At the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center in Lviv, 48-year-old soldier Oleksiy Popovych from the city of Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region, is being treated for wounds, skin transplants and vision restoration. His wife, who supports the defender, is by his side every day.
In civilian life, Oleksiy was an entrepreneur and volunteer. The eldest of the man’s two sons signed a contract with the Armed Forces in 2021 after completing his military service. As soon as the full-scale invasion began, the father followed his son into the army, and joined the ranks of the 71st separate hunting brigade, where he worked his way up from rifleman to chief sergeant.
At the beginning of autumn, the brigade took part in offensive battles in the Zaporozhye direction, where Oleksiy was seriously wounded near Verbovoy. The chief sergeant then took the fallen and wounded comrades from the battlefield. An enemy tank aimed at the evacuation vehicle, next to which Oleksiy was. The explosion is the last thing he remembers.
“When my husband’s brother called me, there was despair, tears and misunderstanding of what awaited me. You cannot prepare yourself for this. It’s unreal,” Yulia, Oleksiy’s wife, recalls her state at that time.
The woman immediately leaves for Zaporizhzhia, where her husband is in intensive care in critical condition. Brain injury, lung contusion, crushed arm, damaged limbs, face and retina. The first thing Oleksiy feels when he regains consciousness is how his beloved wife holds his surviving hand.
In the first two weeks, the man underwent more than a dozen operations. Doctors had to amputate the upper limb that suffered the most.
“Yulia became my right hand. At first it was difficult in everyday life. She helped to adapt and accept the injury,” says the defender.
Currently, Oleksiy continues his treatment in Lviv, at the NEZLAMNA center. A multidisciplinary team works with him here. In order to heal the defender’s wounds, the doctors of the Center for Thermal Trauma and Plastic Surgery closed the affected areas with the patient’s own skin. At the same time, the Center’s ophthalmologists are working to restore Oleksiy’s partially lost vision. At the same time, the physical rehabilitation of the soldier continues.
Recently, on the Day of Airborne Assault Troops, Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny awarded Oleksiy Popovych with the honorary badge “Best sergeant (sergeant) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Meanwhile, the sergeant’s eldest son, 22-year-old Danylo, continues to serve in the Bakhmut region. The father is preparing for prosthetics and returning to civilian life.
Hundreds of people suffer every day due to Russian aggression, therefore, in order to make their treatment and rehabilitation comfortable and accessible in Ukraine, in Lviv, at the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center, a multidisciplinary team works with every Ukrainian, providing surgical, physical, psychological and psychosocial professional assistance . Thanks to the support of donors, a prosthetics workshop was opened and bionic prostheses are installed, as well as a new modern rehabilitation building: it is 7 floors with the most modern rehabilitation equipment. Every year, 10,000 Ukrainians will be able to receive help here.