{"id":453493,"date":"2022-05-26T17:49:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T14:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/a-soldiers-story-from-canada-to-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2022-05-26T17:49:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T14:49:38","slug":"a-soldiers-story-from-canada-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/a-soldiers-story-from-canada-to-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"#A soldier\u2019s story: From Canada to Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ebc83397df\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ebc83397df\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/a-soldiers-story-from-canada-to-ukraine\/#%E2%80%9CA_soldiers_story_From_Canada_to_Ukraine%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;A soldier\u2019s story: From Canada to Ukraine&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CA_soldiers_story_From_Canada_to_Ukraine%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;A soldier\u2019s story: From Canada to Ukraine&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n                <em>Svyatik Artemenko <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">travel<\/a>led from Guelph, Ontario, to Ukraine at the end of January to play professional soccer. A few weeks later, he found himself at the frontlines of Europe\u2019s most brutal war in decades. His life\u2019s journey\u2014from Odesa on the Black Sea coast, to Winnipeg as an immigrant, then back to Odesa as a soldier\u2014is quintessentially Canadian. Artemenko, who is 22, has come of age with his feet firmly planted in two national identities, standing at the hyphen in the middle of \u201cUkrainian-Canadian\u201d for all of his young life. When Russia invaded, he transformed himself from a Canadian soccer recruit to a Ukrainian fighting for the future of his homeland.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now back in Canada, Artemenko is coming to grips with the trauma of war, even as he resumes his soccer career. During his time in Ukraine, he spoke regularly with\u00a0Maclean\u2019s\u00a0contributing editor Adnan R. Khan, documenting his experiences in a conflict of global consequence, and the events that led him to come back.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This memoir by\u00a0Svyatik Artmenko was told to Adnan R. Khan.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>When I arrived<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Odesa at the end of January, more than 100,000 Russian troops had already gathered around Ukraine\u2019s borders. The world was watching for an invasion that could pull Europe into its first war in decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Ukraine, though, there was only distant talk of war. No one I met thought it was a realistic possibility. Vladimir Putin was acting tough, but ever since the Russians had invaded the east of the country in 2014, he had been the butt of jokes\u2014a puny, wannabe dictator who spent more time getting his picture taken trying to look tough than actually being tough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So even as Russian troops were mobilizing, Ukrainians shrugged and went on living their lives. It was peaceful and carefree, with caf\u00e9s full of people, couples taking long walks on Odesa\u2019s beaches and bars pumping bass late into the night. War was the furthest thing from my mind, too. The only thing I was thinking about was proving to the soccer club that had invited me to Ukraine that I was good enough to play for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Podillya FC is a team based in Khmelnytskyi, around 500 kilometres northwest of Odesa. To be candid, it wasn\u2019t my first choice. I would have loved to play for Chornomorets FC, Odesa\u2019s home team, or Dynamo in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Both are in Ukraine\u2019s Premier League, and I\u2019ve always dreamed of playing at the top level in the country where I was born.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I wasn\u2019t complaining. Podillya was a first-division club, one level down from the Premier League. More importantly, it was a team on the rise, with hopes of breaking into Ukraine\u2019s elite league within a few years. I had the chance to be a part of that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So when I took the train from Odesa to Khmelnytskyi, I was barely paying attention to the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>. Podillya\u2019s management put me up in a beautiful apartment not far from their stadium, and my days and nights were quickly consumed with one goal: impressing the team\u2019s coaches. It was going better than I could have hoped. On February 23, I was invited to the team\u2019s office, where there was a contract waiting for me. My dream was coming true. Everything was h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ening as I imagined: putting pen to paper, pulling on the team jersey for photos. I was so proud.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0My escape from Ukraine to Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That night, I had a hard time falling asleep. When I finally did, it didn\u2019t last long. At about five in the morning, I woke to the sound of distant thuds. I would find out later that these were missile strikes hitting a military base not far from Khmelnytskyi. At the time, though, I had no idea what was going on. I im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely checked my phone and saw that I had a bunch of missed calls from my parents and friends in Canada. When I called home, my mom picked up the phone. \u201cHave you seen the news?