“Every Generation Rethinks History, Looking for Answers to the Timely Questions of the Present in the Past”: War and Genocide Through the Eyes of a Ukrainian Officer with a Ph.D.

“…I started to feel the war back in 2014, although it was not as acute as it is now”

– Yehor, could you please tell us when the Russian-Ukrainian war began for you?

It’s hard to say. For me, it probably started in late April 2014, when the 20th Territorial Defence Battalion was being formed in the Dnipro region. I was drafted to the district military commissariat for a week, where I met the battalion’s deputy commander, Serhii Demchenko. He was one of the two soldiers who were killed in Mariupol on the 9th of May that year at the city police station. As I found out later, Serhiy Demchenko was killed by a sniper’s bullet. So, I had a sense of war back in 2014, although it was not as acute as it is now. Back then, there were no explosions or air raids in Dnipro.

– What level of military training did you have at that time?

I had the standard military training for students of the History Department of Dnipro National University, then Oles’ Honchar Dnipro National University. My military speciality was Deputy Commander for Moral and Psychological Support. But at that time, not all students received military training, although some of us obtained certain skills at the Military Training department. Moreover, back in 2014, some of our graduates joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces and sacrificed their lives on the front line. For example, if I’m not mistaken, in September 2014, a graduate of the Law Faculty, Oleksii Tyshchyk, was killed at Donets’k airport. When his mother learned of her son’s death, she committed suicide. Another graduate of our university, Kyrylo Nedria, who had already gained a Ph.D. at the time of his call-up in 2014, was defending the new terminal of Donets’k airport, when he was injured. He was later awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Today, Kyrylo continues to serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Dnipro was a kind of transit point between war and peace”

– Could you please share your memories of how Dnipro residents reacted to the events of 2014?

You know, Dnipro still reacts differently today. At that time, I had the opportunity to compare my city, for example, with Kharkiv. There was a completely different atmosphere in these cities. Dnipro was a kind of transit point between war and peace. This was especially evident at the railway stations, where the number of military and volunteer units was overwhelmingly large. At the same time, in 2014, Dnipro was experiencing a lot of pain because [there were so many] local dead and wounded soldiers who had served in volunteer battalions. For example, the well-known 93rd Separate Mechanised Brigade “Kholodnyi Yar”, formerly the “Dnipro-1” battalion, suffered very painful losses. Among other things, they had these awful losses during the horrible events near Ilovaisk, which ended in the treacherous shooting of Ukrainian soldiers who were escaping from the encirclement. Because of all this, there was a special spirit in Dnipro, a constant feeling that the war was very close, only two hundred kilometres away. But despite it all, there was a part of the city where nothing seemed to be happening – just as now; for some people in different parts of Ukraine, the war is not felt as keenly. For example, when I came back in March of this year for a relatively long period of leave, I was surprised by the general calmness and lack of anxiety among people.

– What was the language situation like in Dnipro?

It’s hard to say now. But I have a simple and complex example at the same time. Previously, I worked at the Department of Humanities at the Dnipro Medical Academy, where I observed a painful breakdown. Students from the Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and Kirovohrad1 regions, who had spoken Ukrainian since birth, became Russian-speaking in their third year. That change was influenced by the urban environment and the educational process. Many teachers at that time were not ready to switch to Ukrainian, looking for various arguments [against switching – J.B.]. My experience of teaching international Moroccan students the history of Ukrainian culture was remarkable, though. They spoke Ukrainian in class from the very first days. And it was very easy to explain, because for nine months they had been studying at the preparatory department at Ternopil University, where they had learned the language of the country, Ukrainian. In contrast, until 2014 in Dnipro, foreign students were taught Russian at the preparatory department. At that time, an incident became public where one of our students who came from Cherkasy had been beaten. The attacker, having heard the girl speaking Ukrainian on the phone, resorted to violence, accusing her of being the reason for the Maidan revolution.

In Dnipro today, no one looks at you when you speak Ukrainian on public transport, although it used to be a common occurrence. One of my colleagues is a very patriotic person, but he thinks and posts [on Facebook] in Russian. He compares this to the habit of smoking and believes that, just as smokers quickly found themselves in a kind of isolation due to the ban on smoking in public places, the emergence of smoking areas, and the introduction of fines for violating these rules, so the Russian language in Ukraine will soon become like a “bad habit”, albeit without any sanctions.

