“I’m proud of having a chance to defend my homeland”

On second Sunday of September Ukraine marks the Tanker Day. After the war in the east broke out, the special days of tankers, intelligence officers (it was marked at the beginning of September), paratroopers, and other armed forces have become not just niche specialization holidays of military men. On these days Ukrainians now have people to call and to congratulate, and, most importantly, to thank.

Our publication has developed special relations with the 3rd Independent Tank Battalion “Deerslayer.” Namely here the friend of Den/The Day Artur Stepanenko with a callsign Sokil is serving, and namely there we sent our books and postcards, and the tankers called us and thanked for that. And we thanked them too. From time to time we had an opportunity to communicate with assistant executive of “Deerslayer” Oleksandr Buivoliuk – an always cheerful and friendly biker and traveler. But those were short business talks, and we have never had an opportunity to have a detailed conversation with this extraordinary person. So the Tanker Day became a wonderful reason to call the assistant commander and ask him about the everyday routine of the tankers in this war.

“In peaceful life I was, let’s say, a versatile man. I have worked in the sphere of agriculture – for more than 20 years I have been dealing with seeds of vegetables, lawn grass, and flowers. I have headed a company that worked with professional seeds. Before that I had worked in a well-known Holland company. I am an agrarian by education. I have supervised these agriculture processes in different countries for the past 10 years. I have worked in Middle Asia, Russia, and in Ukraine – as the head of an international office of the company. Traveling and riding a motorcycle are my hobbies. I have traveled across Middle Asia and Norway on a motorbike. There has been a project, wooden boat Rusych, I have taken part in it with one of the teams, and we reached Bali. That was an extreme project. But I liked that, I lived with that. Hopefully, I will come back to it. My motorcycle is at war with me, I use it for communication between the units,” Oleksandr started his story.

When he was mobilized, he left his highly-paid job without hesitation and went to Desna Training Camp. The tanker battalion was formed at that time. “I got to the battalion on the first day it was formed, and together with it I got to the ATO area,” Buivoliuk says, “I came to the battalion as a platoon commander. Later, when need arose, they appointed me the commander of company, later I served as a political officer for a while, and later – assistant division commander for support. The commander of the battalion has five assistants, I am one of them. To be more precise, I am the deputy of the commander of the battalion for support. We don’t have a strict division of the duties, so I have gone on the scout, brought the soldiers from the battle field, and taken our killed servicemen home.

“Why tanks? When I was studying at the institute, we had a reserve-officer training department with a specialization of tanker. That is actually how I got to the armored unit.”

“FULFILLED THE TASK AND WON THE BOUT”

Oleksandr Buivoliuk says that today there are, fortunately, no tank battles like the ones during the World War Two. Yet you cannot do without tanks at this war. “Compared to the World War Two, the war in the east is different. Hopefully, there won’t be the tank battles like those during the World War Two, for example, near Prokhorivka or Brody. This is history. And today tanks are used mostly to support the infantry or to work on certain positions in order to hit the enemy. It is hard to get a tanker from under the armor, which is why we can successfully cover our brothers-in-arms, the infantry,” says the assistant executive of the battalion.

Oleksandr cannot tell about the battles where “Deerslayer” took part. He says, “It is probably incorrect to show that our unit has taken part in some or other military operation, some or other battle.” But having thought it over a bit, he outlines the story of one battle, to explain the way they fight. “Not so long ago, near town M., where active battles took place, one of our units was successfully defending the town and hit the enemy, which was attacking our positions. So, it fulfilled the task and won the bout.”

“MOST OF OUR TANKERS ARE ABSOLUTELY PEACEFUL PEOPLE”

“In our battalion the tankers include absolutely different people. Practically 99.9 percent came as a result of a mobilization; there are no professional military men. Most of our tankers are absolutely peaceful people who took the weapons, when the time came, and went to defend the country,” says Buivoliuk about his battalion. To the question whether everyone can become a tanker he answers that basically it is possible if the psychical abilities allow.

“It is very hard for tall people, big people. I’m not small either (chuckling). There used to be a requirement for being selected to the armor forces – not more than 1.7-meter height, and not more than 65-kilogram weight. When we were undergoing the reserve-officer training at the institute, we were 18-year-old thin young men, and now, when we have been mobilized, many of us are 40-50 years old, we have grown to maturity, become taller and bigger. There is little room in a tank. This is if we speak about physiological moments. There are psychological moments too,” the serviceman explains. “For example, I like extreme sport, extreme traveling; it is not a problem for me to live in extreme conditions. But we always returned from every journey home, to comfort. It is different at the front. It is quite hard to adapt practically for all servicemen, because it is not your own home with heating and all amenities, not the comfortable atmosphere we are used to. But we all get adapted, get used, and whenever there is a possibility, we arrange our living conditions and get used to everything. Hardware is the specific feature of a tank. This is big hardware, repairs, because the equipment was made in Ukraine and it is not new, so we are repairing it on a regular basis. But the repair works are not complicated, we can do this on our own. In spite of everything, our tankers have changed more than 10 tank engines right in the field. We are coping.”

NAME FOR A TANK

“When you work with the armor, whether you want it or not, you develop certain relations with the tank. You start to believe that it is a living being with its own character,” Buivoliuk says, “And it is so indeed. Every machine has its own character and needs attention and communication. This refers not only to tanks. If you deal with any machine on a daily basis, be it your own car or a motorbike, you start seeing a living being in it and give it a name. The names are very different, ranging from the names of beloved women, daughters, mothers to some personal associations, film heroes, etc. This is a usual thing. However, this is wrong from the point of recognizing the tank as an object in the battlefield. If there is a name written on the machine, and a radio command goes, ‘Victoria, move several meters and degrees to the left,’ the enemy may see everything, juxtapose, and understand. Therefore we hide the titles, as a rule, paint them over or cover them.”