\u201d she said. \u201cRussia just invaded Ukraine.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was like someone had popped a balloon. I could feel all of the excitement deflating inside of me. As ridiculous as it sounds, my first thought was that this would postpone the second half of the soccer season, which was scheduled to start in mid-March. If I wanted to play soccer in Europe, I thought, I would have to help find a way to end this war. Just 12 hours earlier I\u2019d been sitting in the bleachers at Podillya\u2019s stadium daydreaming about being in goal against Dynamo Kyiv. I imagined myself making an impossible save to win the match. I could almost hear the fans screaming and clapping.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I tried to push that idea out of my mind. My country was being invaded, and there I was thinking about soccer. It was stupid. As I looked out my window into the darkness, I thought about my friends in Odesa and the summers I\u2019d spent there as a child. All of it was under threat. I was stunned, and angry. I decided at that moment that I would join the fight for Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>To my parents,\u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Odesa is the most beautiful place in the world, a city of more than a million people that feels like a seaside town. Even in the middle of this war, I can see it through their eyes: the restaurants, the Mediterranean architecture, the views of the Black Sea. Ukraine is smaller than Manitoba, and every inch of it is precious to the people who live there. My parents left only because of me. They wanted a better life for their son.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My father, Vladyslav, was a cardiologist; my mother, Lidiya, an English teacher. They were living a relatively comfortable life. But in 1991, after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union, the country\u2019s economy collapsed. By the time I was born in February of 1998, conditions had gone from bad to worse. My parents had lost hope of ever building the kind of life they wanted for their children.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They arrived in Winnipeg when I was two, with almost nothing. My dad\u2019s medical qualifications weren\u2019t recognized in Manitoba, so the best he could do was find a job as a janitor at a hospital. My mom was luckier: her English skills helped her land a job at Carpathia Credit Union, a bank set up by Ukrainian-Canadians to provide financial opportunity to the Ukrainian community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">\u2018I counted more than 100 dead, both foreigners and Ukrainians, while I was collecting bodies from the attack on Yavoriv\u2019 <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the next years they worked hard to build a middle-class life. They had two more kids\u2014my sister, Nika, and brother, Glev\u2014bought a house just north of the city centre and settled into a working-class routine. It wasn\u2019t perfect, of course. My parents missed their homeland, their family and their friends. When I was a kid, we would go back to Odesa every summer. For my parents, it was like refilling their energy tanks before heading back to the freezing Canadian prairie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For me, those trips were pure magic. I became fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian. I would spend long summer days with my uncle, a sea-traffic controller at one of Odesa\u2019s ports, watching the huge freighters coming and going. The seaside was my favourite place, especially the stretches lined with cliffs. I used to love standing there, looking out and dreaming about sea monsters and adventures on sailing ships.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I also loved playing soccer with my friends. For Ukrainians, soccer is a religion. I developed a passion for the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a> during my visits to Odesa, and I was good at it. Back in Winnipeg, I was recruited at the age of 16 to an advanced soccer program at Glenlawn Collegiate. That was the same year I signed up for the Canadian Forces reserves\u2014a decision I had no idea would serve me well later in my life. I spent a year training, including a summer at CFB Shilo in Brandon, Manitoba, earning my basic military qualification. In the end, I dropped out and focused on soccer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I was 19, the Winnipeg Valour recruited me as their backup goalkeeper for the inaugural season of the Canadian Premier League, a pro circuit just below Major League Soccer. From there, I went to the University of Guelph and played for their varsity team and eventually signed with Guelph United FC, a semi-pro club competing in Ontario\u2019s premier league. In 2021, we won the league championship and qualified for the 2022 Canadian Championship. But the big highlight came near the end of the year, when I received a call from Podillya asking if I wanted to try out for them. It was the opportunity I\u2019d been waiting for. I bought a one-way ticket to Odesa, packed my bags and left for Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0On February 24, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0almost exactly a month after I arrived in Khmelnytskyi, the sun rose over a changed country. Russian forces were advancing quickly from Crimea, which they already occupied, toward Kherson, a city on the Dnieper River not far from Odesa. The shock of the invasion was rippling throughout Ukraine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I talked to some of my new Ukrainian teammates with Podillya, who told me they were all enlisting in the country\u2019s military. A few hours later I was lining up at the army recruitment office in Khmelnytskyi. The queue was longer than I\u2019d expected, stretching a block down the street before doubling back to the entrance. The Ukrainian military was already drafting men between 18 and 60 years old before the invasion started, but as soon as the war was on, people were rushing to volunteer. One of the men in line\u2014a tall, bulky guy who seemed to have some military experience\u2014was telling his friend that he thought the Russians would move on to Mykolaiv, east of Odesa, because that\u2019s where the main highway crosses the Pivdennyi Buh River. They would need to take the bridge there before they could begin an assault on Odesa.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0\u2018Anybody want to drive this ambulance to Ukraine?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I waited more than two hours before I learned I couldn\u2019t enlist because the regular army was only accepting Ukrainian citizens. I was surprised. I knew that Ukraine doesn\u2019t recognize dual citizenship\u2014when I\u2019m there, I\u2019m technically considered a Canadian visitor. But all my life I\u2019ve felt as much Ukrainian as I have Canadian. I worried I might not get a chance to defend the country of my birth. The recruiting officials could see how disappointed I was. They assured me there were plans to establish some kind of force for international volunteers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I left Khmelnytskyi that day and headed back to Odesa, disappointed but still holding out hope that I would be able to contribute to the fight. The next day, I received a call from a Ukrainian military official who told me there would be an International Legion, and I should prepare to leave for training at any moment. In the meantime, I signed up to local neighbourhood patrols, which had been quickly assembled to watch for saboteurs and spies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These kinds of covert operations were a real fear in Odesa, where many residents are native Russian speakers: in early January, Ukraine\u2019s intelligence service, the SBU, arrested a Russian agent who was recruiting people to carry out attacks in Odesa. As the war started, the government was concerned that sleeper cells were preparing to sabotage Ukrainian defensive positions, or were sending information back to Russia about the city\u2019s defences.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1236941\" style=\"width: 1341px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1236941 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DSC3368Valeria-Ferraro.jpg\" alt=\"Artemenko in Odesa in mid-March, when he was assigned to a unit operating behind Russian lines. (Photograph by Valeria Ferraro)\" width=\"1331\" height=\"2000\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artemenko in Odesa in mid-March, when he was assigned to a unit operating behind Russian lines. (Photograph by Valeria Ferraro)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The patrols were tasked with looking for suspicious activities and reporting them to the authorities. When I signed up, they asked if I had any military training and if I could handle a gun. I showed them a photograph of my basic military qualification certificate from Canada. That was enough for them to assign me to the patrols and issue me a nine-millimetre pistol, which I kept tucked into my pants, under my jacket. Working in groups of three or four, dressed in civilian clothes so we could blend in with the local population, we walked the streets in downtown Odesa, sometimes during the day and other times at night, when the city was under a curfew.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once, during a daytime patrol, we saw a guy walking around taking pictures. It was weird because he wasn\u2019t taking pictures of anything that would make a nice photo\u2014just random street shots. We went up to him and told him this wasn\u2019t the time to be taking pictures. He tried to walk away, but we followed him and called in the police. They stopped him, and when they checked his documents, they found a Russian passport and a notebook listing locations around Odesa. He was arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I never found out whether he was a spy. If not, it was stupid of him to be acting suspiciously when things were so tense. Odesa wasn\u2019t being bombed in the same way as other cities, but everyone was preparing for the worst. Occasionally one of the Russian warships lined up on the Black Sea would launch a missile. One hit the airport. The Russians had even tried to deploy a landing party in Koblevo, just east of Odesa, but were repelled by Ukrainian forces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Russians were finding it hard to get to the city. The Ukrainian military and volunteers were fighting heroically to hold off any advancements from the east, and Odesa\u2019s cliffs provided