“I called my nerve Putin - it constantly torments me” - an exhibition of photos of crippled ATO soldiers opened in Kyiv
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Several dozen photographs show wounded Ukrainian soldiers. Some have burned their bodies, many suffer unbearable pain due to nerve damage, some are unable to walk, and others have lost an arm or a leg. There are those who have undergone double, triple amputation or even been left without arms and legs. What they all have in common is intense physical or emotional pain and the difficult task of adapting to a new life after being injured.
Next to each photo there is a short explanation - who it is, under what circumstances he was injured, what he thinks about what happened to him or about the situation in the country.
Here are some statements from the crippled:
“If I had not been a patriot, I would not have joined the army.”
“Our independence was given to us without bloodshed. I knew that sooner or later such an armed conflict would happen and there would be casualties. Sooner or later this had to happen... And now we are being born again as a nation, as a powerful strong European country.”
“Hundreds of dead, and I’m only wounded. That’s why I thank God that I’m alive.”
“I had my prosthesis ready in December 2014, but I didn’t use it for about six months. I felt like I was in trouble. The attitude was this: I had a leg, and now I don’t have a leg. And I didn't even want to put it on. I lay at home and didn’t want to do anything. In August 2015, I went for rehabilitation to Austria and there, within four days, I began walking with a prosthesis. There was no shock at home, but there I didn’t want to let the doctors and parents down. There were doctors there who put me on my feet and showed me exercises. I pulled myself together, started walking, traveling around Ukraine, playing sports, appearing in magazines, meeting new people. It’s important not to be lazy.”
“I really hope for my right eye, maybe not now, but in a year or three, I’m sure it will be cured. But I won't lie down. I have already been offered a lot of things to do if I have no vision - I can become a massage therapist, answer calls at the police in a call center, or become a radio presenter. For now we need to recover, but they are already offering work, and this adds inspiration and mood.”
“On the second day of the truce we were ambushed. Yesterday I was informed about all the guys. Me and two others were missing. One of them was buried yesterday. And one is in the Dnepropetrovsk morgue, but his parents are not taking him. He seems to have been identified, but they are awaiting the DNA result. This was our commander."
“Where are my new legs? I can't wait for my new legs!
“I called my nerve “Putin” - it hurts and torments me constantly, what else can I call it?
“It’s not that you’re afraid of pain, but it feels like just a little more, a little more and you’ll just break. On the edge, like an overloaded car: the springs are cracking, cracking, cracking, and throw another stone at them and they will burst.”
“When the bullet hit me, I didn’t feel any pain at all. The first thing that came to my mind was that I had stepped on an electrical wire. Then, when I fell, I felt so bad that for a moment I thought that I was going to die and agreed with it. And then I remembered about my family, children, wife... I think, where should I die? And I pulled myself together."
“When you are a young and handsome guy in uniform, it is attractive. Girls are pleased to walk arm in arm with a guy in uniform. And when you go to work (because it’s the same job as others), you’re covered in dirt. A bullet from a Kalashnikov assault rifle, when it hits a person’s body, makes a hole in it, and when it flies out, it takes out a piece of flesh. What kind of romance is there?”
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