After Russia's attack, many Ukrainians voluntarily went to the front to fight for their country. Konstantin Goncharov used to be a journalist for DW in Kiev. Now he's a soldier. Here is his story.
Konstantin Goncharov in December 2022 in Bachmut
Konstantin Goncharov worked as a journalist for Deutsche Welle until 2022. After the start of the Russian war of aggression, like many other Ukrainians, he gave up his job and volunteered as a soldier in the Ukrainian army. This is his subjective report after a year of war in his home country.
When the full-scale Russian invasion began, I was with my family in Germany, where I had recently traveled to. On February 24, 2022 at 4 a.m. Kiev time, the all-out war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine began, and my shift in the newsroom just started. From the moment Vladimir Putin announced his so-called “special military operation”, I wrote online about the first Russian missiles falling on my hometown of Kiev and the endless columns of Russian armored vehicles breaking through the border of Ukraine.
Destruction in Kiev after Russian rocket fire in spring 2022
The Russian aggressors bombed the kindergarten and school where my children went to. Ballistic missiles and cruise missiles fell near the house where my parents live and where I have lived a large part of my life. Despite never having anything to do with the army, speaking Russian and never boasting of a “vyzyvanka”, a traditionally embroidered Ukrainian shirt, I had no choice but to return to Ukraine and defend my homeland. I would never have forgiven myself if I had stayed abroad or even considered sitting it out in a safe place for a while.
The way home
My journey from Germany to Kiev took 36 hours. On the Polish-Ukrainian border, a horrific picture emerged: Thousands of people and hundreds of cars queued up tens of kilometers to leave Ukraine. Women and children, but also the men who helped them leave war-torn Ukraine, had to spend the winter night outdoors. People lit campfires and those who could warmed up in the cars. Mattresses were lying on the side of the road, warm clothes and rubbish were scattered everywhere. It only took me a few minutes to cross the border towards Ukraine. There were two other people at the checkpoint besides me. I didn't see any other people who wanted to enter Ukraine.
I was very worried that I would not be able to reach Kiev in time, because the Russian troops were already advancing on the capital and apparently intended to capture or at least besiege it. In addition, you could only get into the city from the south, all other ways were already too dangerous. Motorists refused to even drive there, or charged astronomical sums to do so.
People are trying in early March 2022 at Kiev railway station to board a train to Lviv
I bought three tickets for different trains from Lviv to Kyiv, but they all canceled. I could only reach my hometown with an evacuation train that brought war refugees to western Ukraine and then returned almost empty to Kiev to pick up the next people there. My passport, which contains my home address in Kiev, became my ticket. Without any light, in complete darkness, the train crossed half of Ukraine and arrived in a Kiev whose streets were almost deserted. I've never seen the city like this before. I've also never seen such long lines of people in front of the military commissariats, where hundreds lined up in the first few days to report for the army. Most of them didn't even make it their turn before the curfew began that evening.
Journalism and War
I was only able to enlist in the Ukrainian army three months after the start of the Russian invasion. No one called me on the phone number I left with the military. I didn't get a draft notice either. Only my fourth visit to the military commissariat was successful. After endless bureaucratic procedures, I was finally sent to the army.
Until then, I continued to work as a journalist. I was one of the first reporters to visit Bucha, Borodyanka, Makariv and other places in the Kiev region that were liberated from Russian occupation. I've spoken to locals who have experienced this hell and seen firsthand what the so-called “Russian World” has done to the once peaceful and prosperous Ukrainian cities.
Destructed residential buildings in Borodjanka near Kiev in April 2022
I encountered this “Russian world” directly in my new role as a soldier – in the summer and autumn in the Cherson area. After heavy fighting, which our unit fought, I was among the first Ukrainian soldiers that the citizens of Ukraine saw after the Russian occupation at the Inhulets bridgehead, 20 kilometers from the city of Kherson. I remember very well the dancing grandfathers and grandmothers, how the Ukrainian flags were hoisted again on the administrative buildings and how the residents of the liberated settlements in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions cried with joy.
Konstantin Goncharov in mid-January 2023 near Soledar
After that, our unit was transferred to the suffering Bachmut and a little later to Soledar. I also remember very well how these cities were destroyed and reduced to ruins by Russian artillery and tanks. The locals cried very different tears there. I myself was wounded near Soledar and hospitalized. On the same ward as me lay a young man who had lost a leg under fire from an enemy tank. He was from Shakhtarsk and read the famous cycle of poems “Kobsar” by the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko – and that's when he became a symbol for me of Russia's steadfastness and inevitable defeat in the war against Ukraine.
Destruction in the embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut
But the Russian army continues to systematically destroy and wreck everything it can reach with the weapons at its disposal. On the other hand, the defenders of Ukraine are working to reduce the number of these weapons and the barbarians using them. We continue the fight for our rights, for freedom and life. We, that's accountants, lawyers, artists, psychologists, bankers, poker pros and officials from the Ministry of Youth and Sports – yes, these are all real people from my battalion who volunteered for the war. And what Ukrainian fighters are doing now, especially at Bakhmut, is more than mere heroism, because heroism is something extraordinary and extraordinary. But young Ukrainians have been holding out there for months under conditions in which they achieve superhuman things – without rotation, without breathing space, which has become normal for them.
Unfortunately, this war is far from over, and there are likely to be decisive battles yet to come. The struggle will last and continue until all Ukrainian territories are liberated from the Russian occupiers.