Denis
The eighth in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
I first met Denis when it was still warm outside, during one of many trips to deliver supermarket gift cards to Ukrainians living in a former bank building in Vienna, a giant, grey concrete block, where many refugees with limited mobility had ended up being housed for lack of other accessible options. But being a former office building, it wasn’t really a long-term solution either. One resident, himself in a wheelchair, told me 87 of them were sharing one handicapped shower, and there was only one key. The food was terrible, and there were often fights with other nationalities. I heard from several Ukrainians living there they felt discriminated against. But that is not Denis’ story.
Denis reached out to me last week and said he would like to share his story. He and his mother Larysa were moved just last week to a refugee hotel in central Vienna. Their room is fine, there is access down the hall to a handicapped bathroom they can fit the wheelchair in (in their room the wheelchair does not fit in the bathroom), but the food is equally terrible. Bread and spreads at breakfast and dinner. Lunch is something hot, that same something hot is reserved in the evening. But it isn’t the food Denis and Larysa came to tell me about.
Denis has a real presence to him, he sits upright, looks strong, dressed all in black, a nice smile, and speaks slowly, with purpose. He tells the story himself, alone. Larysa sits to the side and only interjects rarely, sometimes asking if she may share her thoughts. He asks me if I speak Ukrainian, and I have to apologise — he is going to have to tell me his story in Russian. I understand some but not enough, I explain. I should also preface I was quickly aware I have so little military vocabulary, so please accept my translations as attempts to describe actions and purposes rather than using accurate modern military terminology.
Denis is 24 years old. He grew up in Bila Tserkva, in Kyiv oblast, about 80 kilometres south of Kyiv. There he finished 11 grades of school, and together with his classmates, decided to join the Ukrainian army. This was the era of Maidan. 2014-2015. Denis says he even went to Kyiv a few times. But it was all peaceful. He had a romanticised notion of what serving one’s country in the army would be like. He signed up with his twin brother to attend a military college in Poltava. In 2019, Denis graduated, with a rank of junior sergeant. Upon graduation, Denis was quickly sent to the front, together with his brother.
Denis describes a life at the front that didn’t match his expectations of how the army would be run on the inside. His commanding officers explained to him, his job would be to do what they ask him to do, not what he thinks he should be doing. In other words, do as we say, and don’t question anything. Denis was a trained communications specialist. But on the front, he was asked to do reconnaissance work, information gathering. He did rotations in Luhansk and Donestk regions. Soon the commanding officers discovered Denis was an excellent shot. On a training round, he hit 10 of 10. They promoted him to sniper.
During his time on the front, Denis’ mother Larysa thought he was working in a kitchen, helping cook for the boys fighting. Denis had not been entirely honest with his family about his role in the army. Meanwhile, Denis also knew he was being asked to do things that didn’t fit the description of communications specialist. During his rotation at the front, Denis suffered several contusions, ranging from light to serious. Denis would get dizzy, he would sometimes bleed from his ears and nose. After the fourth episode, he needed recovery time. He would faint often. He was not in good condition. He was sent for three days of R&R from the front, and then asked to take a position again. Observation, a look out, from up a tree to see the area. He hit his first enemy tank from that tree. He was awarded another three days R&R.
Denis also collected information on enemy positions from Mariupol. Two months before his tour was due to end, he suffered another contusion. Denis mentions casually he was once hit by a bullet, it did knock him over, but his bullet-proof vest saved his life, and the shot was fired from 600 meters away. But it was a fall, the kind of fall that slams you to the ground on your back, unexpectedly.
Denis describes himself as a loyal soldier performing whatever was asked of him by his commanding officers even if those tasks had nothing to do with his official job description as a communications specialist. He also describes working through months of health problems, pushing them aside to keep going. When his tour finished, he was awarded medals for valour, as a veteran, for service to his country. His health deteriorated. He suffered some psychological problems.
In March 2021, Denis was admitted to a military hospital. He could not put weight on his legs. His wife and her friend could not physically move him from the living room to the toilet. It was then they realised something really serious was happening to Denis’ health. After a few days in a local military hospital, Denis was transferred to a Kyiv military hospital. Larysa interrupts to express her frustration with the way the army handled Denis’ injuries. She of course hadn’t known what Denis had really been tasked with on the front. A psychologist encouraged Denis to be open with this family. He told his mother he never worked as a cook.
Denis describes an environment in which a good soldier does not question his commander, no matter what. Meanwhile, he was experiencing periods of bleeding from his ears and nose. I ask him, why, Denis, what do you think caused it? The resonance from explosions, he answers calmly. Our own internal blood pressure. Every body reacts to these stresses in its own way. The hospital psychologist prescribed family therapy sessions. This was helpful, and brought mother and son closer together. You can see as Larysa describes the events she is hurt by having been lied to. “I was asking work colleagues for recipees I could send him,” she says. Meanwhile, Denis was working on secret missions, manning observation points, gathering information on enemy positions. He was under strict orders not to tell anyone what he was doing.
After all of this happened, Denis’ twin brother, who was serving in the same unit, asked for a transfer. He is still a soldier in the Ukrainian army today, serving on the front (the family have not been given specifics now for obvious reasons), asked and was granted a transfer to another unit. He also wanted a fresh start.
