'I lost legs defending Ukraine but giving up is not an option'

The Star Kenya

The first thing you notice about Russo-Ukrainian war veteran Petro Buriak is that he wears prosthetic legs. https://shorturl.at/4Yb9l

Transcript

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00:46Before the full-scale

00:48invasion, he was a truck

00:50driver, who was bringing big trucks

00:52around the whole Europe and basically the whole

00:54world. Bringing goods from Ukraine.

00:56Nobody

00:58I had to locate everyone because the family was in Lviv, and I was abroad at the time, I was working.

01:03So I came back home immediately, took part in the defense.

01:11So when the full-scale invasions began in 1942, I was in Spain, bringing the cargo on a truck.

01:18As I was listening to Ukrainian radio later, so I was in Spain, the whole thing started.

01:32It was early in the morning, 7 o'clock in the morning, and I realized that this whole thing started.

01:39And I called my manager, who was managing the drivers, and told him, Vitya, which is for Victor.

01:47Yeah, a name, a diminutive form of Victor.

01:51Vitya, you know, the war had started, and his manager, who was in Ukraine, tells him, what are you talking about?

01:56So he knew it before those guys.

02:00Turn on the TV, it's there.

02:03So I told him, look, I'm going back, so do all the papers so that the car will be left in the garage, which is in Poland.

02:14So I did my job in Spain, we did everything we should, and then I came back to Warsaw, Poland, left the car there,

02:26asked them to pay me for my trip, and I came back home.

02:31So when I was crossing the Ukrainian border and the border guards, he gave him his passport,

02:40and I looked him in the eye and said, thank you for coming back home.

02:50That was Easter time, it was early spring, and it was Easter time,

02:55and he thought he would go directly to the military conscription office,

02:59but then he thought, okay, I'll spend a week with my family, because this is Easter.

03:03But in fact, he didn't spend this week at home, as he planned,

03:07because he went to this cargo company that was doing some volunteer support,

03:13voluntarily supporting Ukrainian forces, and so he was, you know, helping them to bring the goods from the trucks to the depots,

03:22and so he only spent the holiday with family.

03:28Easter holiday, he was at the conscription office, he was never in the military before,

03:35he just arrived there as a fresh mint coin,

03:42and so they formed the battalion, and they were moved to the front line to defend the country.

03:51And no one told him, you don't have to come back, a few years ago you got a heart attack,

04:00you got some serious heart problems, your eyesight is not perfect, you never held a rifle in your hands before,

04:10you're not fit for the service, so I was absolutely against his even coming back to Ukraine.

04:20But still, there he is.

04:30Well, he already decided.

04:33What could you do, you know, to try to scold him?

04:38It wouldn't help, so he already made the decision, so I said okay,

04:44but before that I told him, look, you can do all sorts of, all kinds of jobs to help the front line,

04:51you could bring in the goods, you could do something else,

04:55you could help some organizations that are helping the front lines,

05:00but not becoming a military, not becoming a soldier.

05:03But he already made his decision, he made up his mind, so there was no other way around it.

05:19I cannot really explain this feeling, but I had a bad premonition,

05:25I had some bad feeling about it, but I cannot explain it.

05:29I was, he just called me the other evening, and everything was fine,

05:34and I knew that next day he was going to work, but he was not absent for a few days,

05:42there was no, you know, he was there, just the other evening, the other night,

05:48and the next day it happened, but this whole time I had this bad premonition, which I cannot explain.

05:58It was just the other day, it was September the 6th.

06:14Kids were at school, and the younger daughter started her preparation for the school,

06:20that was her first day preparation for the school.

06:24And it was just another day, I took the kid back home, and we were preparing something,

06:31and then my daughter was in the kitchen, and she started crying,

06:36my legs, my feet hurt, they hurt so much.

06:41She was crying wildly, she was just sobering, with tears like running from her eyes,

06:47she was in pain, but we thought that she fell and hit herself somehow,

06:52but she never felt there was nothing, she was not injured, she was not hurt.

06:57But later we realized that this was exactly the timing,

07:02when Petro, the husband and father, was hurt, was wounded.

07:07He was about 17, 30, 18 years old.

07:13So I was dialing all the numbers I knew in his regimen.

07:16It's war, so sometimes the soldier calls from some other number,

07:22so a number of his friend, his comrade, his brother in arms,

07:28and she was dialing all the numbers that were somehow associated with Petro.

07:35And one of the soldiers was the one who was...

07:38one of the numbers was one of the soldiers with whom he served.

07:43He was reluctant at first to say anything at all,

07:46but then he said...

07:49I just checked one thing, so whether I got her right or not.

07:52At first he didn't want to speak,

07:55but then he said, I don't know, he said,

08:00So at first he was reluctant to share any information,

08:03and then finally she kind of...

08:12made him answer during this conversation.

08:17And he said clearly that Petro was wounded,

08:22that he was wounded, that he was wounded,

08:25during this conversation.

08:27And he said clearly that Petro was wounded,

08:30and that he lost both of his legs,

08:33and that he's evacuated.

08:45So it was one small town somewhere nearby

08:51which are both seaports,

08:55and then it was his hometown.

08:58I wake up, there's my wife,

09:00he grabs me and says,

09:02Hey, like we sort of say,

09:05I don't know how we say it,

09:08so he listens, you know,

09:11something like,

09:13Hey, my kitten, my rabbit, my...

09:16Hey, my little rabbit,

09:19you've got...

09:33And he says, look,

09:36she says, we're in Odessa.

09:38And Pablo says,

09:40look, you know that there is a factory in Odessa

09:44for producing prosthetic legs.

09:47And go grab me a couple,

09:49because my boys are waiting for me.

09:59The hardest thing is to lose your brothers in arms.

10:04The easiest part is when you go back to your boys.

10:19In this situation,

10:21you don't really have a chance to think it's easy or it's hard.

10:26Well, you're strong,

10:29you're free, and you're independent, right?

10:59The answer is yes.

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