“We were carrying aid to survivors”

Sloviansk already has thousands of people sunbathing on its beaches, and residents of Kramatorsk are painting buildings with the Ukrainian national flag colors. Meanwhile, our boys are still fighting the aggressor and needing our help. Such are impressions obtained during a trip into the ATO area by director of the state enterprise Volyn Antiquities Oleksii Zlatohorsky. With his companions, he drove more than 2,000 kilometers to the warzone and back into his region where peaceful life continues. They felt obliged to make such a trip because of a self-assumed duty to fellow archeologists.

“For a long time, I was getting calls from Vadym Dorofieienko, a lieutenant-colonel of the Ukrainian paratroopers, who was asking for help, as they lacked body armor, clothing, footwear, and necessary gear... He leads the Renaissance soldier remains recovery unit which was attached to the Volyn Antiquities last year. We worked together to recover and exhume remains of Red Army soldiers in many villages of Volyn region, and nearly 200 soldiers have been reburied with honors on-site or at the memorial near Kovel,” Zlatohorsky told us.

Apart from Dorofieienko, 10 more members of Volyn search teams are serving in the ATO area. They have never received any help from the government. Zlatohorsky said he had been trying to obtain help in the corridors of power for two weeks, since he, as a scholar, had felt himself unqualified to delve into the nuances of the military equipment procurement. However, Dorofieienko called every day, reporting that people were being killed, and many injured... Finally, Zlatohorsky’s patience run out, as he understood that his colleagues’ only hope were fellow archeologists and other kind people. Volyn Self-Defense’s assistance allowed them to buy fourth-grade body armor in Lutsk soon enough. They also purchased military boots and some clothing items. These supplies for the soldiers serving in the east cost 40,000 hryvnias in total, coming from benefactors (including rector of Lesia Ukrainka East European National University, Professor Ihor Kotsan) and payments received by Zlatohorsky and his team for archeological research. Transportation and procurement were also facilitated by the oblast state administration (OSA), volunteers, leader of Volyn’s Afghanistan war veterans Hryhorii Pavlovych, then deputy chairman of the OSA Mykola Sobutsky, and the regional veterinary service. Important optical devices were received from Svitlana Petrenko.

“We are honestly perform our constitutional duty to protect the state,” Dorofieienko sadly told the Volynians on receiving the supplies. “What are we getting in exchange? We really needed this body armor throughout those two weeks, they would have saved so many lives!” The soldiers say they get food fairly often from the locals, who have also brought them a fridge and a TV. What the soldiers are still lacking to an extent are clothing, footwear, body armor, helmets, and various military gear. Dorofieienko is a combat engineer by training, and has already cleared over 1,000 mines. The Kramatorsk mayor has even provided him with a motor vehicle for this job, as such professionals are thin on the ground. True to his hobbies of soldier remains recovery activism and archeology, he collected lots of exhibits in Kramatorsk, including chevrons and flags of the enemy, samples of equipment and gear, letters to the front. He decided to donate it all to the town museum of Kovel, so that Volynians “would know how we are fighting here.” The paratroopers spent 18 days surrounded, with supplies of food, water and all kinds of support cut-off. Most of them have survived, but not all...