“From February 2022 to the end of July 2023, I was in the army”

– Did you prepare for the full-scale invasion?

I had anticipated a larger-scale unfolding of events at the end of 2021. On the 24th of February 2022, I was at home in my native Dnipro. Having been woken up by a powerful explosion, I hoped for a moment that it was the result of a gas explosion. But after the second and third explosions, it became obvious that this was not a domestic accident. I switched on my phone and saw Putin’s speech.

I would have been happy to say that I had foreseen everything and was prepared, but I wasn’t. On the 24th of February, my family and I stayed home, trying to decide what to do next. Leaving was out of the question, although I am very grateful to my colleagues from Germany and Poland who immediately offered shelter to my wife and our child. Because of the difficult traffic, we decided not to go by road, and the next day we went to my wife’s parents near Kamianske [1], where it was somewhat calmer. On the 27th of February, I returned to Dnipro, and my wife and son, who was barely six months old at the time, stayed with her parents. She categorically refused to leave the country without me.

When I returned to Dnipro, I attempted to join the territorial defence brigade. A huge and very excited crowd of people gathered near the recruitment point and were quickly told that the brigade was already full. Only four positions for cooks remained vacant. So, on the 28th of February, I went to my district military enlistment office and in the evening, I found myself in the Cherkasy military unit [2]. In this military unit, on the same day, I was appointed deputy commander of the engineering company of the engineering support group of the 60th Separate Infantry Brigade, which is now called the 60th Separate Mechanised Ingulets Brigade. I was in the army from February 2022 to the end of July 2023.

My brigade did not belong to the regular army, it was part of the so-called reserve corps. This meant that in peacetime it consisted of several hundred people. These were mostly unit commanders without units. From the moment martial law was introduced, all these units began to be filled with mobilised personnel. Thus, a brigade of four hundred people could grow to five thousand, which is what happened to our unit. In addition, as a result of the rapid and large-scale recruitment, it was possible to observe that some people who had served together for six months did not even know each other’s names.

“…it is important that someone can take responsibility for others”

From the 9th of March 2022, our unit was in the combat zone on the outskirts of Kryvyi Rih when groups of Russian saboteurs began to enter from the direction of the Ingulets river. At that time, I was involved in absolutely everything. I began to perform my duties directly from the end of March when we had our first battle near Koshove [3]. Officially, we were all considered sappers, but we performed the functions of infantry, which, in my opinion, looked strange from the outside. We had neither helmets nor bulletproof vests. We did have assault rifles and magazines with ammunition. Just before the battle, we received NLAW grenade launchers, which we saw for the first time in our lives. The briefing on how to use them lasted ten or fifteen minutes. There were almost no career officers. My colleague from another company, Volodymyr Khvorostovsky, and I had to make decisions together. He is still serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. During the first battle, we lost three men, including one soldier from the engineering support group.

– How did you and your comrades see the enemy then?

On the one hand, the perception of the Russians as an untrained, miserable, and unconquered army at the beginning helped to raise the spirit of our soldiers. The burning of enemy convoys in the Kyiv region, media reports of [low-flying] drones struck down by flowerpots, etc., led to a certain underestimation of the Russian armed forces. Many people had a feeling that after we fired a few shots, the Russians would start surrendering. But, frankly speaking, I did not share in such a state of general euphoria. After the first artillery salvos in Koshevo, some of our people also started to react to the events in a completely different way. It seems to me that many quickly realised the inevitability of losses. I remember how, after the death of our senior officer, Vova and I took over the command. That was the first time we saw tired, desperate and frightened guys coming out of the battle, unable to carry their weapons and ammunition, instead leaving them by the roadside. We had to collect them later. I then caught myself thinking that it was important for the majority that someone could take responsibility for others. Even a “nominal officer”, the so-called “jacket”, as the army somewhat mockingly calls graduates of the military training academic chairs at the universities, can restore the combat capability of the entire unit with his decisions, which may not always be correct. At such moments, it is important not to show that you doubt the correctness of your steps so that even a seemingly losing decision can yield a positive result. This is a kind of psychological support.

“…six months at the front line can be equal to ten years in the rear in terms of the intensity of the experience”

– Please tell us, how can you explain the phenomenon of comrades-in-arms?