This is all. Buivoliuk cannot recall any other special traditions or superstitions connected namely with tanks. And, he emphasizes, there is not time to pay attention to such things at the frontline. “Even if you have some superstitions and according to them you shouldn’t drive on this specific day, you cannot follow them, because you have a battle task (chuckling). We are men who are doing their job, therefore we have no time for superstitions.”

“TRUST TO THE ARMY AND THE STATE SHOULD BE CULTIVATED”

Oleksandr Buivoliuk says that he is lucky to have an experience in traveling. This experience is very helpful at the frontline. “Any traveling is communication with absolutely different people on various levels – this is the main thing I have obtained and I am glad to have it. Actually, it is helpful in everything, both in business, and at the battlefield. Communication with many people leads you to common acquaintances. I am sure that many servicemen from my battalion, when they were buying seeds, bought what I developed and brought to Ukraine. As an agrarian, I have topics to discuss with the servicemen, because most of them come from villages. We have frequent debates on how to grow vegetables, whether it is possible to get such harvest or not, etc. This is living communication, which is priceless in stress conditions. For me as a biker it is interesting to talk to young people, because most of men either have had or dreamed to have a motorbike – so we have topics to talk,” Buivoliuk smiles. The soldier adds that his agrarian background helps, in particular, to build communication with local people in the east.

“It helps me to get along with local farmers too. Because, whether you want it or not, there are fields everywhere, the land of people who come to us with different requests. And we come to them with requests too. We communicate on a daily basis. When you come and say, ‘Guys, calm down. I’m an agrarian like you. Any problems?’ It immediately reduces the distance in communication.”

Buivoliuk says that his battalion is trying to help local people. “We provide help to the pensioners, schoolchildren, families with small children, families with many children from ourselves and from the volunteers. Because the whole country is behind us, and there are many people who have been left alone with their problems, and they must be helped. On the one hand, it is simple help. On the other hand, it increases trust to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and this trust to the army and the state should be cultivated. Of course, above all, the driving force is simply the desire to help people who have found themselves in difficult conditions.”

“THE WAR IS 95 PERCENT OF ROUTINE”

“I have worked for many years abroad as a head of an international office. This war is very painful for me, because for me the native land starts not in the place where I was born or live, but from the border,” Oleksandr says, “I used to work in Rostov and crossed Pisky on my way home. When I crossed the Ukrainian border and moved for 100 meters, I felt that I was home, that everything is native here, different land, different people, and different attitude to you. For me the places where we are fighting, where I have been on business trips earlier in peaceful time, evoke painful feelings. But defending one’s land is something every man should do.

“I am proud of having a chance to defend my native land, because not everyone has such an opportunity in his life. Not everyone from those who have joined the army go to the frontline. There are services that must accompany and support the army and guard the warehouses. But all this, believe me, is a very hard routine work. Some people think that after mobilization they will immediately go to the frontline and become heroes, that they are really worth of being torn from an ordinary life and sent to the war. But in fact the war is 95 percent of routine, preparations for some actions and events. This is very hard. Imagine the boys who have found themselves in an administrative unit and who have to provide the efficiency of a frontline unit.”

Buivoliuk says that losses are shocking people at the frontline the most. “Only yesterday I spoke to a 23-year-old young boy, and he is dead today. I try not to think about it, but when you take the body of your fellow soldier from the battlefield, bring it home, and his mothers sees in you an officer, a commander who failed to save his life, this is very hard. But this is the last tribute, the last honor we must pay to our bother-in-arms, no matter how hard it is for us. The rest is simply the work that we do,” says the assistant executive.

“I WILL FIGHT AS LONG AS OUR COUNTRY NEEDS ME”

Oleksandr Buivoliuk emphasizes once again that the war in the Donbas is different. “Whereas before we formed our notion of the war based on films or some pictures, where heroism was shown, imagined as children that we were heroes, played automatic gun toys, now we have seen that this is sorrow. We are defending our land. Actually, I’m going to defend it till we liberate it. As long as the country needs me, my knowledge, and skills, I will continue to fight. For six months at least. Because the Armed Forces of Ukraine need my service, which is why my demobilization has been postponed,” he says. “But our servicemen are in an elevated mood, because a partial rotation in the battalion is expected soon. The soldiers are going home, where their families, parents, children, wives, households are waiting for them. And there they will have to roll up their sleeves and work. I have a one-family house, and there is always a lot of work there. And a village household requires even more work and effort. Currently it has fallen on the shoulders of their wives and parents who desperately need the help of the men.”

The soldier plans to return to peaceful life after the war. “But it is hard to imagine when the peace will come,” Oleksandr says, “I think as years pass, a date of end to this war will be defined. I am sure that the fire of the war will go out as soon as one stops fuelling it. Only the day when the Russian military men leave our territory can be called the victory day. And this won’t be a victory, rather the day of the end of the war. I have worked a lot in the countries of the former Soviet Union – in Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia. I have seen the aftermaths of the conflicts fuelled by our neighbors. These conflicts haven’t been settled, just frozen. They were extinguished a bit, but they may blaze up at any moment. This is a temporary calm. But this is not a victory, not an end of the war. But I want the war in our country to end, and that our land to be cleaned totally from the occupants.”

In the end of the conversation Oleksandr Buivoliuk says, “Not everyone should be mobilized and go to the war, but everyone must do his job very well with responsibility – bake bread, teach children, etc. We must mobilize our forces and work with more enthusiasm. When time comes and your presence will be needed at the front, you must go and clearly understand that your activity there is important for the war to end. But now people in all cities must clearly understand: there is a war going on in our country. A real war.”