natural protection against an amphibious assault. For extra protection, the Ukrainian navy had set naval mines in the sea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes I would take a walk down to the beach, or along the clifftops I had loved so much as a kid. I could see the Russian warships lining the horizon, these ominous black shadows. It felt like something could happen at any moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One cold morning at the beginning of March, the beach was empty and the water was dark grey, under a cloudy sky. I was frustrated: it had been nearly a week since the Russians had invaded and I felt like I was wasting my time with these city patrols. Nothing had happened since we\u2019d stopped that guy taking photos a few days earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I spoke to my parents every day and told them how discouraged I was watching the war without being able to contribute. They worried about me, of course, but they were also proud of my decision to stay and fight. The Ukrainian military had surprised everyone with its resistance against the much bigger Russian army. My parents understood why I wanted to be a part of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two days later, I received an order from Ukrainian military officials to report to the Yavoriv training centre, near Lviv, the main city in western Ukraine, where the International Legion was based. I was finally going to get my chance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0When I arrived\u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at Odesa\u2019s central station to catch the train, officials were only allowing women and children to board. Most Ukrainians fleeing the country were heading to Lviv, and then on from there to Poland. Men of fighting age were prohibited from leaving, but I had papers from the Ukrainian military that identified me as a recruit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At first, the women on the train car I boarded didn\u2019t realize I had volunteered to fight. I was the only man and I didn\u2019t have any military equipment. I looked like a civilian and, in their eyes, like a coward on the run.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s this trick Ukrainian grandmothers have to make a person feel guilty without saying a word. It\u2019s this look of pure disgust, and if you ever experience it, you don\u2019t easily forget it. On the train, I got so many of those grandmother looks that I almost started to believe I\u2019d done something wrong. A few women came up and asked why I wasn\u2019t fighting to defend Ukraine. When I explained I was on my way to Yavoriv for training, their attitudes completely changed. Word got around the car that I was a volunteer, and everyone started offering me food, water and anything else they thought I needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One elderly lady came up and gave me some <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">prosphora<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the holy bread handed out at orthodox services. She told me she\u2019d been at church in Odesa not too long before evacuating to the train station. She wanted me to have it as a blessing. I was deeply moved. I\u2019ve always had a strong faith in God. Standing in that crowded railway car for the nearly eight-hour journey to Lviv, surrounded by terrified women and children fleeing their homes, I knew the best I could do to ensure they returned was train hard, do my duty and pray to God for a quick end to the war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yavoriv certainly had the facilities to provide excellent training. It was a massive base, spread over thousands of acres with lots of forest. There were tactical training areas; artillery, tank and shooting ranges; and long, two-storey barracks. The commanders could have really put these guys through their paces, weeding out those who didn\u2019t have what it takes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I hadn\u2019t been at the Yavoriv base long, though, when I realized the International Legion wasn\u2019t all it was hyped up to be. A lot of people had taken up President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s call for help, but that didn\u2019t translate into a capable fighting force. Some of the guys lacked the mental discipline to be soldiers. There would be a drill, for instance, and they would take their time putting on their shoes and getting dressed. At a boot camp for Canadian reserves, they would have been punished for that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They weren\u2019t receiving the kind of training\u2014the yelling and breaking people down\u2014that scares away people who lack the mental toughness to operate in a war zone. This training seemed designed to give them just enough basic skill that commanders could throw them into the fight. We did some physical training and some offensive and defensive tactical manoeuvres, and that was about it. Most of the volunteers seemed to think they were there on some kind of adventure vacation. I was skeptical they would ever be ready.