In 2021, when Denis lost his ability to walk on his own legs, he spent a long time in hospital. He lost feeling in his left and right legs. He lost consiousness at times. He was sent to a rehabilitation center. That summer, an army medical commission finally discharged him from the army on medical grounds.
Larysa explains, “We really love our Ukraine. Really. But it was hard when no one wanted to take responsibility for what happened to Denis.” Back home, Denis moved to his wife’s grandfather’s home in a village. It was easier to get around a village house in a wheelchair than the family apartment in the city. Few things in Ukraine are built for wheelchairs, they explain. Denis wasn’t able to leave the apartment until someone helped carry him over the stairs.
Between August 2021 and August 2022, Denis was able to put some weight on his legs. When the war broke out on February 24, Denis’ wife woke him, asking if he too heard helicopters. They were only 80 kilometres from Kyiv, not far from Bucha, just the other direction. Denis had been reading online a lot before the war started, he knew the enemy could come from Chernihiv in the north or Odesa in the south. If they came from the south, it would take them straight to Bila Tserkva. Their city had a strategic airfield. But, Denis says, “I knew they would never take Kyiv.”
Denis and his wife heard the air battles. His mother, Larysa, went to the village, which ended up being worse. “I saw war with my own eyes,” she says, and I don’t ask further questions. Her eyes say everything I need to know.
Denis, adds calmly, “in war, panic is the worst enemy. That is one of the first things they taught us. I saw it in my own relatives.” When the war broke out, Denis even asked his brother-in-law, who worked at an army recruiting office, if he might sign up again, serve his country? His brother in law replied matter-of-factly, “You cannot even stand on both legs. Fix your own health first.”
Larysa recalls, “it was a hard winter, and spring was not any easier.” The family had no plans to leave Ukraine. But in August, Denis lost all feeling in both of his legs. Larysa explains, “We have a so-called Soviet mentality. Going abroad was never in the cards. But it was hard for Denis’ wife. She couldn’t physically take care of him, she couldn’t lift him, she had been sick with appendicitis. So when someone needed to go with Denis to help him get medical care in Europe, we decided I would be the one to go.”
So, at the end of summer, Denis and Larysa left for Austria. Volunteers in Ukraine told them he would receive excellent medical care here. So far, results seem mixed at best. Medical care was their sole purpose for coming. They want to help Denis walk again if that might be a possibility. Their lives revolve around waiting for doctors’ appointments, which sometimes take months. The next appointment is with a neurologist on December 20. And they never know if they will get a kind doctor who takes an interest and is willing to listen, or someone who is overworked and stressed out and pushes patients back out the door quickly without really listening. Denis has been prescribed some physio-therapy sessions. The staff in the first dorm, run by the BBU, helped the family get their first doctors’ appointments.
Denis found a volunteer translator all by himself. A Ukrainian man, an IT specialist who has been living and working in Austria for six years, goes to all their appointments with them. He has an “understanding boss” and as long as he asks in advance, he is even allowed to take time off on a workday. I sit there, in awe, and tell them how lucky they are to have met this kind man. Indeed. They know that other Ukrainians are often even turned away from doctors in Austria when they show up without interpreters.
Denis says, bluntly, “I want to walk again and leave. I want to go home. It’s hard to breathe here.” The family are clearly very homesick. They know life in Ukraine is far from perfect, but have observed how people here are different. Denis feels like his health has also deteriorated since they came to Austria, but he is still hoping he may be able to find a doctor who can help him. He would love to feel his legs again and be able to at least walk using crutches. At the moment, Denis describes his legs as feeling like how you feel after receiving a local anaesthetic. It would be good to find a neurologist who took a real interest in Denis’ case. They made a new MRI.
I ask about Denis’ wife, does she not want them to come home for New Year’s? Larysa interjects, “what New Year? What holiday? How can we celebrate anything, there is war?”. I shut up, embarrassed for having said something I though was so banal, the kind of conversation may Ukrainians make now. I understand, I say, it’s just that some Ukrainians have told me they look forward to reuniting with relatives, something to look forward to…
No one can understand who hasn’t seen war firsthand what it was like for those who experienced it. “Everything changes in your head”, Denis explains. Yes, his wife would really like him to come home. But the family have come to Austria for a purpose, and they don’t feel like they have experienced any medical breakthroughs yet. Maybe Israel, Larysa mentions…
I thank them both for their time and their candour. I tell them I know how frustrating the system here can be, and I know there are doctors with hearts of gold and others with lumps of coal instead. Like everywhere. It does take some good luck, like the kind they had finding the Ukrainian man who is helping them. I tell Denis I never know who will read these stories and what impact they might have, but maybe a doctor will read and take an interest in trying to help you? Maybe not. You never know.
24 years old. When I was 24 years old I didn’t know ten percent of what Denis knows now. It’s hard to put it in words. And I cannot imagine how hard this is on Larysa, who took on the role of caretaker. And on Denis’ young wife, missing him from afar. The caretaker role for adult relatives of people with limited mobility is an under-appreciated one (more on that in tomorrow’s story). Denis and Larysa’s story is also an illustration of the unimaginable sacrifices some Ukrainian families have made for their country. Denis’ twin brother, Larysa’s other son, is fighting on the front right now. She gave her only sons to the Ukrainian army years ago.
I look at Denis and thank him, adding, “many people outside of Ukraine still don’t realize the war didn’t start this year.” He nods in agreement. The war indeed started many years ago.