Even after getting shot in the face during an attack by Kremlin-back insurgents, 18-year-old Dmytro Makhov kept firing back to save his comrades, who rallied to force the attackers’ retreat.
The battle took place on June 16 near Yampil and Kirovsk in Donetsk Oblast, when 13 soldiers were killed, according to a National Security and Defense Council report. Others besides Makhov were injured.
The young man’s bravery in saving his comrades earned him the Order for Courage from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Aug. 12. The award ceremony will take place at a later date.
A native of Spas village in western Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Makhov joined the army in March, not expecting to be sent into combat so quickly.
He returned home after his injury. “We all worried and couldn’t stop praying,” his mother Natalia told local NTK Tv channel. His grandmother is happy to see him alive. “God didn’t save him from a bullet, but saved from death. I am so happy that he was at my birthday celebration three days ago,” she says.
“He was always a calm and good child,” says village council head Oleksandra Hoyanuk.
After the battle, he was transported by helicopter to Kharkiv, and from there by plane to Lviv. Makhov underwent facial surgery and stayed at the Military Medical Centre of Western Region.
Makhov is not used to public attention.
He doesn’t know when he will get the presidential award, but he wants to keep fighting. “I just want to go back (to the east). All my friends are there, my brothers,” he told the Kyiv Post.
He is not afraid of dying in battle. “It’s just what I have to do,” he says. He said the Ukrainian east will stay Ukrainian if the people don’t give up, adding: “And we won’t give up.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Iryna Yeroshko can be reached at [email protected]