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:\u00a0Scenes from the war in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because of my previous training, my commanding officer put me in charge of teaching people how to load their magazines. One guy was trying to load the bullets backwards. When I pointed out the mistake, he shrugged and said he\u2019d never held a weapon before. I asked what he had been assigned to do, and he said he was going to be a sniper. It was unbelievable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s not to say everyone was incompetent. There were some experienced foreign volunteers, including my commanding officer, a 20-year veteran of war zones. I stuck close to him because I knew he would be able to improve my skill set. I don\u2019t know what it was\u2014maybe the discipline I\u2019d learned from playing soccer\u2014but this officer seemed to trust me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, I wondered why they weren\u2019t kicking some of these people out and telling them to go home. There were plenty of volunteers; they had set up a tent camp to house the overflow. Did the commanders believe they could just throw bodies at the Russians and win the war that way? I was uneasy. I knew that most of these guys would be ill-equipped to handle a life-threatening situation. They might very well get me killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0On my ninth day <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0at Yavoriv, we were awoken by an air-raid siren and left the barracks to take cover. No bombs had fallen, and we went back to bed a little pissed off, only vaguely aware that what had probably been a Russian reconnaissance plane flying overhead could mean trouble later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By 5:30 in the morning, I was in a deep sleep, so I didn\u2019t hear the first missile. But it must have been close to my barrack, because the explosion nearly threw me out of bed. There was no warning\u2014no siren, no announcement over the loudspeakers. Immediately after the blast, there were a few seconds of eerie silence, as if everyone was too shocked to react. Then chaos: people shouting, boots stomping on the concrete floor. I don\u2019t remember getting dressed, but I must have done, because I had my uniform and boots on when a second rocket tore overhead. It\u2019s a sound I will never forget, like a giant sheet of paper being ripped in two, accompanied by that high-pitched whistling noise you hear bombs making in war films. Then the explosion, the ground shaking, the windows shattering.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I stood dazed in the dark for a few seconds as my fellow soldiers ran for the exits, some with cuts on their faces from shards of broken glass. I saw one of my friends sitting on his bed. He had been next to a window and looked like he was in shock. I threw him over my shoulder and ran.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outside it was freezing cold, but with so much adrenalin pumping through me, I barely felt it. Another rocket shredded the air and slammed down somewhere in the direction of the shooting range. Someone was barking orders to take cover in the forest, so I ran in that direction, my friend dangling from my shoulder.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I stumbled over frozen ground for what felt like an hour but was probably no more than a few minutes, getting clear of the buildings. Rockets were raining down almost non-stop. I would later learn the enemy had launched more than two dozen cruise missiles toward the base from bombers flying in Russian airspace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was my first taste of the Russian way of war. I\u2019d decided to join this fight almost without thinking. Watching the Russians lay waste to the place where I\u2019d been living for the past nine days was the first time I\u2019d felt fear since signing up. I was facing an enemy that had no problem killing indiscriminately from a distance. What would it be like on the frontline? If I was killed, would I be looking into the eyes of a human being who fired a gun? Or would my killer be some far-off grunt in Russia pressing a button? Or someone well behind the frontline loading artillery shells?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the sun rose and the missiles stopped, some of my fear melted away. But for many of the foreign volunteers, this first taste of war was a reality check. It woke them up to the fact that this wasn\u2019t some kind of Hollywood movie where they were the heroes dodging every bullet. Many, including the guy who\u2019d been loading ammunition backward into his magazine, decided to go home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I didn\u2019t blame them. These guys demonstrated pure heart for coming in the first place. Their departure was probably for the best, though. It\u2019s better they were put through the experience of war on the training base than on the frontline, where their inexperience would have put other lives at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The attack on Yavoriv strengthened my resolve. The base was badly damaged, and from the looks of it, the Russians knew exactly where to hit it to cause the most carnage. Anyone who had been on the second floor of a barrack was either dead or badly injured. Anyone in the tent camp had been blown to pieces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We dug in for a few days in the forest, with little more than our clothes and blankets to keep us warm, eating military rations that we retrieved from the base. We built fires during the day, but at night we weren\u2019t allowed to because they would make us an easy target for Russian attacks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A few of us dug a ditch where we slept in case the Russians did bomb us, huddling together for warmth. I used some of the skills I\u2019d acquired in a Grade 10 outdoor education class back in Manitoba, where we learned wilderness survival. I knew how to build a lean-to over the ditch, so we had some cover from the elements. Funny, because I\u2019m not much of a camper. I\u2019m not even sure why I took that class. I guess growing up in Canada, where the wilderness is such a big part of our lives, it was just a normal thing to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We spent most of our days digging through the rubble and recovering the remains of the dead. There were no survivors; gathering up the dead mostly meant collecting body parts and reassembling them into whole human beings so they could be identified.