The man even has a call sign – “Coach”. Now he is the second mortar gunner in a mortar battery of the 103rd Territorial Defence Brigade.
He is a journalist by training. For some time he worked at a radio station in one of the Ukrainian cities. Back in the Soviet Union, he received the honorary sports title of Master of Sports in tennis.
From 2000 until the start of the full-scale war, he worked as a tennis coach at the Pivdennyi Tennis Club in Lviv.
“The war caught me doing ‘household chores’. I was preparing to go to my favourite job. But it was not to be. The news of the war came and I immediately decided to join the Armed Forces. On 25 February, I arrived at the headquarters of our brigade. And on 26 February, I was already at the training base of the 103rd Brigade of the TRO,” says “Coach”.
The man’s motivation is his children and grandson. First of all, he went to protect them. In the 103rd Brigade, as a mortar operator, he performs tasks to protect and support the infantry when they go on the offensive. The man and his comrades-in-arms repel enemy attacks.