I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon. I cannot say that everyone I served with was close to me. I was in teams of different ages with completely different backgrounds. Of course, there are people with whom you spent almost a year and a half side by side. Civilians often perceive service in the Armed Forces as a permanent stay in the trenches. In fact, this is not the case. It seems to me that eighty percent of the time we spent at the front was taken up by arranging everyday life and only twenty percent on combat operations. Space and time lose their characteristics at the zero line, so it seems that six months at the front can be equal to ten years in the rear in terms of the intensity of the experience. That is why experiences compressed in space and time contribute to rapprochement and a sense of community.

– What age group were your comrades in arms?

My comrade and best friend Vova Khvorostovskyi, whom I met in my first battle, was less than twenty-four years old at the time. And our commander, who died on the 14th of May, 2023, in Bakhmut, fifty metres from us, was fifty-one years old. I had a serviceman from the Tsarychansky district [4] who changed his year of birth from 1959 to 1969 in his military ID card. One day I discovered this discrepancy. When I asked him why he had done this, he replied: “I really wanted to get here!” But the most important thing is that this rather elderly man has never complained about the long routes or the difficult physical exertion. The youngest in our unit was a twenty-two-year-old soldier, and the oldest was the man I just mentioned. He was sixty-three at the time. In general, age is not a determining factor on the frontline, because mature men can sometimes behave like children, and vice versa.

– How is everyday life organised at the front?

There is no clear division of responsibilities at the front. In our unit, there was a cook who became a cook only because of an entry in his military ID card that said he had served as a cook in the Navy in the late 1990s. He didn’t want to accept it, but he had little choice. By the way, he still cooks for his colleagues. The specificity of our unit was that sappers usually live and work in relatively small groups. At a certain point, these groups go on missions and, due to safety regulations, especially in the combat zone, live in settlements. We had to move around to avoid living in one place. The sergeants and group commanders essentially organised the life in these groups themselves. Of course, each unit had a logistics sergeant.

The routine of everyday life is crucial. We tried to arrange places where people could wash, eat, and sleep, because a lot depends on it. After a year of hostilities, many people began to have health problems, as exhaustion began to grow. Some people had been wounded, and shell-shocked, and some developed chronic diseases, so after a year, they felt a lot of stress, including emotional stress. The aid of local residents was very helpful. Our unit was deployed in Dnipro, Kherson, Chernihiv, Rivne, and Kyiv regions, and Kyiv itself, and we received support from civilians everywhere.

– Do you still keep in touch with the civilians who helped your unit?

To my shame, I should note that these people write to me more often than I write to them. They called me from everywhere we stayed, worrying about the fate of the guys and me as if we were their own children.

– How do military call signs appear? Could you tell us more?

Before the first battle, the brigade’s chief of staff asked us: “What call signs will you choose for yourselves?” It did not matter to me. Then they asked me what my profession was. I answered that I was a historian. That’s how I got my call sign “Historian”. Vova, whom I have mentioned many times, is a railway engineer by profession. He chose the call sign “Fixy” (Ukr. “Fiksyk”). Later, we formed a part of the unit that was constantly sent to reinforce the infantry, so they all became known as “Fixies”: “This is the position of the Fixies”, “That was done by the Fixies”. Some people have chosen their call signs consciously. We had “Progress” – he had the relevant abilities, “Psycho” – he was easily irritated, and “Said” – he had a bald head like the hero from the Soviet movie White Sun of the Desert.

“The most important thing at the front is to find people who are on the same wavelength as you”

– What helps the military at the front to stay optimistic?

The most important thing at the front is to find people who are on the same wavelength as you. Unfortunately, not everyone managed to do this. Contact with family is also important, but it is those who are close to you who support you the most. My comrades and I had certain daily rituals related to waking up, the sequence of actions, and, of course, we always tried to find time for personal conversations. We also developed some unhealthy habits. For example, I never smoked in peacetime, but I started during my service. In the beginning, smoking together was also a kind of ritual. Once, after the death of one of my colleagues, I caught myself thinking that I had smoked a pack of cigarettes within three hours. I suppose it could be a protective function of the psyche.

– Did your attitude to death change during your service?

I cannot say that I was not afraid of death, although fear sometimes arises quite rationally. The biggest problem with mental health starts not when you are in the combat zone, but when you go out for so-called recovery in the rear. In my opinion, it can be even more difficult after your army discharge, when soldiers return to civilian life.

– Have you ever informed your colleagues’ relatives about the deaths of their loved ones?