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">\u2018You don\u2019t see the things I\u2019ve seen and not change in some basic ways\u2019 <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was gruesome work. I try not to think about it, but sometimes those images pop into my head. I guess they\u2019ll haunt me for the rest of my life. While I was doing it, I kept thinking about all those terrified people in Ukraine\u2019s cities hiding in bomb shelters. After the missiles hit, would there be anyone to dig them out of the rubble?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0Over the three days<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I spent at Yavoriv after the attack, I counted more than 100 dead, both foreigners and Ukrainians. There must have been more buried under all that rubble. When I left for Odesa, the recovery teams were still digging.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The devastation created some uncertainty about the future of the International Legion. The more experienced volunteers were becoming frustrated even before the bombing. Some, including my commanding officer, felt like the Legion had been a publicity stunt to show that most of the world was on Ukraine\u2019s side. After the attack, he gathered some of the guys he thought were ready to fight and told us if we wanted to leave, we were free to do so. There were other volunteer brigades operating in Ukraine that would give us the chance to contribute. He could put us in touch with them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was willing to be deployed anywhere in Ukraine, of course. But after the missile attack, returning to the familiar surroundings of Odesa felt right. My commanding officer linked me up with a volunteer battalion attached to the SBU. He told me they could use my language skills, and my steadiness in times of crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the SBU base, I was assigned to a group of volunteers who were tasked with supporting Ukrainian special forces operations. It wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d expected to be doing. All of my training in Canada, and the little I\u2019d received in Ukraine, was geared toward the infantry. I was expecting to go to the frontlines and shoot at Russians.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe that kind of thinking was simplistic. By mid-March, the frontline around Mykolaiv was shifting. Ukrainian counterattacks and Moscow\u2019s changing strategy had allowed us to push Russian forces back toward Kherson. Ukrainian forces had prevented enemy troops from crossing the Pivdennyi Buh River, sparing Odesa. After that, the frontline was less about infantry engagements than artillery and air strikes, with special forces conducting covert, pinpoint hits as the Russians retreated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My unit\u2019s job was to infiltrate the frontline, come in behind the Russians and set traps\u2014IEDs and land mines\u2014to make their withdrawal more painful. On one mission, we might be sent to get close to the enemy, disguised as civilians, and radio back their positions. On another, we might be told to disrupt a retreating column by neutralizing a key armoured vehicle so Ukrainian special forces could then go in and take out the whole group.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0Canada\u2019s government is sending body armour to support Ukraine. So is this group of activist fundraisers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was nerve-racking work. The thinking was that if we looked like civilians, the Russians wouldn\u2019t target us. But as we knew from the scenes in Bucha and Irpin, where hundreds of bodies and mass graves have been found, many Russian soldiers have no qualms about killing civilians. During our first mission behind enemy lines\u2014it would end up being our only one\u2014we were shot at and nearly hit by artillery as we drove around Russian positions in a civilian car. One of the men in my unit took a piece of shrapnel in the arm from an artillery round that landed some 10 feet from our vehicle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was the worst period of my life. Being killed worried me less than being captured. The Russians had made it clear they didn\u2019t consider foreign volunteers to be covered under the laws of war. I knew how they would treat me\u2014like a mercenary, or a terrorist. I would likely disappear into their prisons forever. When I went out on that mission, I told myself: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Putting a bullet in my own head is better than being caught.