Dmytro Slesarenko, 15, studies at Kyiv Ivan Bohun Military Lyceum. Several years ago, his mother died and his aunt took him in. Through the social services, he was sent to the children’s Eurocamp in the former presidential residence, Mezhyhirya. There, he shared his dream of joining the military.
“I was 11 when the military aggression began in Ukraine, and it was not pleasant for me to observe it all. The ceasefire regime is being constantly violated and many people continue to die. I think I wasn’t the only one who was motivated by all this to enroll in the Kyiv Military Lyceum.
To defend your country is quite prestigious, particularly when the country is in need of professional servicemen.
Moreover, my great grandfather was in the military; he fought through WWII.
I did not expect that there would be so many guys of my age who would want to become officers as well.
The biggest achievement for me is that I got accepted to this learning institution. It is one of a kind in our country. I can run almost 2 km, but I don’t obsess over it. My personal record is 15 pull-ups. I am seriously proud of it. I need to improve and that’s what I aspire to do.
It is not important what kind of stars you have on your epauletts if you really like this profession, if it is your thing. Right at this moment I could say that the military is for me. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself when I have free time. Here at the lyceum you are busy all the time, like in a rat race, and you don’t seem to notice how time passes. You hang out with friends, communicate with officers. It is a very busy life.
An ordinary school does not compare to a learning institution of this type.
In the morning we go for a run. Then we do morning exercises. Then, you quickly make your bed, brush your teeth and wash up. And then, you rush to the morning parade, where junior commanders check your appearance. Then we have breakfast and rush to classes. For half of the day, we are ordinary school students.
Here, everything is like in the army, but we are still only learning.
Right now, I am intensely studying English, because I want to go to a European higher learning institution.
Why not graduate from a European higher learning institution and become an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
I’d like to be an officer of the Ukrainian army and for this status to be more prestigious than the status of a NATO officer. That’s what I’d really want. It is a wonderful dream, I think. The majority of my classmates have the same dream.
It would be nice to be a NATO member, as it means we’ll have the standards that we’ll have to comply with and high-tech weaponry.
The guys, just like me, sincerely just wish for Ukraine to have a modern army.
We make nets for camouflaging the tanks. We have a chief – Petro Hennadiyovych Potekhin. And in winter he asked his friends to give up their old parachutes. And so we made white camouflage nets from white parachutes.
Ukraine had an army, but it was totally destroyed. Veterans visited us and said that in 2014, when everything began, we were so short of machinery that sometimes they had to use bicycles to go on reconnaissance missions instead of vehicles.
I’d like to wish peace to humankind. Over the recent years, we, in Ukraine, have realized how important it is.
I’d also like the people to take care of the environment. Over the past century people have inflicted more harm on the Earth than in the previous two thousand years.
If we took care of these two things – peace and clean environment – life would have been much better.”