Previously, according to military regulations, staff officers were not supposed to contact the relatives of the deceased at all. Later, the situation changed. Although, according to my observations, not all units wanted to talk to the relatives of the dead or missing. Not because of any bad faith or indifference. Rather, they could not find the words, and also because under conditions of hostility, first of all, they had to take care of those close to them. But we have always been in touch with the families of our comrades. I talked to the families of the guys who went missing. The body of my fallen commander is still on the outskirts of Bakhmut. I don’t know if he was buried in a mass grave or if he is still unburied. But I have talked to his family, and we are in constant contact with them. The most important thing you can do is just remember these people.

The most difficult situation is with those guys whose fate is unknown. Even though they are most likely dead, their families believe that they are alive, so they search and wait. It is very sad, but there are many cases when fraudsters try to enrich themselves in such situations by offering “help” in search of a reward.

“Not only the military, but the entire society should prepare for the return of soldiers from the front line”

– How do you feel about the idea that the military can become a threat to civilians after returning from the front line?

I think that society, first of all, should not be ashamed of the military. I have personally seen this happen. It’s not about any desire to shine a spotlight [on returning soldiers], but [reported] attempts in society to avoid the military are unjustified. Not only the military but also society should prepare for the return of the soldiers from the front line. Personally, I don’t need attention to be focused on my military experience; it was my choice, which I made primarily for myself. The idea that all soldiers will return traumatised and commit crimes is false. I’m not sure that the level of trauma among the military is higher than among some civilians.

– What do you think the course of this war might be in the future?

I don’t have a forecast, but I think this war will be long. In the absence of some incredibly favourable set of circumstances, the war could be very long. It will most likely move into other phases, but I think that society needs to prepare for life in constant readiness for hostilities, similar to the Israeli scenario. Namely, to rebuild and get used to the fact that we need to be constantly ready for military aggression from Russia and its satellite in the north [Belarus].

“…if you speak Ukrainian in a Russian-speaking environment where there is a certain degree of trust in you, then this environment starts to switch to Ukrainian”

– Have you witnessed any arguments among the military, which would be related to ethnicity, religion, or language conflicts?

I have not observed any language conflicts. I once had a conversation with my colleague, who has a Ph.D. in history, a Cossack historian from Dnipro National University, Oleh Repan, about the so-called “language sanction”. The essence of this term is as follows: if you speak Ukrainian in a Russian-speaking environment where there is a certain degree of trust in you, then this environment begins to switch to Ukrainian. Before the war, I mostly spoke Ukrainian, so people also switched to Ukrainian when they spoke to me.

I have also not seen any cases of outright xenophobia among my comrades in the army. Today xenophobia is oriented exclusively towards Russians; I have an interesting observation about ethnic Russians in the army. At the request of the command, we conducted a questionnaire based on certain templates of personal cards that were created in Soviet times. And there was a “nationality” item. Often people openly identified themselves as Russians, which, in my opinion, was a manifestation of great courage. However, there was no hostility or even teasing after they openly identified themselves in the unit.

I am very pleased to see that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are committed to valuing human life and the concept of both human and officer dignity. Our unit consisted of different people, with different levels of education and different backgrounds. I had miners from the Pavlohrad district of the Donetsk region in my command. I called them “westerners” because they came from western Donbas [smiles]. These guys might not be very careful with their words, but you could always rely on them in battle.

“… “Moses” served side by side with me”

– As far as I know, you are professionally engaged in the study of Jewish history and the Holocaust. Could you share your thoughts on the genocides that took place in the Ukrainian territory in different historical periods?

The international definition of genocide is primarily based on two examples: the Armenian genocide during World War One and the genocide of Jews and Roma during World War Two. All other genocides that are not covered by the legal definition of the Genocide Convention are not yet considered crimes of that scale. A striking example is the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933, which was inherently genocidal. And it is very good that at the political level, a significant number of countries do not question this fact. Analysing the events of today, including the forced transfer of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to Russia and their forced adoption into Russian families, we can confidently speak of signs of genocide. The list of such crimes also includes the physical destruction of Ukrainians because of their nationality.

When I study the experience of living through the Holocaust, I am always convinced that we are essentially studying human behaviour in certain circumstances in a certain historical context. The history of the Holocaust is a history of motivations, mutual aid, and survival strategies. The same can be said about the experience of occupation, blockade, evacuation, etc.; that of Ukrainians faced with the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

– According to your data, how large is the Jewish presence in the Ukrainian army today?