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I know it sounds gruesome, and it wasn\u2019t something I dwelled on. It was just a reminder of how high the stakes were before we headed out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The scenes of devastation I witnessed were another stark reminder. I saw the bodies of civilians, left in ditches on the side of the road, some scorched black as if someone had tried to burn them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There were forced relocations, too. On my one mission behind Russian lines near the end of March, I witnessed Russian-speaking Ukrainians in a village near Mykolaiv being forced to board military trucks heading east, either into Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine or on to Russia itself. When we told our commanders what we\u2019d seen, they said there was little that could be done. I can\u2019t imagine what those people must have gone through, or what they might still be enduring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By early April, Putin\u2019s new plan for Ukraine was obvious. He had failed to take over the entire country, so his forces were limping out of Kyiv and Kharkiv and redeploying to the east, with the goal of taking the entire Donbas region. In the south, they had retreated to the outskirts of Kherson, the first city in Ukraine they\u2019d taken control of, and dug into defensive positions, setting up tanks and artillery in populated areas so we couldn\u2019t shell them. Playing defence in a war takes fewer resources than going on the offensive, especially if you\u2019re using human shields.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1236940\" style=\"width: 1341px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1236940 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DSC3351Valeria-Ferraro.jpg\" alt=\"(Photograph by Valeria Ferraro)\" width=\"1331\" height=\"2000\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photograph by Valeria Ferraro)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once the Russians had dug into populated areas, my commanders decided it wasn\u2019t worth the risk for my unit to repeat our trip behind enemy lines. The new worry was that Russia would restock its forces and make a new push on Odesa, potentially using Transnistria, a Russian-controlled territory in Moldova, to launch a two-pronged ground assault on the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My unit was retasked with capturing Russian agents, identified by the SBU, who were operating all around the Odesa region, sending information back to Russia about Ukrainian troop deployments or weak points in our defences, anything the Russians could use to plan a new offensive. We would be given targets who we would then track down and arrest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The work was less stressful than missions behind enemy lines: with no Russian troops in the area at the time, there was no risk of capture. But it came with its own risks. Sometimes, our targets were armed, or they would run away, forcing us to open fire on them. Once, we were assigned to pick up a suspected saboteur who was sheltering with a family. When we broke through the door to raid the apartment, everyone inside panicked, and we couldn\u2019t be sure which of the adults was our target. We just started screaming, fingers on our triggers, for everyone to get on the ground. Fortunately, no one got shot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My time fighting in the war had, in a way, come full circle. My first contribution was helping arrest a suspicious person taking pictures and notes on Odesa\u2019s streets; my last missions involved chasing down and capturing spies and saboteurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was a different person, though, than I had been during those early days in Odesa. You don\u2019t see the things I\u2019ve seen and not change in some basic ways. It was hard, much harder than I\u2019d expected. I\u2019d never been in a war zone, but other people who have told me this was the worst they had ever seen. The level of devastation is terrifying.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>After a month <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and a half, a part of me just wanted to go home. When I had some time off and spoke to my friends back in Canada, they asked me about my experiences. I described the things I\u2019d seen matter-of-factly, and they responded with shock. \u201cThat\u2019s so messed up,\u201d they said. But for me, it just felt kind of normal. I really didn\u2019t feel any emotions about it anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I realized this shouldn\u2019t be normal\u2014that it wasn\u2019t good to be so numb to these experiences. I wasn\u2019t sleeping well. I was having doubts. But I was also torn. I had become extremely close to the people I met during my time as a soldier, the men and women who sacrificed everything to defend their country. I didn\u2019t want to abandon them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My time off\u2014a couple of days every week or so\u2014was difficult. I was allowed to leave the SBU base, but after the intensity of my missions, going back to regular life in Odesa was unsettling. The rhythm of the city was returning to some kind of normal. It was early April and spring had arrived. Caf\u00e9s and restaurants were open. People were still tense, but they were going about their daily routines. And yet for me, the war was never far away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Russian warships on the Black Sea had disappeared beyond the horizon, but we knew they were still there. Warning sirens would ring out regularly because of the threat of missile attacks. From time to time, one would land, almost randomly, hitting a street here or a building there. It was as if the Russians were reminding us that they were still out there, that we weren\u2019t safe, that the war was not over.