Ukrainian soldier Viktor Shyyan became one of the legendary defenders of Donetsk Airport. When he left the ruined building of the new terminal on Jan. 21, he could barely walk. The joints in his legs were dislocated, his eyebrow was bleeding after being grazed by a bullet, he had a concussion and he could barely hear.
But he was the healthiest in the group of 13 people who managed to leave the airport alive.
The “cyborg” Shyyan, as Russian-separatists would call the outnumbered airport defenders, still doesn’t know how he survived.
“I was born in a bulletproof vest,” he laughs.
On Jan. 16, 55 soldiers of the 95th airborne brigade were sent to the last rotation in defending the ruins of the Donetsk Airport.
Only 13 of them managed to leave alive in five days, after the building of new terminal was ruined by two massive explosions. The last explosion on Jan. 20 buried most of Ukraine’s remaining defenders under concrete debris. When the rescue mission failed, those alive decided to leave on their own.
Shyyan says they tried to dig out some of their comrades, but it was mostly impossible. “They were under tons of concrete and steel,” the soldier explains. “When we were leaving, we heard separatists finding them and shooting.”
After Ukrainian army forces re-took the control over the airport in May 2014, Russian-led separatist forces waged a continous effort to get it back from a defending force of less than 100 people per rotation.
By mid-January, Ukrainian soldiers were still holding just the ground floor of the airport, surrounded by enemies on three sides.
Shyyan was at the airport on two occasions — in mid-December for 12 days and then later in January.
The shooting was continuous.
“I remember it stopped once before New Year’s for a couple of hours,” he says. “I then called my sister to say everything is fine, but she didn’t believe me. She heard me reloading the gun. That’s what we would usually do if the fire stopped at least for a moment.”
For the second rotation, Shyyan’s brigade of Ukrainian soldiers had to go through a separatist checkpoint and weren’t allowed to have anything but automatic guns and hand grenades.
“They fired at our car as as soon as we passed the checkpoint. We barely saved the driver,” Shyyan says.
Shyyan says many soldiers panicked during the final stand. Some would even shoot themselves to get out of duty. He doesn’t blame them. “I don’t go to church, I am hardly a believer, but even I talked to God there or rather cursed him,” he smiles.
Sometimes the soldiers sang the Ukrainian national anthem as another weapon in their arsenal. “They were firing at us from everything they had and they had a lot and what we could do is make them listen to our anthem, we knew it was driving them crazy, we heard them cursing,” Shyyan laughs, his dark brown eyes sparkling.
He had to join the war. “I couldn’t sit at home while the bastards kill our young boys,” he says.
Before, Shyyan worked as construction worker and an engineer at the factory in his hometown of Khmelnytskyi. “That’s how I got the dorm room, still live there with my wife and 15-year-old son, 9 square meters,” he smirks.
As a war veteran Shyyan is supposed to get an apartment from the state, but he doesn’t believe he will get anything. He doesn’t believe in the state at all. Since he’s been back home, he’s been volunteering to help the families of his fallen comrades and is preparing to go back to the front lines.
Shyyan finds it hard to talk about his war experiences. “I can hardly put into words how I nearly lost my mind,” he says, looking down.
He knows many don’t want the truth.
“I know many would ask if I am insane to go there and fight for God knows what and who,” he says sadly. “Well, my answer is – I go there so you here could ask me that question.”
To help Viktor Shyyan or the families of the fallen “cyborgs” one can send money to the volunteer in charge Vyacheslav Trachuk.
PrivatBank Card Number
5168 7423 2867 1155
PayPal
If you mean the money to be sent specifically to Shyyan, not other former soldiers or their families, fill in his name in the payment purpose
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]
