I contacted several different prosthesis clinics. The clinics all said: your leg needs to be cut off higher up, like you'll be fine like that. I say, show me at least one person who agreed to have his leg cut off higher up if it was possible to leave it as it was. Well, they say, there aren't any, and show - everyone had their legs amputated higher. I remembered a guy from Kherson, he once got into a road accident and had the same amputation, but of left leg. And he advised me his prosthetist, I took all the required photos, x-rays, and he says: we will do it, don't worry. And they did it. Afterwards, I started looking for doctors, rehabilitators, prosthetists. Kolya Molot from Mykolaiv, a police officer, got a similar injury. He leads a group chat on Telegram, titled "You should have looked under your feet." We have our own group chat of people with leg amputations, where we share experiences and the information we have.

- Is it difficult to stand on a prosthesis?

- No, it came as a surprise to me that, immediately after I got my prosthesis installed, I got into it, got up and walked away. Now is the period when it is drying up, taking shape, so it’s a little difficult at times. But over time, I will be able to run, jump, and lift far heavier loads than I can lift now.

-  This group chat that you’ve mentioned, do the guys support each other?

- Oh, yes. You come and say: look, something like this happened to me, and million photos are sent to you, a million examples of all kinds are given showing that it's OK, nothing to worry about, that you’ll  eventually become accustomed to it, will learn to live with it, it will be finished and you will be able to run. We have some Yura in the chat, he practices running, takes part in marathon runs. Earlier this year, he won the first place in a run like this, on a prosthesis. And it even happens that you encounter a man on a prosthesis on the street, you come up and ask questions, we begin talking, organize kind of a "hands-making circle".

- How is it supportive, helpful?

- It’s cool, really! It even turns out like “How did you get injured? – That way. -- Fool, it could have been like this or that. - Well, yes, it could have.

Then we find pluses in this, quite a lot. It once happened that I went to see my guys, the owner's dog bites, the dog runs to bite, I give him my right leg, he bites it and does not understand what is happening, like it’s a wooden stick.

- This is where a plus is.

- Yes, it’s cool. You can go into the yard without fearing that a dog might bite you; you will just need to bring your leg out before it’s too late.

- Are there any other pluses?

- I like it when children come up and say: what's wrong with your leg? You start telling jokes, someone wants to paint your leg or shake it, you know, like all children would like to, it's very funny.

- At the beginning of the interview, I said that we cannot even imagine what you are going through. And maybe sometimes we don't know how to appropriately give sympathy where it is needed so much, or to offer words of support so that you understand.

- I think it would suffice just to come up, hold his hand, shake his hand and say – good fellow! Say it without all these lamentations, like poor thing, how will you live on with an amputated leg... If you encounter him sitting somewhere, smoking or eating ice cream, just greet him by raising your prosthesis, say hello. The situation is unusual, but it will be funny. And say: attaboy, shake it off. Well, something like that.

- Do you mean to say that that military servicemen are short of supportive words or what?

- Positive emotions.

- Finally, I would like to talk about what we are waiting for the most - our victory. What is victory like for you?

- It is necessary to live through this war to the end, to raise a new generation, a new powerful generation so that, for tens of years, even hundreds, they remember everything and defend our borders courageously and strongly. So that it would not happen that the younger generation just sit in their phones, the war is over, they grew up, look around and say: yes, life will be better over there, and they will not hesitate to go there and cooperate with the enemy.

- Finally, we have prepared blitz questions for you. I will ask you short questions that you could answer briefly. Do you have a hero or an anti-hero in life?

- There is none.

- What does patriotism mean to you?

- I don't know how to say it in brief. Patriotism is where you cling to your home, your native land from childhood and are ready to do everything so that things remain as they are.

- Can a person change the course of history?

- If he dies?

- Where you draw the line between duty, what needs to be done, and your own convictions?

- Never in my life I will do what I don’t want to do, or what I consider inappropriate. There's no way one will make me do it.

- Relations between siblings, in a word.

- Family.

- What would you wish from a fairy tail golden fish if you caught one?

- Wish from a golden fish? Probably, it would be to filter out some 150 million people [living in Russia] from the Earth.

- What will you never forgive?

- I will never forgive them my leg, all the legs our soldiers have lost.

- What do you value the most in people?

- Honesty and courage.

- If there were no war, what would you be doing...?

- Working as a security guard at an ATB [supermarket] (laughs).

- Your life credo?

- Not a step back.

- A wonderful credo. From myself and all of Ukrinform, and probably from all Ukrainians, I express my great thanks and respect for what you do defending our country. Thank you so much!

Interviewed by Diana Slavinska

The full video of the interview is available on Ukrinform TV channel on YouTube