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the middle of April, I desperately needed a break. I\u2019d come to realize over my six weeks or so in the war that I didn\u2019t want to be a soldier, though I was definitely good at it. I had volunteered so I could help my people live free from Putin\u2019s tyranny. But I\u2019d come to Ukraine to play soccer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0What it takes to truly fight for freedom in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It looked almost certain that the whole season would be cancelled. Podillya\u2019s officials had told all of its foreign players they were free to sign with other teams temporarily if they wanted to keep playing. I was the only one who had volunteered to fight, but I was considering my options. My coach at Guelph United had offered me a contract for the upcoming season. The Canadian Championship was scheduled to start in early May, with Guelph United playing the Halifax Wanderers, a Canadian Premier League team, in its first match. My coach said if I was back in Canada, I could be in the lineup.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If we won, we would be up against Toronto FC, a Major League Soccer club that includes players who will be representing Canada next fall at the World Cup in Qatar. Just to be on the pitch playing against them would be a highlight of my career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I felt guilty for wanting this opportunity as much as I did. The war was still raging in Ukraine\u2019s east. By the third week of April, the Russians had launched a fresh offensive to take the entire Donbas region. But I decided to complete one last set of missions and then return to Canada. My commanders told me the Russians were also preparing for another assault on Mykolaiv from Kherson, while building up troops in Transnistria. Then, on April 22, a Russian <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> admitted on state television what most people suspected: Russia intended to take all of southern Ukraine, including Odesa, cutting off Ukrainians from the Black Sea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I got that news, I was in a car on my way to the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, where I was booked to fly to Toronto. I had long feared that Russia planned to invade my hometown, but the confirmation felt like a punch in the gut. I pictured all those old ladies when I\u2019d boarded the train to Yavoriv back in early March, fixing me with their looks of disgust as I left the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I knew, though, that I was not running away. In the weeks that had passed since then, I\u2019d survived missiles and mortars; I\u2019d gone undercover and infiltrated the frontlines of one of the world\u2019s most powerful armies. I\u2019d witnessed death on a scale no one should ever have to see. I\u2019d fought for my people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was time to go back to my other home, where there was no war, and where I could be the person I dream of being. It was the right choice, if a painful one. As I approached the border with Moldova, I thought of my beautiful Odesa\u2014miraculously intact despite the war\u2014and wondered if I had set eyes on it for the last time. The Russian war machine was coming. Wherever it went, death and destruction would follow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>This article appears in print in the June 2022 issue of<\/em>\u00a0Maclean\u2019s\u00a0<em>magazine with the headline, \u201cA soldier\u2019s story.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/secure.macleans.ca\/loc\/MME\/head_subscribe\">here<\/a>,\u00a0or buy the issue online\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"c-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" href=\"http:\/\/canadianmags.ca\/products\/copy-of-macleans-single-issue\" data-stringify-link=\"http:\/\/canadianmags.ca\/products\/copy-of-macleans-single-issue\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\" data-remove-tab-index=\"true\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/longforms\/a-soldiers-story-from-canada-to-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A soldier\u2019s story: From Canada to Ukraine&#8221; Svyatik Artemenko travelled from Guelph, Ontario, to Ukraine at the end of January to play professional soccer. A few weeks later, he found himself at the frontlines of Europe\u2019s most brutal war in decades. His life\u2019s journey\u2014from Odesa on the Black Sea coast, to Winnipeg as an immigrant,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":453494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Svyatik-Artmenko_Courtesy-of-Guelph-United-F.C-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22974,123257,70376,4975,70868,3582],"class_list":["post-453493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-canada","tag-defence","tag-military","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}