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First-hand accounts

39 posts

First-hand accounts and true stories from Ukraine.

KIA retrieving fallen Ukrainian soldiers

8 minute read

First-hand accounts

Last ride home: The man who brings back Ukraine’s fallen heroes

With Russia's invasion, the owner of a meat processing factory found himself fulfilling war's grimmest duty. He finds solace nowhere, but when the fallen appear in his dreams, they assure he did everything right.

byBohdan Ben

7 minute read

First-hand accounts

Russia’s war left me a single mom. Here’s how I’m piecing life back together

For a year, Natalia clung to hope her missing soldier husband would return. Now when he's confirmed dead, she grapples daily an uncertain future. “What’s next? How should I live? How do I plan life?” she asks, encapsulating the daunting task of rebuilding her life shattered by war.

byVira Kravchuk

9 minute read

First-hand accounts

Scars of war: Ukrainian servicewoman survives Russian captivity, returns to fight

Four months in a cramped Russian cell couldn't break Yulia's spirit. Now, the Ukrainian soldier prepares to rejoin the fight, leaving behind a daughter who fears losing her mother again.

byVira Kravchuk

3 minute read

First-hand accounts

I’m Dutch, here’s what I felt when Russia killed my people

Ten years ago Russia killed hundreds of my fellow citizens by ordering to shoot down MH-17. Now it kills Ukrainians daily. We must act.

byBenjamin Looijen

7 minute read

“World isn’t built for the blind.” Ukrainian veteran hopes for bio-eyes — and a guide dog

Blinded by a Russian drone strike, soldier Denys Abdulin, 29, dreams of experimental eye treatments. Until then, he's raising $4,000 for a guide dog to navigate the obstacles of post-war life.

byDonbas Frontliner

6 minute read

“With this tattoo, they wouldn’t take me a POW.” Ukrainian top manager takes up arms

A Ukrainian platoon sergeant explains why it is terrible to romanticize war and why he is in the Russian list of Ukrainian so-called "nazis" since 2015.

byBohdan Ben

Ukrainian POW tortured in Russian prison

10 minute read

First-hand accounts

“I chewed that mouse between my teeth”: Ukrainian POW details torture, starvation in Russian camp

Starved nearly to death in Russian custody, Ukrainian soldier Oleksiy Anulia resorted to eating worms and mice to survive sadistic torture, revealing the scale of abuse in harrowing detail.

byChristine Chraibi

5 minute read

First-hand accounts

How I survived a Russian kamikaze drone attack on Kyiv

Sleep deprivation, terror, destruction, and death of innocent people loom over Ukraine every single day. My dad jokes…

bySerge Havrylets

7 minute read

“I was lucky to survive in Bakhmut for sixteen days,” soldiers wounded in Bakhmut recall and name main problems

“I don’t understand how it is possible [for Russians] to crawl among corpses like that and still crawl…

byBohdan Ben

6 minute read

First-hand accounts

Russians use dead comrades as shields to advance on Bakhmut – Ukrainian defender

Journalist Illia Berezenko, like most Ukrainians, woke up to explosions on February 24. “At first, I thought that…

byUkrainian media sources

9 minute read

None of them wanted this life: the fury, silence, and “beauty” of war as recounted by Ukrainian soldiers

Winter is upon us, on the frontline, in the cities and steppes, in the villages and forests. It…

byChristine Chraibi

1 minute read

First-hand accounts

“We are free people, not slaves” – Ukrainian soldier shares his motivation to keep fighting

The Ukrainian infantryman of the 60th Mechanized Brigade with a call sing Vas Vas says he joined the…

byEuromaidan Press Staff

8 minute read

The unsung heroes of the first battle for Kherson

Kherson residents remember 1 March 2022 as one of the most tragic days in the history of their…

byEuromaidan Press Contributor

9 minute read

First-hand accounts

“It’s so scary here. And it smells of death.” A day in the life of a Ukrainian soldier

Ukrainian soldiers of the 130th Territorial Defense Battalion of Kyiv have been defending strategically important population centres in…

byWorld Media

Ukrainian Army in Bohorodychne, Donetsk Oblast

5 minute read

The Russians made a toilet in the church: tales from liberated Bohorodychne

The Ukrainian Army has advanced into Donetsk Oblast, liberating towns and villages along the way. Among them is…

byEuromaidan Press Staff

6 minute read

First-hand accounts

“I had a bucket of liquid manure in case Russians wanted to rape me.” Stories from Ukraine’s deoccupied South

Ivanivka is a village located on a crucial road between Kryvyi Rih (Ukraine’s steel capital) and occupied Kherson.…

byAnatolii Shara

Ukrainian soldier, hero, defedning Kherson from Russians

6 minute read

The untold story of the first battle for Kherson

All Ukrainian military personnel currently fighting for Ukraine’s freedom are heroes in the eyes of Ukrainian citizens, but…

byEuromaidan Press Contributor

6 minute read

How it feels to escape death while your comrades do not

(Not recommended reading for the faint of heart) I am a ghostly “200”… That’s my official designation. I…

byWorld Media

27 minute read

Whoever could, fled the Russians. They went back to Irpin to save the rest

We met with Andriy and Anton in late May 2022 while they were planning the next batch of…

byOrysia Hrudka

14 minute read

“It feels like you are going to die 100 times a day.” How I survived the Russian destruction of Mariupol

It all started on February 24, early in the morning at 5 am, when the first rockets hit…

byZarina Zabrisky