I do not have accurate statistics on the number of Jews in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In my unit, people didn’t declare themselves Jewish. But despite this, I had soldiers with Jewish call signs under my command. For example, “Moses” served side by side with me [smiles]. Some of the guys had distinctly Jewish tattoos with Hebrew inscriptions, and the cook I mentioned constantly wore a kippah [5] with the corresponding emblem. When I asked him about the origin of his kippah, Yura did not give a clear answer. Among the Jews I know personally, there is not a single one with pro-Russian views. I know about cases of the Jews being killed at the front line. For example, the son of the principal of Jewish school No. 144 in Dnipro sacrificed his life for Ukraine’s independence in 2023. Other members of the Jewish community who served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as recently as 2014 are also defending our borders. In particular, it is worth mentioning the active public figure and Ukrainian officer Pavlo Khazan, and his son Andriy. Among the researchers of Jewish issues, there are also military officers, in particular, Maksym Hon [6].

– Do Jews have to compromise their traditions while at the front?

One of my acquaintances who served in 2014-2015 in the Pisky district [7], in the suburbs of Donets’k, said that he even had the opportunity to eat kosher food and sometimes celebrate the Sabbath if the combat situation allowed. In our unit, as I said, no one identified themselves as Jewish, but we tried to meet the religious needs of everyone. Our brigade chaplain belonged to a Christian denomination. If we were located near a settlement, we tried to arrange transport so that a person could go to church.

“Israel and Ukraine are united by the fact that they have been the targets of blatant terrorist attacks”

– Please tell us how likely the Israeli scenario is to happen in Ukraine?

This is a separate topic for discussion. In my opinion, Israel and Ukraine are united by the fact that they have been the targets of blatant terrorist attacks. However, the roots of hatred for Ukraine as a state and for Israel as a state are much deeper. In addition, we can talk about a common loss in communications policy. This is evidenced by the various attempts to justify the fact of the terrorist attacks in the media. Is our society ready for the Israeli scenario? I am not sure. Unfortunately, our society perceives the war, which has been going on for almost a decade, as having started only on the 24th of February, 2022. In Israel, much of the adult population has served in the army, and are thus potentially prepared for the need to defend themselves and their loved ones. What is very important is that they have long worked through the trauma of the genocide and drawn appropriate conclusions. In contrast, Ukraine has not yet worked through the trauma of several genocides. I am referring primarily to the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups from Crimea. In fact, this discussion had just started during the tenure of Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine.

My deceased commander once said that the main prerequisite for the Holodomor was the absence of our own state. The Ukrainian SSR was not yet a fully-fledged Ukrainian state, because it was ruled from outside. And that is why the occupiers were able to commit their terrible crimes. What is happening now is one of the ways to avoid a similar tragedy. In Israel, it seems to me, from the first days of its independence, people were forced to defend themselves, and the awareness of this need has been alive for several generations. I think that within Israel, this contributes, among other things, to the consolidation of society – not only of Jews but of all other citizens of Israel: Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. Ukrainians are still at the beginning of their journey. We must realise that even if we return the territories to the 1991 borders, Russia will not disappear. It is not a given that even after returning to the recognised borders, the rocket attacks will stop. Therefore, we need a mechanism that will force both Russia and other countries to abandon the very idea of an armed attack on Ukraine.

“Every generation rethinks history, looking for answers to the relevant questions of the present in the past”

– Do you think it is possible to work through our traumas during this ongoing war?

I think this can be quite realistic, both during the war and afterwards. Every generation rethinks history, looking for answers to the pressing questions of the present in the past. Today, I see a part of Ukrainian society that really wants to deal with many unprocessed traumas. And on this path, despite the independent work of everyone, it is important not to forget about professional support from historians. The work on finding oneself should take place in constant interaction with specialists, because finding oneself involves, among other things, finding one’s past. We will definitely have to work through previous historical traumas, but unfortunately, today we are experiencing a new trauma, which we will also have to work through very soon. Time will tell which of these traumas will require our greatest attention.

– Thank you very much for your trust and informative conversation! Thank you for every day at the front and your active position in life!

The interview was conducted by Svitlana Makhovska.

The publication uses photos from the personal archive of Yehor Vradii.

This publication is also available in Ukrainian.